Silent Film Sources - Reviews

Directed by HENRY KING. 

Screen Adaptation by Edmund Goulding and Henry King. Edited by Duncan Mansfield. Photography by Henry Cronjager. 

The deceptively simple coming of age story by popular author Joseph Hergesheimer is a variation on David and Goliath. Barthelmess is David, the younger son of a tight-knit family of rural tenant farmers. He has a crush on neighbor Gladys Hulette, and lives an idealized rural life of horses (used for work, not for riding), trails and a dip in the pond before supper. Barthelmess is never less than convincing as a young boy, eager to please his family and to grow up like his brother to carry the government mail. His mother tells David that he is not yet a man, he is just tol'able. The opportunity to prove himself arrives sooner than expected when three of Hulette's distant relatives on the run from the law move in on her and her father. The father and his two unruly sons (one is Ernest Torrence), bully and humiliate everyone who comes their way. They cause a double tragedy to David's family, and he is thrust into a different morality of revenge and rightness. Haunted by his supposed cowardice, the film focuses on the boy's awakening. 

Filmed on location in rural Virginia, director King and cameraman Henry Cronjager contrast the hardscrabble life of the people against the beautiful valley scenery. If the virtues of rural life are glamorized, its hardships are not. The residents live in houses that are falling apart, the children are undernourished, and the clothes well-worn. There is no mention of the city, as the conflict comes out of the rural background of a village and small farms, existing even in what many filmgoers would have seen as an Eden. 

After his success opposite Lillian Gish in Broken Blossoms and Way Down East for D.W. Griffith, Richard Barthelmess signed with Inspiration Pictures. This newly formed independent production company had also secured the services of rising director Henry King. D.W. Griffith had originally owned film rights to the story, and his version would likely have reshaped the narrative to emphasize the final desperate delivery of the mail. Instead, the emotional climax of Henry King's film is an extended, believable fight between Barthelmess and his tormentors. The finale, where Barthelmess delivers the mail represents his character's redemption. 

The Image Entertainment laserdisc release features a gatefold jacket, with an insightful essay by Walter Coppedge, author of Henry King's America (Scarecrow Press, 1986). As in the original release, there is one multi-tinted sequence, with the remainder of the film in black and white. The 35mm original shows signs of wear, including a few scratches and a few shots were filled in from a lesser quality 35mm copy. The orchestral score compiled by Robert Israel is excellent, with a large ensemble occasionally relieved by a harmonica solo to accompany Barthelmess' character on the screen. The disc was produced by David Shepard. 

The laserdisc includes a 16 minute excerpt from a 1977 classroom discussion by Henry King. He discusses his theatrical experiences in a theatrical stock company, his early years in the film industry at Balboa, and the making of Tol'able David. Though the black and white image quality is fuzzy, the sound is fine, and it is nothing less than riveting to watch King describe the early days of filmmaking. (Review © 1997 David Pierce)