This is How Movies Should Be Made

Your blood may run cold, but you now find yourself pinioned to the story.

While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

The 28-minute cutdown I looked at was a charming, if barebones film of Victor Cherbuliez novel. Jean Worms is a gruff bachelor, rusticating in the country, off women because the girl he was supposed to marry dumped him. He is not pleased when a cosmpolitan lady moves into the next estate and holds noisy parties, nor with her daughter, Geneviève Félix, who steals figs from his tree. His sister, however, takes the girl under her wing. When Miss Felix' mother decides to marry her to a decrepit nobleman,, it's up to Worms to find her a suitable substitute.Because of the extreme cutting of the movie, it's tough to judge, but it appears to have all the hallmarks of a respectful filmization of a classic novel -- Cherbuliez was a member of the French Academy -- and there is careful attention paid to the set decoration. The actors appear up to their tasks. Mr. Worms is suitably grouchy, Miss Felix ebullient and so forth. It undoubtedly must have pleased its French audiences in the waning days of the silent cinema.