The White Sister (1923)

[Harold Aherne]

I’ve had a more honestly mixed reaction to The White Sister than with other films I’ve watched recently, and some of my reservations about the picture have to do with its copious length (more than 13 reels). Some of the shots seem unduly long, and the early scenes in Gish’s palace are attractive enough but easily the slowest part of the film. Some material was cut for the general release, according to the AFI entry for this title, and it wasn’t an incomprehensible choice. I haven’t seen enough of Henry King’s silent to be sure whether this was a perpetual weak spot of his, or if the surroundings made him indulge. Anyway, I don’t think length alone is sufficient to make a picture good or bad, and I didn’t have a problem sitting thorough it—after Gish and Colman fall in love things pick up reasonably well—but I don’t think the story really required all that footage, either.

More problematic for contemporary viewers might be the wicked half-sister played by Gail Kane. She might as well have been grafted in from Cinderella, and little is done to give her any subtlety. Her sudden conversion when her carriage overturns did not entirely convince me, although the scene with Gish forgiving her for all the wrong she’s done is nicely accomplished. The weakest spot in the film probably comes when Gish learns that Colman has (supposedly) been killed by Bedouin bandits and she does her wide-eyed running around. It isn’t completely surprising that Photoplay began to give her the raspberry a few years later, and such a reaction is atypical of the character (unless you buy into the Vesuvius metaphor that comes and goes throughout the picture).

But amends are made when Gish sees the painting of Colman while she’s lying in the hospital and caresses it as though it were a living thing. It’s scenes like this that award Lillian her rightful place in screen history, and her acting is very careful and measured in the scene at Colman’s (well, his brother’s) observatory near the close of the film. He’s escaped from his captors, and is thunderstruck to find that Gish has become a nun (she’s pretty equally distressed to find that he’s alive!). Anyway, Colman uses false pretenses to get Gish (whose order does hospital work) to come to the observatory, where he threatens to keep her as a prisoner and thus make it all but impossible for her to present herself as a nun. There is no wide-eyed look here; Gish keeps her emotions pretty well in check in spite of her enormous anguish. (She’s equally stoic in the scene where she takes her final vows, before she learns that Colman is alive. Some of her tresses are placed on a silver platter and the bishop wields his scissors to cut them, thus ending her association with worldly fashion. She does flinch a little, but goes forward almost with a sense of resignation).

The film incorporates some beautiful tinting and toning effects as Vesuvius prepares to erupt—and in spite of what you may think, Colman doesn’t need to rescue her; she’s already taken refuge in a church and is soon joined by others. Colman’s performance is really beautiful and subtle; his subtlety can be mistaken for blandness by a casual observer but he’s certainly not indifferent to his surroundings. He’s an empathetic and gracious presence that would thankfully grace pictures for several decades to come.

The White Sister is worth seeing at least once, and if you’re a fan of Rex Ingram’s films you will certainly appreciate the wistful lingering on beautiful scenery. King’s dramatic sense is quite different than Ingram’s, of course, but this may be the picture where he comes closest to replicating Ingram’s eye for architecture and scenery tied up with human emotions.

-Harold

[rudyfan]

I missed it.

Well, here's hoping this turns up in TCM rotation next year.

[FrankFay]

You've picked up on the good points, and the film certainly LOOKS beautiful, but as I said in another thread I think this one is a piece of cheese- good cheese, perhaps a bit ripe, but cheese.

Are there any Gish pictures where she smiles, laughs, or giggles like a normal adult?

[rollot24]

its copious length (more than 13 reels). Some of the shots seem unduly long, and the early scenes in Gish’s palace are attractive enough but easily the slowest part of the film.

I don't have TCM (rats) and I've never seen the film. Was it shown at the proper speed (whatever that would be)?

[radiotelefonia]

This film has been available online for years, since France TCM aired the same print probably a long time ago.

Although I liked the version. I didn't exactly like the way they incorporated artificial tints and toning effects in a black and white preservation print; except for the last 20 minutes, those effects didn't work at all.

The music was actually very good and unobtrusive.

