Dreadfully Boring

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

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 plot isn't so bad, but the pace of storytelling is too slow which makes people bored. Certain moments are so obvious and unnecessary for the main plot. I would've fast-forwarded those moments if it was an online streaming. The ending looks like implying a sequel, not sure if this movie will get one

Walsh had much more spotlight subsequently. Can we ever forget "White Heat", "High Sierra", "The Roaring Twenties"? He's the reason John Wayne is on the map and he has worked in a vocation where he has given many actors their magnum opus, and moreover, he's one of the directors that inherited story before methodology.The role that he left an indelible impression on me, was his portrayal of John Wilkes Booths. He was a harrowing figure in it, and aptly it worked as he had just started off acting, and was probably the right age to give the portrait a verisimilitude. The time, place and cause and effect were balanced by a brooding canvas in historicity; a momentum of perfection.The same year, he graced his own project to the screen. It's 96 years old and has barely withered its original acetate (despite being heavily smudged on blue tints of the negative especially near the beginning when Owen goes and gets a bucket for his dipsomaniac adopted Father. But a lot of it is fairly pristine.The film is based on a book about a young boy Owen. As we go through the pervasively impressive film there's one thing for certain - it's a commentary on the civilisation of susceptible parents and their malicious effect to this young adopted boy. It reflects later on when Owen saves a boy, who Marie Deering (a girl who works in Grogan's and then is drawn to his joint). The period periodically changes and we're then lead to believe that he has ran down to the lowest status in a derelict area. Potent in the way it's looked at, we watch a society without poise, were fighting is ample in mustering entertainment.The character of Owen and the regeneration of his clique is hellbent on the omnipresence of Marie Deering; she aids Owen in his studies, influence and loving compassion. She's the thing that also destroys him; he never reconciles in the gang he originally lead and they're causing a havoc with their abuse of Police and their brutal comeuppance. One bit that's sort of disjointed from the narrative, is when Marie Deering during the second act, invites him and his Friends into a party and throughout it Owen leers at another woman, who's docile and unfazed. He then throws his cigarette on the boat, unbeknownst that it burns. I guess the scene was used as a visual provocation, yet it still does leave a grand and lyrical impact inherent. It's also perhaps a way of uniting them all and separating it later.It's a deep film. The seminal Gangster film has a lot of heart, and you can even sense its seminal films on such films as Howard Hawks' "Scarface", "The Public Enemy" and his own film "Roaring Twenties". The manipulation of lighting to emphasise by masking the gun or dissolving is not dissimilar to how it's done today. Though the way it's used here is a bit more vivid, looking at the way the officious guy is introduced to the scene, where Marie is working, to entice us with important plot points. The most impressive of these sequences is an abrupt scene where a Gang Member is harassed by an Officer and takes out a knife to go in for the coup de grace. Most films would chiefly employ blood to give it the verisimilitude - the realism to set it apart - here though, to keep its gritty and taut realism, Walsh uses off screen cutting to let the Audience comprehend the outcome.It's probably fundamentally great to understand, like Fleming with his primitive films, that Walsh was just a disciple of Griffith, who he was influenced by (watch "The Muskateers of Pig Alley") and his literary influences (this film was adapted from Owen Kildare Frawley's "My Mamie Rose" autobiography, which hitherto I was startled to find out that the film was reciting a time of an actual boys life and memoirs to accompany it, making it, of even more valuable commodity).The thing is, the character is visceral and not intellectual. The story grows in a cerebral way, and does not descend to ruthless violence, probably because it would have been harder to sell. But in a way, it's adscititious; it would be faltered in its tone and focus.Another thing that will definitely jolt audiences today is the fact that the film relies on visuals. If when looking at the narrative through the camera, you actually notice that in fact, your mind gives the character their contours. You have to understand the struggle - with other films to justify it all seems pretty well grounded in the genre of its tradition - and it will not leave you with disappointment.While not epic, the film is a character study, a utopian and dystopian story - truly taut, hard, stylised, with little bits of emotions and a veracity.

