While many people roll their eyes when hearing of a DeMille production, they should perhaps actually watch some of them. Not being a big fan of his more later films I did however, enjoy this one. The Golden Bed evokes all the lavish images one now associates with opulent mid 20 Hollywood productions. The sets are deep with detail, the acting generally good or better. Lillian Rich never looked so glam as the greedy witch dripping in jewels and gowns and she never looked so dreadful as in her deathbed scene. It was a shame that the very talented Henry B. Walthall was only on screen for a few minutes at the beginning. I kept expecting him to pop up somewhere later on. The story may seem dated, characters not realistic and the ending a bit too optimistic for modern tastes. But h**l that's most films are anyway old or modern-men still do get sappy and get lured by bad women to make bad life choices.Rod LaRocque (is Keanu Reeves some sort of long lost grandson-they look very much alike although Rod is a much better actor)does a nice job as the rube that falls for Flora (Rich) and is ruined in the process buying into to greed and lack of morals. The goody than good sister is the weak link in the characters. One can not imagine that she would stick to Admah (LaRocque) through all that and not show resentment toward Flora and reviews of the day concur. The Candy Ball sequence is over the top as only a DeMille production can do, incredible set but only contains a few juicy bits (slaves being auctioned with candy chains on), it is a must see, the symbolism of the monkey and its relationship to Rich's character could go on for days and the golden swan bed, neck seemingly broken at the end sums it up nicely. Not as heavy handed as some of the DeMille features it nevertheless delivers fine entertainment. The print I saw was a 35mm from the Eastman House archive and was in very nice condition.
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Derutterj-14 November 2007A frivolous melodrama which DeMille made just before leaving Famous Players-Lasky to set up his independent operation.
SPOILERS AHEAD! A spunky but poor lad (Dan Marion, portraying Admah Holtz) falls for an obviously vain and selfish rich girl (Julie Bishop as Flora, before growing up to become Jacqueline Wells and enjoy a long B-movie career) while her sister (Mary Jane Irving as Margaret), the faithful and kind one, is overlooked. Years later the girls have become grown women, with Holtz, now Rod LaRocque, still fixated on Flora, whom he eventually marries with disastrous results. Meanwhile Margaret has been adoringly helping Admah become a wealthy and successful candy manufacturer.
This all unfolds in a fairly irksome manner because the somewhat effete LaRocque behaves like such a hapless clod most of the time. We can't identify much with him. There's good acting coming, however, from the adult sisters (Lillian Rich and Vera Reynolds), especially Flora. Jeanie MacPherson's titles relentlessly remind us that Flora and Margaret are morally polar opposites, yet late in the film we can't help but pity Flora, as the wages of sin and vanity catch up with her and destroy her.
You expect fine production values in a DeMille production and they're here. He was going hard for wish fulfillment fantasies in this series of pictures (starting with Old Wives for New in 1918), appealing to female audiences, so we get the financially ruinous party Flora makes Abmah put on to spite her country club rivals. I'm not sure what people thought about this back in 1925, but the director's idea of having everything at the party made of candy (that's right, guests are shown eating the props and scenery!) is absurdly over-the-top. Which is not to say DeMille was not serious about his tale, or that he couldn't achieve subtlety from time to time. But the back and forth mixture, while interesting to watch, doesn't go down particularly well; it was notoriously on display in Madame Satan, his last film of this type, where the ridiculous goings-on aboard a partying dirigible abruptly change tone and enter disaster movie territory when the airship is crippled..
I will praise the mountain-climbing sequence in the Alps, a well-staged and suspenseful highpoint of the film's first half, though spoiled by terrible special effects at its conclusion. They're so bad DeMille should have scrapped them and used other techniques.
Warner Baxter appears as the one man Flora can't play for a sucker and clearly shows the qualities that would hold him in good stead for many years. Also of note was the theme of class differences (mainly at the beginning). The final sequence, in which the symbolism of the bed of the title becomes clear, is eerie and very good. As the ruined Flora, Lillian Rich excels. The ending, while a little pat, was atmospherically filmed.
DeMille used no camera movement, though that was beginning to come into fashion in '25, but the compositions were skillful, as was the editing, so I was OK with it. The print shown had been well-restored, complete with tinted credits and titles, but the audience left this showing (at Washington's National Gallery of Art), with mixed impressions. One audience member described it as trash, with a reprehensible moral compass. I wouldn't go that far, but The Golden Bed did strike me as being largely empty and pretentious. -
Single-Black-Male12 December 2003Having run up debts of over a million dollars with 'The Ten Commandments', and drawing exorbitant weekly advances, DeMille produced his last film for Famous-Players Lasky before setting off an independent production phase in his career.
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Absorbing morality play from Cecil B. DeMille about a poor boy who becomes a rich boy and his affinity for two upper class sisters. He likes the pretty one and abides the plain one and marries the pretty one when he hits it big with his candy business. But she is a gold digger and a big spender, with predictable results.
He is jailed as an embezzler as she spends his money, while the plain one becomes a true blue employee. Stopping here before I become a 'spoiler' but suffice to say the story is very well done, as expected with CB at the helm. Rod La Rocque is particularly good as the candy tycoon and Lillian Rich is lovely as his unprincipled wife.
Don't normally care for this type of movie but I was pleasantly surprised. I saw it at Capitolfest, Rome, NY, 8/23.
******* 7/10 - Website no longer prints my star ratings.