None of the arguably better movies of 1927 would have presented quite so suitable a reclamation project for an impresario with as grandiose designs as Francis Ford Coppola. However: the swinging, waltzing, jiggling cameras, the dizzying panning shots, the split-screens, the superimpositions, the variegated tints, the machine-gun montage in the contemporary Russian style -- all this and much else is more often interesting than good, even if interesting only for its period and only in the sense of being characteristic of, rather than ahead of, its time. A special exception must be made, of course, for the triptych effect known as "Polyvision" -- that conceptually audacious (the neighboring images are actually tinted red, white, and blue, respectively, at one point) but technically shaky forerunner of Cinerama. The narrative is another matter, not nearly so interesting in any respect, indeed sabotaged by some of the wormiest conventions of screen biography: overglorification of its subject and overreliance on plot coincidence, symbols, parallels, and foreshadowings. Hardly a sequence could not profitably be trimmed down by half -- a course of action which would reduce the movie to a more easily bearable two hours. The whole thing might be borne more easily, as is, if it could be viewed (and if Kevin Brownlow could be saluted for his laborious reconstruction of it) in a spirit of sober scholarship, rather than one of delirious celebration. With Albert Dieudonné; directed by Abel Gance. (1927) — Duncan Shepherd
This movie is not currently in theaters.