Although the film is good. I actually prefer an edited version that runs for 67 minutes that has been also available for free viewing in Movieflix, despite its poor visual quality. At that running time, the film plays better and not really much is lost. (This reminds me the days when I was working as a film critic and I always openly wrote that many contemporary films should be cut by the distributors and exhibitors... but they always cut my criticism instead.)

[boblipton]

I enjoy a lot of Henry King's work, but there is no denying that his real strength was in portraying small-town Americana, Again and again in his career, from TOL'ABLE DAVID to STELLA DALLAS to WAIT 'TIL THE SUN SHINES NELLIE to CAROUSEL he shows us these people again and again, with fondness but little in the way of illusion. Elsewhere he was a very good contract director who did his best work with star vehicles -- except for the ensemble of TWELVE O'CLOCK HIGH which, in many ways, IS a story about ordinary, small town Americans in a small community. Take him away from his strengths and his works are full of cliches.

In addition, he may have had some of the same problems working with Italian crews that plagued BEN-HUR. King reported that Italian crews viewed the director as god-like, but I suspect they flattered him enormously and caused him to produce a lot of material that, had he been working on a production of the sort he would have been more familiar with, would have never been shot, printed or if shot and printed, would have ended up on the cutting room floor.

Bob

[silentscreen]

Ronald Colman in a location still from The White Sister. One of my favorite pics of him. I liked the movie a lot by the way! I thought it was one of Lillian's better acting jobs, and Colman did fine for a beginner.

[Gagman 66]

I completely disagree about the music. Frank didn't like it, but I thought it was exceptional. Yeah, the main-title was overplayed no question, but most of the rest of the scoring was really good people, and diverse! I mean the composer is still a Collage Student! Much better than James Schafer's work on BEAU BRUMMEL in my view. I don't really even recall very much about that score. Although allot of people here felt that it was very good. I'll need to watch it again.

The condition of the film itself, however was nowhere near as good as I had remembered? Or I should say that I thought I remembered from the earlier TCM France broadcast. Quite battered, with a fair amount of decomposition in a few sequences. There was even quite a bit of obvious water damage. Digitally remastered, huh? I sincerely doubt that. It did have good contrast and most of the footage was sharp..

Given the condition of the surviving elements, this would not have been one of my first choices for a new score. Surely, Warner's must have many Silents with much better surviving elements than this one that are still awaiting new recorded scores? As Lillian Gish features go, I can definitely tell you that ANNIE LAURIE (1927) is virtually pristine!

They must have picked the movie based on the strength of the two stars alone. Henry King's name wasn't even mentioned. And by his standards much of the movie was rather flatly directed.

They need to use this young man Garth Nuestader (hope I spelled that correctly) again to score FORBIDDEN HOURS (1928) with Ramon Novarro, and Renee Adoree, and directed by the same guy as BEAU BRUMMEL, Harry Beaumont. The film is already restored has been since 2001, probably in better shape than THE WHITE SISTER, but still has no musical score. FORBIDDEN HOURS is extremely high on my list of most wanted Silents for new scores.

[misspickford9]

You've picked up on the good points, and the film certainly LOOKS beautiful, but as I said in another thread I think this one is a piece of cheese- good cheese, perhaps a bit ripe, but cheese.

Are there any Gish pictures where she smiles, laughs, or giggles like a normal adult?

Goat Eyes! Im reading her biography by Charles Affron and though only maybe 60 pages in he mentions that there was a period between Intolerance and her starring Griffith films where she made features for other directors, and several of them involved being sexy and grown up...and said films are also her very rare lost films. Of course...

I dont have TCM because California hates it apparently. Id like to see this though, you gotta love some cheesy Lillian!

[Arndt]

Are there any Gish pictures where she smiles, laughs, or giggles like a normal adult?

I've said so before and I'll say it again: SOLD FOR MARRIAGE. It's out on Grapevine.
Still, Clara Bow she is not, and neither is she Marion Davies, Mabel Normand or Colleen Moore. But nor are they Lillian Gish.
Gish is THE suffering dollface of the silent era. She is the Rolls-Royce of innocent torment, the Everest of blameless anguish, 18 carat of harrowed virtue, 15 megatons of chaste agony. If you like that kind of thing, there is no better. If you don't go in for that, I guess you'd better stay away. She may blow any moment...

