Review of Sarah and Son

Ruth Chatterton was one of those early talkie leading ladies who could play either sappy heroines or hard-luck heroines who either suffered or made people around them suffer. She's an Austrian immigrant who performs in vaudeville with her no good husband. When the husband disappears, selling their son into adoption, she spends years searching for him to find more heartbreak as she finds personal success as an opera singer. Fredric March plays the sympathetic attorney who tries to help her find her child. Chatterton's accent can be cloying at times, and the early static cinematography may be hard for people to stay interested the entire time. Having just gone down this territory in "Madame X", Chatterton tries to rise above the pathos of the material. She received an Oscar Nomination for this film, which I suspect that several years later would be considered dated and easily dismissed. March, on the verge of becoming a major cinematic star, has a thankless part, and Gilbert Emery seems like a silent movie villain as the no-good husband. There are enough lavish moments covering the period from pre-World War I to the present day, but the vaudeville sequences are rather sad. Chatterton is better when her accent starts to dwindle with time. Made up to be unrecognizable in the first half, she looks closer to her more familiar screen image as the film reaches its conclusion.