I'd been meaning to return to this film, "Regeneration", for some time and finally did after seeing it on the double feature DVD with "Young Romance" (1915). This review is replacing the one I wrote over 5 years ago. I was overly hasty in my previous comment I think now, and I want to elaborate on some things and make some new comments. Moreover, only 2 out of 13 people found my prior comment useful, so that's a good indication that I should try to at least write and express my opinions better. I considered this film less than average the last time I saw it (whether for a film from 1915 or for a film from anytime), and I still consider it such. Others, however, clearly consider it a good to excellent picture, and some of them have made good arguments to that effect in their IMDb comments, and so that has also encouraged me to revisit "Regeneration".The best part of this film is probably, as others have said, its realism in using locals as extras and for minor parts, its location shooting and that, especially through the scenes of violent parents I think, convincingly demonstrates the cycle of violence in such a slum. Most of the photoplay, however, concerns itself with the plot of the regeneration of supposed gangsters. There are quite a few title cards that setup the picture to be a gangster-crime film, of which there had already been some in the US ("The Musketeers of Pig Alley" (1912) and "Alias Jimmy Valentine" (1915) are the most accessible ones today); but, here, they're only gangsters in so far as they gather together and do little and rough up someone they don't like occasionally. There's no on screen impetus for a politician to want to crackdown on these "gangsters", at least not before he seeks to do so but doesn't (that plot line is dropped abruptly and never much develops). Near the end, there are some rather unprovoked outbursts that are especially violent by the Skinny character, but there's still no sense of any organized crime.The storyline becomes more akin to a William S. Hart Western and similar hackneyed formulas: Owen either lazily drinks and smokes and gathers idly with his friends or gets into some fights (what Hart did at saloons in the first parts of his films, for comparison) until he falls in love with the white, virginal Christian woman (often a reformer and from a higher class, as here) and so begins his regeneration, becoming Christian and civilized.The acting here isn't special either, although the leads do OK enough for back then. Anna Q. Nilsson, in particular, would have a decent career in the silent era, including playing the pure woman for Hart's Western "The Toll Gate" (1920), and continued acting long after that. The only consistent problem with the acting was the tendency of Nilsson and Rockliffe Fellowes to turn away from other characters and stare at nothing to project that they're thinking or are conflicted. The uncredited actor (despite appearing to have the third most screen time) who plays the little fellow at least stares at Fellowes and Nilsson in some queer adulation.The attempted rape climax, the rescue attempt, in addition to further influence for the Marie Deering character are taken straight from the formulas of D.W. Griffith, which makes sense since this film's director Raoul Walsh was fresh from working on Griffith's "The Birth of a Nation", released earlier in 1915. Griffith had mastered this formula from his multiple last-minute-rescue shorts at Biograph and brought the pure woman, the attempted rape of her and her rescue together in "The Birth of a Nation". The editing in the climax of "Regeneration" and its constant crosscutting throughout, use of match cuts, irises and so on demonstrate further the influence of Griffith, but, in "Regeneration" most of it's choppier, clumsily derivative and often rushed and lacking, as in the rescue and denouement.The good woman and regeneration plots and other themes probably have more ancient roots dating to the stage, as well. There are a couple other seeming influences on smaller parts of "Regeneration" I'd like to comment on, though. The fire scene on the boat recalls similar sensational sequences rather irrelevant to the rest of the plot from earlier Danish silent films. "The Great Circus Catastrophe" (Dødsspring til hest fra cirkuskuplen) (1912), which involved a fire in a hotel, and "Atlantis" (1913), which involved a ship sinking if little fire, come to mind. "Regeneration" was based on an autobiography and its theatrical adaptation, but it also seems plain to me that it's based on preexisting movie conventions. On film technique, another aspect that stands out are some brief dolly shots, which were likely inspired by "Cabiria", which used comparatively boring, slow dolly shots. Dolly shots had been exploited in cinema since at least 1903, but "Cabiria" seems to have briefly popularized it and influenced their use in some subsequent films.Nevertheless, in "Regeneration", there's the realism of the surroundings in contrast to the shallow development and formulaic nature of the narrative: a gangster's world without gangsters, real people surrounding movie clichés. The film techniques and style are not original, but are lesser imitations.(Note: There's considerable bleeding and deterioration to the surviving print.)

Regeneration (1915) ** (out of 4) First film directed by the legendary Raoul Walsh after working on The Birth of a Nation is probably best known for being one of the first "gangster" pictures as well as being one of the first films to actually shoot on the streets of Hell's Kitchen. Owen is orphaned at the age of ten and taken in by his abusive neighbors and by the time he's an adult (Rockliffe Fellows) he's a "gangster" living on the streets, not working and drinking too much but a social worker decides to try and changed his ways. The term gangster here isn't like the gangster films we're accustomed to but instead it means poor folks hanging out on the streets. The historical importance of this film can't be argued and it clearly influenced some of Scorsese's films as he talked about in A Personal Journey with Martin Scorsese but at the end of the day there's really very little going on in this thing. The use of real locations and real actors is a nice touch but the story drags along and the editing, which Walsh is clearly trying to copy Griffith, is a mess. The 70-minute running time feels a bit long as well. From a historic standpoint this is worth viewing once but I doubt I'd go back for a second viewing. The highlight of the film is one scene where people are partying on a boat, which catches fire and they must try to make an escape. This here is certainly one of the great scenes of the silent era.

Spoilers herein.This film has some absolutely amazing elements, though to my mind the story, editing and all the acting could be discarded. What startled me was the realism. This was when the film industry was still based in New York, and that city becomes the star. Real street scenes are used, as well as (presumably) many of the extras. When there's a fight, it seems pretty real. When you have some toughs, they're tough and not just acting tough.There's a shot early in the story where the star as a teenager has a fight. One of the spectators has a nose tumor. Its just the sort of thing you'd see in a bad area. These details make it real.The camera is stationary except for very few moments. As I say, the editing is clumsy, but there is some terrific irising and two very effective superpositions. Those two elements, the effective use of the city and the camera, make this worth watching.The story is trite in most respects, except the ending, which is intelligent. He broke the rules of fate, and so his girl dies. Except for the theatrical moaning, the end is gritty, like the streets.Ted's Evaluation -- 3 of 3: Worth watching.