User Reviews

"Law of the Sea" is a cheap B-movie. While not exactly terrible, it is far from being great entertainment. In other words, unless you are a huge fan of this sort of thing, I cannot see much reason for you to watch it.

The film begins with a small group of people being shipwrecked. Some time later when they see another ship, they assume that their troubles are over...but it's far from it. The crew is full of rogues and the only reason they take the family aboard is because the captain has rape on his mind! After murdering one of them and casting a man and his son adrift once again in their dingy, the captain turns his attentions on the wife--only to find that she's killed herself rather than suffer her fate. This sort of story is clearly the sort you would NOT have seen just two years later when a toughened Production Code would be enforced in Hollywood!

Twenty years pass. Now the father and son have grown. The father (the silent film star William Farnum) is now blind--and they say it's a result of this incident 20 years earlier (??). As for the son, he's a heroic sort who works for a Coast Guard-like organization--saving lives of shipwrecked folk. While a hero and his life seems perfect, the young man is a bit of a yutz--as the night he's to receive a medal for bravery, he's out making it with his fiancé's trashy cousin!

Into this mess comes something that is very, very predictable. Another reviewer pointed out just how predictable it was. The father, though blind, has vowed to one day find the man responsible for his wife's death--and wouldn't you know it, this rogue captain now has just been appointed the son's new boss. What's to come of this and the fallout from the escapade with the trashy woman? See the film and learn for yourself...or not.

The film has a lot working against it. During a lifesaving portion, the movie is jam-packed with stock footage that obviously is stock footage. The acting is occasionally poor and the overall film offers few surprises. You can do better.

What's especially awkward about this film is that, a few years after the advent of talkies, it feels at least in part as though everyone involved was still trying to figure out how to operate in the sound era. I've seen a few of Priscilla Dean's surviving silent films, and I think she was an outstanding actor; for the few minutes she has on-screen here she looks like a fish out of water, not knowing what to do, and she sticks out like a sore thumb. The transitions orchestrated by editor Carl Pierson, and the cinematography of Archie Stout, both feel weirdly embellished at times, as if they were trying to recall the especially visual presentation of silent movies but were overcompensating. If we're feeling magnanimous maybe we could suppose that deficiencies of both the audio and the fundamental image could be chalked up to deterioration of prints prior to preservation; all I know is that other early sound pictures didn't have the same problems across the board of often muddled, indistinct dialogue and sound effects, and extra poor lighting that rendered some scenes indiscernible. In some ways, 'The law of the sea' would probably have turned out better if it had been made five years earlier.

However, would that it were just a matter of seeming ill adjustment to a new paradigm in film-making. While Dean sadly struggles most, the performances are uneven generally as they waver between honest and inauthentic - and so is Otto Brower's direction, which further sometimes feels altogether weak-kneed or scattered. Too much of Paul Jones' dialogue is questionable if not downright senseless, though this is regrettably somewhat fitting for the tale whipped up by Lee Chadwick. There's a period of about twenty minutes - one-third of the runtime - where it feels like the plot just disappears; even beyond this the narrative is decidedly light, and plot development kind of meager. Characters are sloppily written. While on paper it's a suitable story, in execution it's pointedly unconvincing, and rather more so as the digital timer plods on, not least with dubious sequencing from Pierson. Poor writing, poor direction, poor editing, uneven acting: did anything here turn out well?

There are good ideas, certainly. Strictly speaking, in both writing and realization the climax might be the single strongest part of the feature. In fairness, the production design and art direction are fairly sharp, and I appreciate the costume design, and hair and makeup work. These points of quality are not enough, however; at best it's too little, too late. For what is done well I'd love to say that I like this more than I do, but the fact remains that the value is far outweighed by content and craftsmanship that ranges from iffy to empty. It's unfortunate that this was among the last pictures made by Dean, for it is not of good quality, and all the generosity of spirit we can muster doesn't wash away how very rough the ride is. Whether from the silent era or after talkies rolled around, some of the best movies ever made hail from the medium's earliest years. This is not one of those. There are worse ways to spend your time, and an ardent cinephile may yet derive pleasure from the mere experience of watching such an older title, but otherwise I can't really imagine ever recommending a floundering piece like 'The law of the sea.' Thumbs down.