[Decotodd]

"I dont have TCM because California hates it apparently."

Not sure what you mean by this comment -- I've lived in San Francisco and Los Angeles and had TCM both times. In fact, we also have it on our cable system at the office in Burbank so I usually have it on in the background at work.

[gkoch]

Are there any Gish pictures where she smiles, laughs, or giggles like a normal adult?[/quote]

THE SCARLET LETTER

[misspickford9]

"I dont have TCM because California hates it apparently."

Not sure what you mean by this comment -- I've lived in San Francisco and Los Angeles and had TCM both times. In fact, we also have it on our cable system at the office in Burbank so I usually have it on in the background at work.

Hmm so off topic but who is providing in Burbank...thats where I am! I dont know why but particularly the Valley/Hollywood/Glendale area I have yet to find anyone including it in a normal cable package. Its usually channel 200 something and would be an extra $50 a month (at least in 2 or 3 companies I've looked at).

Its very odd...EVERYWHERE else I've lived had TCM with normal cable...Iowa to Florida! Nope not here. Not fair

[Danny Burk]

Its very odd...EVERYWHERE else I've lived had TCM with normal cable...Iowa to Florida! Nope not here. Not fair

Ditto here. During frequent travel for photography, I've found that TCM is available on standard cable almost everywhere. But not South Bend! I have to pay not only for standard cable, but also for "premium digital" just to get TCM. It, along with PBS, are the only channels I use, so the rest is wasted...

[misspickford9]

Its very odd...EVERYWHERE else I've lived had TCM with normal cable...Iowa to Florida! Nope not here. Not fair

Ditto here. During frequent travel for photography, I've found that TCM is available on standard cable almost everywhere. But not South Bend! I have to pay not only for standard cable, but also for "premium digital" just to get TCM. It, along with PBS, are the only channels I use, so the rest is wasted...

Exactly. This package I have is about 100 channels long...half in Spanish and the other half are junk. I watch maybe 5 channels as is. If I had the fancier package I'd literally being paying $50 for TCM only. I figure a $25 membership to the Silent Movie Theatre is a much wiser use of my money. Plus they have cupcakes!

[FrankFay]

Are there any Gish pictures where she smiles, laughs, or giggles like a normal adult?

THE SCARLET LETTER[/quote]


Yes- I remember her being lighter hearted in that, a bit.

Jumping way forward into the talkies Dorothy Gish straight out laughs in "Our Hearts Were Yoong and Gay" (1944)

I wish Dorothy had made more pictures.

[Arndt]

I wish Dorothy had made more pictures.

So did Lillian. Apparently she was always trying to get roles for her sister, so she would not have to support her.

[silentscreen]

I wish Dorothy had made more pictures.

So did Lillian. Apparently she was always trying to get roles for her sister, so she would not have to support her.

Ah that's too bad! I wonder why, Dorothy was very talented in her own right. It seems that Mary and Lillian were both used to being the family breadwinners from an early age. Jack Pickford was a real deadbeat. Having all that responsibility on you is very sobering. Maybe one reason Lillian didn't smile so much?

[misspickford9]

I wish Dorothy had made more pictures.

So did Lillian. Apparently she was always trying to get roles for her sister, so she would not have to support her.

Ah that's too bad! I wonder why, Dorothy was very talented in her own right. It seems that Mary and Lillian were both used to being the family breadwinners from an early age. Jack Pickford was a real deadbeat. Having all that responsibility on you is very sobering. Maybe one reason Lillian didn't smile so much?

Now in fairness there was a period where Dorothy was the successful one...the late teens as Lillian had made a string of films that even she didnt care for. I think Dorothy wasnt as underrated as we now think she was. However I do wish she would have done more talkies.

[Helen]

Are there any Gish pictures where she smiles, laughs, or giggles like a normal adult?

She acts like a normal adult, and a very charming one, in Annie Laurie. I have enjoyed many of Lillian's performances, but I don't know that I've ever liked her more than I did in that film.

I third (or fourth or whatever the count is up to) the wish that Dorothy had made more pictures. Or perhaps we should say more extant pictures? At any rate, she is certainly delightful in the ones I've seen.

