Strangely Madge Bellamy's chocolate box prettiness really lent itself to rural Americana movies ie "Lazybones" and the very melodramatic "Love Never Dies", adapted from the novel "The Cottage of Delights". While the 60 min restoration I found at Alpha is pristine there are 20 missing minutes so it stands to reason the narrative is going to be choppy and some parts will be hard to follow especially in the last half. The biggest drawback is the missing scene where "Liz" confesses that she is not John's real mother and only took over the caring of him because of her deep love for him. That would also have linked in with the title "Love Never Dies". Claire McDowall, I'm positive, would have come into her own in this scene. As it is she makes the most of the small time she is allotted.
The scene where the audience finds out that "Liz" Trott, the town tramp, is not John's mother comes at the beginning (so you are left wondering all through the movie when the big reveal is coming)!! Jane, another fallen woman, tries to blackmail "Liz" out of her night's takings by threatening to tell John the truth. John (Lloyd Hughes), a steady young man is trying to rise above the town gossip and make his life a success - especially now he has met the girl of his dreams in Tilly Whaley (Bellamy). He marries her but the truth comes out - Tilly befriends freckle faced Dora who puts Tilly wise to a few things concerning "Liz" but asks her not to tell John or "he'll cuss me out"!! Now I just assumed Dora to be John's sister - she calls him "Brer John" and there is an easy going familiarity between them, especially when he leaves the town for the big city, there is no question about whether Dora will go with him or not - she just does!! Again missing footage has him leaving Dora (now a young lady) for a visit back home and she is not seen in the movie again.
The scandal finally reaches Tilly's father who comes for her with a shotgun and thanks to a wrongly worded message from their hired hand John believes that Tilly has left him so she will not be disgraced. On his way to a new life he is involved in a train wreck - a magnificently staged scene and impulsively asks that John Trot and Dora be listed as dead (only Dora's insistence on eating in the fancy dining car saves their lives). Years later he visits his old home town - meets his little son, presumably has "that" conversation with his mother and learns that his old rival Joel has married Tilly. From now on the story becomes a "catch as catch can" - Joel still harbours deep resentment to John and tries to kill him as he is leaving town, Tilly feels Joel's behaviour is despicable and confesses she has never stopped loving John and he then takes a boat presumably to row over the treacherous falls. John, on another boat, sees him and after a mighty rescue action sequence combining struggles over the falls, white water and fights underwater, he drags the bedraggled Joel to shore where in a last breath confession he reveals that it was he who spread the evil gossip about John all those years ago.
There are some pretty melodramatic titles "unhesitatingly facing death that the only barrier to his happiness may live"!!! and another about facing uncertainty in a new world (when John is preparing to leave with Dora) that actually turns up again at the end. The 80 minute version would have earned 10 out of 10, the lovely, leisurely pace of small town life with the always present undercurrents of smallness and bigotry is built up superbly - the setting that Vidor felt so at home with.
The scene where the audience finds out that "Liz" Trott, the town tramp, is not John's mother comes at the beginning (so you are left wondering all through the movie when the big reveal is coming)!! Jane, another fallen woman, tries to blackmail "Liz" out of her night's takings by threatening to tell John the truth. John (Lloyd Hughes), a steady young man is trying to rise above the town gossip and make his life a success - especially now he has met the girl of his dreams in Tilly Whaley (Bellamy). He marries her but the truth comes out - Tilly befriends freckle faced Dora who puts Tilly wise to a few things concerning "Liz" but asks her not to tell John or "he'll cuss me out"!! Now I just assumed Dora to be John's sister - she calls him "Brer John" and there is an easy going familiarity between them, especially when he leaves the town for the big city, there is no question about whether Dora will go with him or not - she just does!! Again missing footage has him leaving Dora (now a young lady) for a visit back home and she is not seen in the movie again.
The scandal finally reaches Tilly's father who comes for her with a shotgun and thanks to a wrongly worded message from their hired hand John believes that Tilly has left him so she will not be disgraced. On his way to a new life he is involved in a train wreck - a magnificently staged scene and impulsively asks that John Trot and Dora be listed as dead (only Dora's insistence on eating in the fancy dining car saves their lives). Years later he visits his old home town - meets his little son, presumably has "that" conversation with his mother and learns that his old rival Joel has married Tilly. From now on the story becomes a "catch as catch can" - Joel still harbours deep resentment to John and tries to kill him as he is leaving town, Tilly feels Joel's behaviour is despicable and confesses she has never stopped loving John and he then takes a boat presumably to row over the treacherous falls. John, on another boat, sees him and after a mighty rescue action sequence combining struggles over the falls, white water and fights underwater, he drags the bedraggled Joel to shore where in a last breath confession he reveals that it was he who spread the evil gossip about John all those years ago.
There are some pretty melodramatic titles "unhesitatingly facing death that the only barrier to his happiness may live"!!! and another about facing uncertainty in a new world (when John is preparing to leave with Dora) that actually turns up again at the end. The 80 minute version would have earned 10 out of 10, the lovely, leisurely pace of small town life with the always present undercurrents of smallness and bigotry is built up superbly - the setting that Vidor felt so at home with.