THE LOVE FLOWER
Starring Richard Barthelmess and Carol Dempster
PHOTOPLAY
November, 1920
Five years ago David Wark Griffith kept his own counsel and
made "The Birth of a Nation." Today he takes double-page
advertisements in the Saturday Evening Post to tell
about "The Love Flower." This new Griffith release is,
admittedly, a "short story"; it makes no pretensions
to greatness. But, even so, it is not Griffith. It might have
been done by any one of our lesser directors. It has beautiful
moments in photography, a heart-throb or two, a bit of young love.
It has vague references to "the Law." On the other hand,
it has no real drama, small suspense. As is usual in the later
Griffith essays, we have a careful introduction to our principals;
a painstaking planting of atmosphere -- and then, for three reels,
nothing. Nothing, that is, but some gorgeous scenery and one gorgeous
girl. If Mr. Griffith wishes us to become well acquainted with
his latest discovery, he will not be disappointed. We have seen
Carol Dempster through the misty close-up and under water; we
have seen her outlined against the sky, the wind whipping her
filmy costume about her. We have seen her one expression for love,
hate, fear, and the other cardinal emotions. As an actress, Miss
Dempster is an excellent highdiver. But she may have doubled;
we never thought of that. There is one thing to be thankful for:
the villain, such as he is, does not desire the heroine. He confines
himself to hounding her father, who is finely drawn by George
McQuarrie. Richard Barthelmess plays a young man of wealth who
is sailing round the world looking for adventure. Does he find
it? Perhaps not -- but he has an opportunity to win Carol and
many close-ups. Griffith really went to a southern isle to get
atmosphere for this, but his "Broken Blossoms," made
in Hollywood, had more of the breath of the Orient than this has
of the South Seas. That delicacy and poetry he used to give us
are absent. You will go to see it; perhaps you will be entertained.
But in a year which also presents "Earthbound," it will
make no great impression.