The Battle of the Sexes (1928)

Originally posted to Facebook on 10/20/2018

The Battle of the Sexes was our thirteenth and final film from 1928. It is the fifth film we've seen directed by D.W. Griffith, but the first since 1920's Way Down East. It is also the second time we've seen Phyllis Haver, after seeing her in 1927's Chicago, and the first time we've seen Jean Hersholt, who was a well-known character actor in the late silent and early sound era, but is more famous as the namesake of the Academy Award for contributions to humanitarian causes.

The change in D.W. Griffith's fortunes since Way Down East is quite dramatic. This is a eighty-eight-minute low-budget film, and there is nothing that would indicate to the viewer that its director just fifteen years earlier had the clout to make films requiring thousands of extras and enormous sets recreating ancient Babylon. Its story, too, is relatively simple. Jean Hersholt is real estate magnate, with a wife (played by Belle Bennett), and two near-adult children, played by Sally O'Neil and William Bakewell. Hersholt becomes infatuated with Phyllis Haver, who is young, selfish, and carefree -- a role similar to the one she played in Chicago -- and his marriage and finances both suffer.

Overall this movie is mainly interesting for the people involved in making it. It is not particularly striking or memorable taken on its own merits, though it is also not quite terrible; this mirrors Hersholt's lead performance, which is not actively bad, but is also not dynamic nor sympathetic. Haver, on the other hand, has a echo of the charisma she showed in Chicago, but has much less material to work with here.

As mentioned above, the low budget makes this movie atypical compared to the other Griffith films we've seen, and results in a claustrophobic look, with most of the action occurring in either Hersholt's or Haver's apartment, with a brief detour to a dance hall. Perhaps the only thing that makes this recognizably a Griffith film is his focus on how poorly women are treated by men and by society. This concern is not presented in a modern way, and it is deployed selectively and usually paternalistically, but it is a connective tissue between this film and his earlier work.

So that concludes 1928. My goal of watching four films a year has admittedly gotten a little bit out of control, and unfortunately 1929 doesn't look much better. But I've added our planned films for 1930 to the spreadsheet, and for that year at least I've managed hold the line at five. On the other hand, before moving on to 1929, I've decided to go back and watch three earlier films we've missed, starting with 1924's Michael, which is the second film in this project directed by Carl Theodor Dreyer. The list, as always, is here: https://bit.ly/2lZtfmT