User Reviews

I went to see this film solely for the presence of Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. But there are four characters who dominate and make this effort a character-based film.

Betty Compson was effervescent and convincing as a performer who is at ease on stage at a carnival, poised and beautiful and able to connect with the audience. Her vivaciousness reminded me of Clara Bow. But her character turned out to be more nuanced than the typical vamp with a heart of gold. She was a little edgier, maybe craftier. It was a little dispiriting to see her want to return to a man, who treated her in a less than gentlemanly fashion, to say the least. But I guess such undertones of sexism in a relationship and a woman being unable to resist an abusive boyfriend were accepted in films of this era.

Milton Sills was convincing as a man born to be a barker at a carnival, someone who will convince people they want to spend money for nothing. I thought maybe Fairbanks had this title role, but he actually plays the unexpectedly kind son of the rather brutish Sills. The Sills character is somewhat redeeming in that he does, at least, look out for his son and wants nothing to jeopardize his son's professional future.

Douglas Fairbanks Jr.'s role was much more substantial than I expected. I thought maybe I had read in his autobiography that he was placed in this film primarily because he had had some possibly successful exposure in some other picture as a teenager. So I expected him to have a rather throwaway, idiotic part, but he is actually one of the leads and he acquitted himself well. His character was young but not immature; earnest, sensitive, and intelligent but not cloying or unbelievable. He must have been only around eighteen when he made this one. He comes off as extremely likable for those DFJ fans who would like to see him in a role in which he was rewarded with decent screen time and a well-developed nice-guy character.

I found it sort of amusing that he wants to be a lawyer because his father is a 'barker' at what sometimes looks like a rather sorry carnival. I should not judge; I was just not expecting that level of ambition in the barker's family. It was also a surprise to find out with whom DFJ winds up having a relationship. A lot of the drama takes place on a train, like one of those you see the female band travel on in Some Like it Hot, and that is where this relationship begins.

Lastly, I agree with the other reviewer that Dorothy Mackaill (and for me DFJ) made this film worthwhile. Her character was wise for her years, probably had to work to stay alive, and at the film's beginning seems like she is only in the cast to be Compson's independent, indestructible sidekick. But her character, Lou, is something other than endlessly unflinching. She is vulnerable: she is capable of being moved by the right fellow traveler who just happened to come along. So we find out that beyond her blonde extremely bobbed haircut and knowledge about the real world, she has a soul and she is even feminine.

As a character-driven movie, I would like to see this again for the two warm-hearted souls of DFJ and Mackaill.

The London Film festival screening was preceded by an entertaining but deprecatory account by Robert Gitt on the history of early sound technology, and of this film in particular: after references to actors speaking ultra-slowly in order to minimise reverberation, to dialogue dovetailed onto the start and end of already-completed silent features, to a finale lost to nitrate decay, splices that split frames and an irreplaceable sound disc cracked into pieces by careless stacking, I'd come to expect little more of the part-talkie "The Barker" than the status of technical curiosity. My previous experience with the genre had been limited to 1929's "The Informer", an excellent silent picture almost crippled by the switch into sound for its last few reels.

"The Barker", however, is nothing of the sort. It was very much better than I had been given any reason to suppose: the dialogue stands comparison with anything from the talking era and the silent section is as fluent as the best of the pictures that had preceded it. Here is one film, at least, that managed to take the best of both worlds and produce a relatively harmonious combination.

Inevitably, the joins between the two styles come across with something of a jolt, and the transition seems somewhat arbitrary: the switch away from dialogue often appears to be triggered by violent action or strong emotion, at which stage what is done or what is meant becomes more important than the minutiae of what is actually said. The truth, of course, is that the entire film was completed as a silent and only certain scenes pulled back for emergency re-recording before release. It was the good fortune of the producers that dialogue for these sections already existed in the form of the original play; but it is a mark of the progression of sound technology in the brief interlude that the fully-assembled soundtrack could include an orchestral backing to the talkie sections, which greatly eases the transitions between pure musical accompaniment and vocal scenes. There is certainly no evidence on the restored print of the physical damage to the soundtrack, and the missing (spliced) frames are only occasionally evident as a slight jump in the picture. The only element I found obtrusive was a very obvious fake steam-engine sound effect!

The acting is generally excellent, although I was taken aback to learn that modern consensus is that cool blonde Lou (Dorothy Mackaill) is far more 'natural' and attractive than dark, vivacious Carrie; having been told only that one was considered to have received an Oscar nomination better-deserved by the other, I naturally assumed that it was the lady with the fashionable helmet bob who had received the accolades of her contemporaries for looks and acting! I'm no Louise Brooks fan, I'm afraid, and the character struck me as slightly wooden, with no sense of deeper passions beneath the smooth carapace; I had to take the sincerity of her feelings on trust. She isn't the one who stands out from the rest of the cast for me.

As the lead couple, Milton Sills and Betty Compson are perfectly matched. Both are supremely in command of the silent screen, conveying a world of emotional shading in a fleeting movement or a halted instant's regret, yet both are entirely at home with the demands of the microphone as well: Betty Compson's expressive little face needs no subtitles, whether she is swigging bootleg spirits, railing at or cajoling Lou, scheming vengefully against Nifty or quarrelling violently with him, and Sills dominates the picture in the title role. I'd never encountered him before, but it was easy to see why he was a famous star of the era. His silent scenes with Carrie or his son Chris on the train are masterpieces of subtlety and body language, while his talkie role -- especially the non-stop breakneck barker's spiel that opens the first scene of the film -- shows a man thoroughly in control of the spoken art. He manages to convey enough charisma to ensure that Nifty, on the face of it a blustering, domineering vulgarian, retains the audience's sympathy and interest, while Miss Compson likewise portrays jealous, insecure Carrie as a fully-fledged character. (Surprisingly -- and refreshingly -- the plot does not, as I had anticipated with a groan, feature her falling in love with the handsome young intruder whose arrival she so bitterly resents...)

Douglas Fairbanks Jr puts in an amazingly youthful and gangly appearance as the juvenile lead: the acting comes across as a little gauche in comparison with the more experienced stars, and the grin is perhaps a little self-conscious here -- he had yet to grow into it -- but the character himself is naive and inexperienced, and the performance certainly shows ability. As a talkie debut it must have augured well for his future career.

The opening of "The Barker" is very good indeed (it starts out at an easy 8/10, the maximum I'd give to any film unless of exceptional impact) but I did end up feeling that the quality falls off slightly towards the end into the realms of the strained and melodramatic. Even Milton Sills can't always bring off hammy dialogue with conviction in the outraged-father scenes, and the whole payoff feels somewhat rushed in comparison to the gradual development of the build-up: suddenly Chris is married, suddenly he leaves, suddenly he's back (with the former 'hard-boiled Hannah' transformed into an adoring and submissive housewife: "Show him, dear"). I wanted a happy ending, but when Nifty collapses and then tries to go out and do his act dead drunk, it seems too much of a cop-out to have everything come out of it smelling of roses after all.

The film is good; it's well worth seeing for its own sake; given its technical difficulties, it's excellent. I'd rate it among renowned company. But it isn't as unreservedly great as I had perhaps hoped.