Wednesday, January 14, 2009

Far and Away: A Review of Male and Female



"While Swanson has secured her legacy in cinema thanks to Sunset Boulevard, it’s a great shame that that particular film so often overshadows the rest of her career. In Male and Female, her enunciation appears so perfect that for once in a silent film I could read the performer’s lips routinely and consistently; there was none of the marble-mouthed miming or fast-talking gibberish that so often befuddles viewers. At the same time, her elocution never borders on histrionics. The effect made me feel like I could hear her speaking the lines of dialogue, which makes it all the more tragically ironic that it was the transition to sound cinema that signaled her departure from silver screen popularity."


Click here to read my review at Not Coming to a Theater Near You

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