"The Safety Curtain" is one of the few Norma Talmadge films that have been in home video circulation (so far). It's one of her earliest pictures made under her own production company with the supervision of her husband-movie mogul Joseph Schenck and is the first of only two I've been able to find--the other being "The Forbidden City" (1918). By that time, Talmadge was becoming one of the movies' most popular stars, and, at least, by the 1920s, her appeal was comparable to Mary Pickford and other top-grossing actors, which may be surprising to some today. "The Safety Curtain" seems to be a good representation of the kind of melodrama Talmadge became famous for. A somewhat more derogatory term for them has been "women's weepies", a term which Jeanine Basinger ("Silent Stars") used, as one assumes Talmadge's audience was disproportionately women, and the melodramas are from the perspective of a female protagonist facing significantly domestic and romantic issues.
In this one, Talmadge plays a music-hall dancer abused by her strong man husband. After a fire during her performance at the music hall, her and her husband are reported dead. Talmadge's character then marries the officer who rescued her from the disaster. The narrative is sensational, with a few convenient twists (the plague was especially opportune), while treating heavy issues of abuse and bigamy. Regardless, Talmadge did well to hold interest in following her character's emotional highs and lows. Overall, it's a decently made production for 1918. The film's title is very appropriate, and I liked the curtain motif. The "safety curtain" explicitly refers to the music hall drape that protects the crowded theatre from the fire. Implicitly, it also suggests the security Talmadge's character finds in the officer, from the fire and her first abusive husband.
(Note: The recording I saw seemed to be at much too fast a pace, perhaps, at sound projection speed, rather than the slower rate silents tended to be shown at. A couple scenes (Talmadge's can-can dance and maybe the fire episode) seem to have originally been under-cranked, so this unnaturally fast projection furthers their effect. It ran approximately 51 minutes, which, indeed, is probably too short for a six-reel production. There was also an annoying, constant logo from the video distributor in the left-hand bottom corner.)
In this one, Talmadge plays a music-hall dancer abused by her strong man husband. After a fire during her performance at the music hall, her and her husband are reported dead. Talmadge's character then marries the officer who rescued her from the disaster. The narrative is sensational, with a few convenient twists (the plague was especially opportune), while treating heavy issues of abuse and bigamy. Regardless, Talmadge did well to hold interest in following her character's emotional highs and lows. Overall, it's a decently made production for 1918. The film's title is very appropriate, and I liked the curtain motif. The "safety curtain" explicitly refers to the music hall drape that protects the crowded theatre from the fire. Implicitly, it also suggests the security Talmadge's character finds in the officer, from the fire and her first abusive husband.
(Note: The recording I saw seemed to be at much too fast a pace, perhaps, at sound projection speed, rather than the slower rate silents tended to be shown at. A couple scenes (Talmadge's can-can dance and maybe the fire episode) seem to have originally been under-cranked, so this unnaturally fast projection furthers their effect. It ran approximately 51 minutes, which, indeed, is probably too short for a six-reel production. There was also an annoying, constant logo from the video distributor in the left-hand bottom corner.)
