The Divine Lady (1929)
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The Divine Lady Movie Review
The Divine Lady is a 1929 sound film directed by Frank Lloyd and starring Corinne Griffith. It’s such an interesting experiment that mostly really worked.
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“I am sorry to lose a good cook,
but I will not tolerate a brazen hussy“
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When I am proclaiming it as an experiment, I am mostly talking about its sound design as it was obviously released in 1929 which is the first ever year for talkies. Now, this film is interesting for being the mix of a silent film and a talkie. It has no spoken dialogue whatsoever, but it has music, both accompanying and music in the story, singing as well as some sound effects such as clapping, yelling etc. It thus led to a very interesting, innovative movie.
I ended up really liking it because it thus avoided the terrible audio of the time as it incorporated the best of both worlds such as using score to emphasize some scenes as well as using silence and visuals to emphasize the others. I absolutely adored its score which accompanies the movie so well, the singing scenes are actually not detours but important for characterization and story and the sound effects are great.
The Divine Lady also looks beautiful thanks to frequently gorgeous cinematography, excellent use of locations along with having terrific action such as those magnificent naval battles. It is also very well edited and paced, but admittedly not as involving in its second half as the first half is much more interesting.
The plot itself is nothing particularly inspired as it is a historical romance that admittedly has its sweet, endearing moments and memorable dialogue for sure, but nothing here sticks in terms of storytelling too much. The characters are pretty solid, though far from great and only the two major characters are memorable.
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Victor Varconi is good, but of course this is Corinne Griffith’s show who really shines here in a wonderful role. She gave a pretty strong, memorable performance and was deservedly Oscar nominated for it. The film also deservedly was nominated for Best Cinematography while also highly deservedly being nominated for Best Director. Yes, Frank Lloyd is an unabashed Oscar darling, but here he entirely deserved it for his first nominated work as his directing is highly professional and lifts the entire film to much greater heights.
The Divine Lady is not particularly involving in its second half and the overall storyline is far from great or inspired, but the Oscar winning directing from Frank Lloyd is very strong and the same goes for Corrine Griffith’s very good performance in the main role. The cinematography is great too and the innovative experiment of mixing sound and silent techniques worked splendidly as it expertly emphasized the strengths of both mediums.
