It's marvelous what a superior print will do, and the whole film is now available in such a print from Alpha. Here's Marion Davies, soon to star in Robert G. Vignola's sensational epic, "When Knighthood Was in Flower", doing a try-out for Vignola in this breezy little romantic comedy. True, comedy isn't really Vignola's specialty. He is inclined to let scenes run a little too long and some of his players (particularly Forrest Stanley who makes his artist perhaps just a little too glum and super-serious a figure) give little evidence of a comic touch. Davies, of course is delightful, but Aileen Manning and miscast Martha Mattox as the aunts fail to really send up their crotchety characters, so that instead of having a good laugh at the Quakers, we are only slightly entertained. And oddly, despite their long-winded introductory scenes, the aunts then virtually disappear from the plot. For this reason, I used to recommend the Kodascope 5-reel cutdown rather than the full 7-reel release version. Both versions are available on DVD. However, the full version is now available from Alpha in a near-excellent print which plays very well indeed, despite the monotonous music score that Alpha have added. The movie was based on a short story of the same name by Sophie Kerr, published in "The Saturday Evening Post" of 14 February 1920.
Review of Beauty's Worth
