Welcome to The Morning After, where I share with you what I’ve seen over the past week either in film or television. On the film side, if I have written a full length review already, I will post a link to that review. Otherwise, I’ll give a brief snippet of my thoughts on the film with a full review to follow at some point later. For television shows, seasons and what not, I’ll post individual comments here about each of them as I see fit.

So, here is what I watched this past week:

7th Heaven

A perfect example of how the silent film medium had been improved and perfected as one of the premiere art forms of the 20th Century. While 7th Heaven was also one of the first to feature incidental soundscapes and a musical accompaniment along with Sunrise, which influenced it, the lack of dialogue gave us an opportunity to see some fine actors conveying complexity without a word.

It’s no surprise that Janet Gaynor won the first Academy Award for Best Actress. With two of her attributed films, this and the aforementioned Sunrise, she easily displayed the grit and talent the screen celebrated before talking pictures started to wipe the slate clean and redefine what a great performance required. Charles Farrell is a little over the top as the sewer cleaner with higher aspirations, but within the confines of the period, it was a strong central performance. The colorful supporting cast were excellent.

The plot may seem a bit stale in today’s light, but for the period, it was no doubt a superb achievement. Even viewed against modern films, the naturalistic flow of coincidence make for an appealing trip through 1920’s melodrama. Its discussion of atheism as perceived by a religious man isn’t something that occurred very frequently through the Code Era that would follow years later. The ending seems a bit contrived, setting itself up to bring joy to the audience, but it works within the confines of the narrative.