The Hidden Way (1926) User Reviews

It's Tough To Go Straight With Evil Companions

[boblipton · 6/10 · 2 June 2021]

Freshly released ex-con Tom Santschi wants to tread the strait path, but his companions are fellow crook Arthur Rankin and pickpocket Ned Sparks. When they -- mostly Santschi -- save farm girl Gloria Grey, her mother, widowed Mary Carr takes them in at her impoverished farm. Sparks finds a spring and comes up with a plan to make them rich by adding ingredients to make it seem a health drink. Suckers will clamor for it, and wen the money is available, they'll all be rich -- particularly Sparks when he runs off with the cash.

It's a decent programmer intended for rural audiences, with some interesting actors and a nicely complicated script by Ida May Park and her frequent collaborator, director Joseph De Grasse. The production is more efficient than interesting, but seeing Sparks at this stage of his career is interesting, and Mrs. Carr is always welcome, even with her role a bit tiresome. She had gone into the movies in the latter half of the 1910s, and had a great success in 1920's OVER THE HILL TO THE POORHOUSE, which typed her as mothers for the rest of her career. She died in 1973 at the age of 99.

Excellent drama, well-acted, with a moral; Santschi and Carr in particular are superb!

[mmipyle · 8/10 · 16 July 2021]

"The Hidden Way" (1926) is a spiritual driven drama that is beautifully realized for putting across its message with an extremely well-acted drama wrapped around it. If there's hokum at all, it's wrapped up wholly in the character played by Ned Sparks - Mulligan - a slick and unreformed pickpocket whose breezy way and cigar chewing demeanor almost caricature a stand-up comic, one you love to watch when you should be watching out. Sparks is fun nevertheless, even though we know he's just no good. Then there are two just released prisoners from the nearby prison, Tom Santschi and Arthur Rankin. They'd perhaps like to go straight, but... Then the leads, Mary Carr - as Mother - and Gloria Grey - as Mary - are the propelling forces of the plot. Mary is trapped on board a runaway wagon with a bolting, spooked horse and is "saved" by Santschi and Rankin. This leads to their being given temporary residence and food with Carr and Grey. Meanwhile, Sparks shows up to make the men a threesome. They plot and they plot to get money out of a jar so they can split it. Then it's discovered that there's a natural spring on the property. They plot and they plot to make it a profit making venture. They try to "fix" the water to give it character enough to make it a legitimate "spring water" for safe consumption at sale. What they don't realize, but discover too late, is that the water was already good enough. Now there are three more characters to introduce. One of them is Jane Thomas, a woman with a baby who becomes a part of the group, a group that is in constant flux because Mother always - always - always accepts the needy for either supper or even lodging for a while. Then there's the father and son duo, Wilbur Mack and William Ryno, businessmen (though one of them's a sharpie), and one of whom is the father of Thomas' baby, though he won't pay any alimony and, well...a creep.

Mother here is biblical. She often is seen reading scripture to lead her life in the way the scriptures prescribe. It's not something that "interferes" with the plot driven drama of the characters, but, frankly, it's the "message" that Ida Mae Park, the author of the play and the script for the film wished her director-husband, Joseph de Grasse to leave with the viewer. It's not necessarily done subtly, but it's also not shoved down the viewers throat. Indeed, the acting is so top notch that the "message" is received much like reading an essay of Emerson. If you don't wish to read it - if you don't wish to watch - you can turn away and not be any the wiser. Too bad for you.

Tom Santschi and Mary Carr are both particularly outstanding. Santschi has several layers to his performance. Remembered especially for his characterization in films like "3 Bad Men", directed by John Ford, he shows he had multiple gifts for his profession when allowed to show them. Mary Carr was "Mother", or a character of a mother, in a long host of films. Here she seamlessly fits her ability to the rôle and makes it utterly genuine. Well worth the watch; although the younger set may find the underlying moral purpose trying in the aura of today's feature films and their content.