[FrankFay]

It's a shame Dorothy didn't live for the Whales of August era- it would have been splendid to see both of them in one picture.

Aren't there some television kinescopes of Lilian?

[misspickford9]

It's a shame Dorothy didn't live for the Whales of August era- it would have been splendid to see both of them in one picture.

Aren't there some television kinescopes of Lilian?

Whatever happened to Baby Jane style ?

I never heard bout the kinescopes but it would be amazing if so. I wish Anna May Wong's Dumont series existed.

[FrankFay]

It's a shame Dorothy didn't live for the Whales of August era- it would have been splendid to see both of them in one picture.

Whatever happened to Baby Jane style ?.

Then again, I remenber the updated remake of that with the Redgrave sisters. Ewwwwww. Still, it had one great moment- Jane finds out her old movies are on video, and that the creepy video clerk is a fan of hers

[greta de groat]

It's a shame Dorothy didn't live for the Whales of August era- it would have been splendid to see both of them in one picture.

Aren't there some television kinescopes of Lilian?

Wasn't Dorothy originally scheduled for Arsenic and Old Lace with Lillian? But i think she was either sick or passed away beforehand and was replaced by Helen Hayes. They performed well together, but it would have been so special to have both Lillian and Dorothy.

TCM has been in the digital cable package rather than basic in my neighborhood for years. I just suck it up and pay it, even though in practical terms i hardly ever have time to watch it (or any television for that matter). I think my husband only watches the basic channels.

greta

[gjohnson]

I finally got around to watching this heavy-handed morality play. I feel like I got hit on the head by an anvil.

It was tough sledding........what with the length, the charactorizations, the non-action, (Coleman being captured by Arabs is shown by the enemy sneaking up to the camp and then a cut to Coleman in a prison cell) and the un-climatic climax. The entire film built up suspense over when the neighboring volcano would blow. When it finally did a subtitle pops up informing us that the eruption jarred the local dam and instead of hot magma singing the legs and torso of the village peasants we get rushing water pouring down the same street set shot from different angles drowning the extras and our hero.

I guess lava was too hard to film in 1923.

But I don't watch silent films in order to project my modern sensibilities onto them, so I can take religious piousness heaped on by the shovelful by Henry King as long as he creates people on the screen I can care about but Lillian Gish is such ninny of a wet blanket here that I assume the key scene of her being struck by lightning as a young lass and being taught how to work a drool cup cup had unfortunately decomposed after all these years.

I don't know how else to explain her.

At least when she appeared in her Biograph shorts she showed some semblence of spunk and vitality but sometime after "Birth of A Nation" she seemed to go all overly dramatic in all of her roles and stopped being fun. It works in a movie like "Broken Blossoms" (which I quite admire) but every film can't be about tragic, mute nincompoops.

I must confess that my main problem with Miss Gish occurred a few years back during a screening of Harry Langdon's "The Sea Squawk". At one point Harry dresses in drag to escape some jewel thieves on a ship. While discussing the film afterwards some wisenheimer mentioned that Harry in drag looked like a Lillian Gish impersonator and now I have a hard time taking her seriously.

Her big scene in "The White Sista'" is when she learns of her lovers supposed death and she goes into such silly, inane convultions that it's a head scratcher that she is considered a great actress, but the Langdon connection explains it all for me.

Harry was basically a parodist of all the silent comics of his time. If Lillian is channeling Harry's inner id, then she is parodying all dramatic melodrama of her time. The scene makes perfect sense now in the fact that Gish is performing tongue-in-cheek.

But it still would of been funnier if Harry had been allowed to emote in that scene in Lillian's place. Watch the flailing hands and the wild eyes....only he would of done it all standing in place.

Gary J.

[silentfilm]

I was intimidated by this film's length, but I also found the time to screen it today. It's certainly not a masterpiece, but I didn't think that it was that bad. It was too long, but not by much. I was actually hooked as soon as Gail Kane burned her father's will and kicked Gish out on the street.

