Mon 17 May 2010
A Movie Review by Walter Albert: DE LUXE ANNIE (1915).
Posted by Steve under Films: Drama/Romance , Reviews , Silent films[3] Comments
DE LUXE ANNIE. Select Pictures, 1915. Norma Talmadge, Eugene O’Brien, Frank Mills, Edna Hunter, Fred R. Stanton, Joseph Burke, David Burns. Scenario by Paul West, from a play by Edward Clark. Camera: Edward Wynard and Albert Moses. Director: Roland West. Shown at Cinecon 45, Hollywood CA, September 2009.
Roland West’s films (among them The Bat, The Bat Whispers, Alibi and The Monster) were often distinguished by fluid, striking camera work, and with only a handful of early silent films to his credit, I was looking forward to this early example of his work. The fact that it starred the beautiful and talented Norma Talmadge was an added incentive to my anticipation.
When Julie Kendal, worried that her husband may be in danger, goes to the apartment where he is lying in wait to to capture De Luxe Annie and her partner, professional con artists, she is surprised by Annie and knocked unconscious. When she wakes up, she has lost her memory and staggers out of the building into a fog, which pretty much describes her state until the end of the film.
The plot is based on what may have been a popular (or just a pulpish) theory of the time: that traumatic events can trigger amnesia. This is not one of Talmadge’s better performances (she seems to have only two expressions, desperation and confusion), but O’Brien, as her partner in her alter ego role as De Luxe Annie 2, proves to be a sympathetic performer, bringing a sense of authentic feeling (he falls for Julie) that is otherwise generally absent from the film.
When Julie is captured, still unrepentant, she undergoes an operation that restores her memory (the audience greeted this with some hilarity) and there’s a fade-out scene in which Jimmy is brought in to meet her, and it’s clear she doesn’t remember him. A disappointing film but still fun to watch as it meanders towards its inevitable conclusion.
May 17th, 2010 at 10:17 pm
Traumatic amnesia is real enough, it just doesn’t last as long as in the movies and in books. In general it is over within 24 to 48 hours and very seldom as complete as in the movies. Usually it only involves memories of a few hours or days, and perhaps only one event or set of events.
Just in general amnesia doesn’t work the way it does in films unless there is actual brain damage of some sort or a psychosis involved. A friend of mine lost part of his memory as result of a wound he received in Vietnam. He remembered people, even pets, but could not remember any of his childhood beyond that.
But where would suspense fiction and movies be without it?
May 18th, 2010 at 11:14 am
Thanks for an informative review!
I’m a big Roland West fan. Wish many more of his films would come out on DVD, including this one.
May 19th, 2010 at 4:14 pm
[…] This particular list of motion pictures was prompted by Walter Albert’s recent review of De Luxe Annie (1915), in which all of the heroine’s difficulties stem from being knocked […]