Review of Two Lovers

"A swashbuckling pictorial romance of those good old days when they used two hands to lift a mug of ale to their lips and punctuated their thoughts by digging a dagger into an oaken table was offered for the delectation of an audience in the Embassy Theatre last night. It is sponsered by that Barnum of love, Samuel Goldwyn, who has served notice on his public that this is the last picture in which Vilma Banky and Ronald Colman will be seen together.
This monstrous series of adventures in old Holland when the Spaniards held Ghent is a true Hollywood interpretation of Baroness Orczy's novel, Leatherface. There's nought to reason why about the incidents in this picture, for if Fred Niblo, the director, insists on having his hero escape, he escapes. A carriage ride in the gloom of night would never be especially thrilling without occasional flashes of lightning and then ran, falling as if from buckets. This Leatherface has a pretty wit, for he thinks it to be a mighty good idea to see that the wheel drops off the coach, so that he may hold his fair wife of a few hours in his arms. The storm is but a helpful element to Leatherface, who forthwith takes his flaxen-haired Spanish bride on the horse with him, and they ride on, looking like lovers sitting in a swing in the sunshine of a June afternoon. The rain probably drenched them but they were oblivious to it.

Soon afterward, when they reach an inn in Dendermonde, Leatherface, ever solicitous about his radiant bride, sees to it that her shoes are dried. The couple apparently do not bother to change their clothes, for through some miracle, presided over by Mr. Niblo, the water evaporates from their clothes, or seems to do so.
Here candle flames are twice the size one expects them to be and fires burn brightly in the dead of night, and the palace panels are as new as the bride's gown. The Prince of Orange and a few of his faithful cohorts meet in a cellar, which is discovered by that wakeful little lady, Donna Lenora de Vargas, niece of the cruel Duke of Azar. Lenora (Miss Banky) learns the whereabouts of "the papers" and she is eager to warn her uncle and carry on the news to Ghent. The ubiquitous Leatherface rather spoils this idea, first by snatching up the letter supposed to be for the Duke, and then by insisting on riding with Lenora.
This picture is filled with this sort of thing, interspersed with a few knifing incidents. You might expect Leatherface to be slightly worn out after being beaten, tormented and then flogged, but it is to be presumed that this fellow is a glutton for punishment, and where other men might crumple up and faint, he struts into a room looking as fresh as if he had just had a cold plunge.
It might also be thoughtful that a girl who rides through a storm, wearing a cape covering her décolleté gown, would be slightly fatigued after such a journey, but Lenora is a girl of mettle, who only gives in when she hears the voice of Mr. Niblo via his megaphone. She works and works on the drawbridge, while the Flemish are swimming through the stagnant and none-too-inviting waters, and finally it gives a little, then a little more. What suspense! Will she be able to hold out until she has pulled the wheel around a couple more times? She does and then falls, white and beautiful, her dress torn but, thank heaven, her hair is not disarranged! It could not look more charming if she had walked out of a hairdresser's but an instant before. So one leaves Lenora, none worse for her terrifying experiences, fast in the arms of Leatherface.
Miss Banky is charming, but here she appears to have been told to look as lovely as she possibly can. And she does. Mr. Colman is vigorous in his role. Noah Beery, discounting what Mr. Niblo has instructed him to do, is still able to prove that he is a master of screen acting." From THE NEW YORK TIMES FILM REVIEWS - March 23, 1928 by Mordaunt Hall

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