It's actually not the lava that kills a lot of people when a volcano erupts, but the poisonous gas, rocks, and earthquakes. Obviously, Henry King didn't have the budget to show all of this, but the miniature volcano was adequate. If you want to see a realistic volcano movie, one that is also really, really entertaining, get Dante's Peak with Pierce Brosnan and Linda Hamilton. That's one of my favorite films of the 1990s.

I though Gish was good, and Colman was outstanding, especially for a film debut. As Gary mentioned, the "battle" scene left much to be desired, and the hunting scenes were too long, and mostly in long shot.

*** SPOILERS AHEAD ***

I felt that the script boxed itself into an unsolvable dilemma. As Robert Osborne said, the original novel had the "sister" renounce her vows and return to her lover. This film had Gish stick to her vows -- in fact she does not even waver or consider renouncing them. There's no conflict there, and that doesn't help the story. It's not Colman's fault that she thought he was dead. She did promise to wait for him forever. I'm sure that they didn't want to offend Catholics or the Vatican, but showing Gish as being conflicted would have made it much more interesting.

[IA]

I'm on a project of watching or rewatching Henry King's work, and this included The White Sister, which I had regarded as a disappointment and certainly less entertaining than its sound remake.

This time around The White Sister was still overlong and disappointing. I agree with Mr. Aherne that Gish's acting when she learns of Colman's "death" is atypically hammy. I also agree that the scene of her adoring Colman's portrait is very fine.

The volcano-meter subplot is terribly silly and the film is awkwardly cuts between the volcano subplot, Colman's adventures abroad, and Gish's travails. The opening scenes take too long to set up the all the plots, and there's too much padding around the dramatic heart of the story.

At the risk of venturing a controversial opinion, I think Gish is miscast. Or perhaps too well cast. She's already so ethereal and spiritual that it's hard to see a real dilemma for her when Colman returns. A slightly earthier actress might have suggested the call of the flesh. But Gish was practically a nun from the start of the film

The White Sister has one genuinely great scene: Gish's ordination as a nun. King films this mostly through profile and long shots, the latter with the camera perpendicular to the vast altar, its candles and side walls creating a vertiginous sensation of spiritual ascent. To Protestant American viewers in 1923 (or modern secular ones in 2021) the ceremony initially seems exotic, but the steady presentation of ritual grows overpowering.

Ultimately the Gish-King pairing was a mismatch. Next to King's other silents The White Sister and Romola are particularly slow, and I think Gish is ultimately responsible. Her biographer Charles Affron writes that she involved in almost every step of editing The White Sister and "was instrumental in cutting the film to its road-show length of thirteen reels." She prepared the final cut herself, since King had to return to Italy to prepare Romola, and history repeated itself for that film. After its New York premiere Gish wanted to re-edit the film but was prevented from doing so by the head of Inspiration Pictures.

[earlytalkiebuffRob]

I enjoy a lot of Henry King's work, but there is no denying that his real strength was in portraying small-town Americana, Again and again in his career, from TOL'ABLE DAVID to STELLA DALLAS to WAIT 'TIL THE SUN SHINES NELLIE to CAROUSEL he shows us these people again and again, with fondness but little in the way of illusion. Elsewhere he was a very good contract director who did his best work with star vehicles -- except for the ensemble of TWELVE O'CLOCK HIGH which, in many ways, IS a story about ordinary, small town Americans in a small community. Take him away from his strengths and his works are full of cliches.

In addition, he may have had some of the same problems working with Italian crews that plagued BEN-HUR. King reported that Italian crews viewed the director as god-like, but I suspect they flattered him enormously and caused him to produce a lot of material that, had he been working on a production of the sort he would have been more familiar with, would have never been shot, printed or if shot and printed, would have ended up on the cutting room floor.

Bob

I was given a copy of this a few years ago, and was slightly put off by its running time. However, when I finally got around to watching it, it did not seem overlong in the least, holding my attention throughout... However, I would agree about the volcano-meter or whatever it was called being rather silly and artificial, though haven't checked if it was in the original book... And 'entredeuxguerres' commented very favourably on the score when I wrote on the film in 2016...

[BenModel]

FWIW, the Library of Congress struck a new 35mm of THE WHITE SISTER in 2019, if anyone wants to book this post-COVID. I played for a screening of it at LOC at the end of 2019.

Ben