"Weary River" was made in 1929, during that period following the success of "The Jazz Singer," when the Hollywood studios were trying to figure out how to use the new medium of sound, and also trying to figure out what the heck audiences wanted – silents or sound pictures.
With "Weary River," director Frank Lloyd tried to combine the two, presumably to see if they would work together in the same film. The movie has a soundtrack with music and sound effects, but throughout the film, it switches back and forth between "silent movie" mode (with dialogue given in title cards) and "sound movie" mode (where we can hear the characters speaking to each other).
It's an interesting experiment, but it doesn't really work. The story is too melodramatic.
In "Weary River," Jerry Larrabee (Richard Barthelmess) is a gangster with a platinum blonde girlfriend, Alice Gray (Betty Compson). After he is framed by a rival gangster, Spadoni (Louis Natheaux), Jerry is sent to prison, where he is "turned from the Dark Side" by a fatherly, idealistic warden (played by the original William Holden).
Jerry forms a prison band made of convicts (who are so good, they sound like a Hollywood studio orchestra), and writes a song, "Weary River," which becomes a big hit when it is broadcast on the radio. After his release, Jerry tries to go straight, but finds that vaudeville theater audiences are unwilling to accept him as an ex-convict pianist. He returns to Alice, and then must decide whether to keep on the straight and narrow path, or return to the rackets and have it out with Spadoni.
If this story had been a "total silent movie" from beginning to end, it might have worked better. Silent movies could "get away" with more melodramatic stories like this. The problem in "Weary River" is that the "silent" scenes work better than the "sound" scenes.
In the "sound" scenes, the dialogue is so awful, it sounds as if the characters took their words out of a bad 1920s stage melodrama. For example, in a "sound" scene in the warden's prison office, the warden gives Jerry a speech: "You must turn from your evil ways, my son." It sounds very stilted and artificial. The warden does everything but say to Jerry, "Think of your poor mother, and the grief you're putting her through." (A later scene in the warden's office, in "silent" mode," works better because we can't hear the characters, and we get the dialogue in subtitles.)
Later in the movie, Jerry says to Alice, "Why, honey! You're crying!" – probably the ultimate cliché of movie dialogue. Of course, Hollywood writers had trouble with the scripts during this transition period. It took them a while to learn how to write good dialogue, instead of writing title cards. (1952's "Singin' in the Rain" illustrated this problem brilliantly.)
In "Weary River," Richard Barthelmess and Betty Compson do okay as the leads, but still seem to be doing "silent movie acting." Whenever Jerry meets with his gangster friends, or gets a lecture from the warden, Barthelmess hunches his shoulders down and glowers at the other characters, as if to say, "Okay, I'm a gangster now." This kind of acting was necessary in the silent movies, where emotions were conveyed through facial expressions, not dialogue.
The problem with Jerry's character is that he's not really a "bad guy" or an evil man He's a gangster, but in his heart he'd really like to be a musician. He loves his girl too much to slap her with a grapefruit, or to seek out other women. He doesn't even fire a gun in the movie (although he comes close at the end). In the next few years after this film was made, Edward G. Robinson, James Cagney, and Paul Muni would do a better job of defining gangsters as irredeemable, violent criminals who took what they wanted when they wanted it.
The movie is well-directed, and it gives a good view of the Roaring Twenties, with "Jazz Age" nightclub scenes, speakeasy shootouts, and some good scenes in the prison. But watching "Weary River" today, it seems more like a movie that paved the way for other, better films.
With "Weary River," director Frank Lloyd tried to combine the two, presumably to see if they would work together in the same film. The movie has a soundtrack with music and sound effects, but throughout the film, it switches back and forth between "silent movie" mode (with dialogue given in title cards) and "sound movie" mode (where we can hear the characters speaking to each other).
It's an interesting experiment, but it doesn't really work. The story is too melodramatic.
In "Weary River," Jerry Larrabee (Richard Barthelmess) is a gangster with a platinum blonde girlfriend, Alice Gray (Betty Compson). After he is framed by a rival gangster, Spadoni (Louis Natheaux), Jerry is sent to prison, where he is "turned from the Dark Side" by a fatherly, idealistic warden (played by the original William Holden).
Jerry forms a prison band made of convicts (who are so good, they sound like a Hollywood studio orchestra), and writes a song, "Weary River," which becomes a big hit when it is broadcast on the radio. After his release, Jerry tries to go straight, but finds that vaudeville theater audiences are unwilling to accept him as an ex-convict pianist. He returns to Alice, and then must decide whether to keep on the straight and narrow path, or return to the rackets and have it out with Spadoni.
If this story had been a "total silent movie" from beginning to end, it might have worked better. Silent movies could "get away" with more melodramatic stories like this. The problem in "Weary River" is that the "silent" scenes work better than the "sound" scenes.
In the "sound" scenes, the dialogue is so awful, it sounds as if the characters took their words out of a bad 1920s stage melodrama. For example, in a "sound" scene in the warden's prison office, the warden gives Jerry a speech: "You must turn from your evil ways, my son." It sounds very stilted and artificial. The warden does everything but say to Jerry, "Think of your poor mother, and the grief you're putting her through." (A later scene in the warden's office, in "silent" mode," works better because we can't hear the characters, and we get the dialogue in subtitles.)
Later in the movie, Jerry says to Alice, "Why, honey! You're crying!" – probably the ultimate cliché of movie dialogue. Of course, Hollywood writers had trouble with the scripts during this transition period. It took them a while to learn how to write good dialogue, instead of writing title cards. (1952's "Singin' in the Rain" illustrated this problem brilliantly.)
In "Weary River," Richard Barthelmess and Betty Compson do okay as the leads, but still seem to be doing "silent movie acting." Whenever Jerry meets with his gangster friends, or gets a lecture from the warden, Barthelmess hunches his shoulders down and glowers at the other characters, as if to say, "Okay, I'm a gangster now." This kind of acting was necessary in the silent movies, where emotions were conveyed through facial expressions, not dialogue.
The problem with Jerry's character is that he's not really a "bad guy" or an evil man He's a gangster, but in his heart he'd really like to be a musician. He loves his girl too much to slap her with a grapefruit, or to seek out other women. He doesn't even fire a gun in the movie (although he comes close at the end). In the next few years after this film was made, Edward G. Robinson, James Cagney, and Paul Muni would do a better job of defining gangsters as irredeemable, violent criminals who took what they wanted when they wanted it.
The movie is well-directed, and it gives a good view of the Roaring Twenties, with "Jazz Age" nightclub scenes, speakeasy shootouts, and some good scenes in the prison. But watching "Weary River" today, it seems more like a movie that paved the way for other, better films.