But I finally got to see Henry King’s silent Stella Dallas.
Last month. As part of a Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art.
What took me so long?
You see, in 1969 I purchased by special order at one of my local Jackson Heights, Queens bookstores, Joe Franklin’s Classics of the Silent Screen. I believe it arrived the day of the Vietnam Moratorium in November 1969. A big day.
So Joe Franklin extolled the 1925 Stella Dallas, and I’ve always wanted to see it, and so far I’d only seen the sound version.
MOMA showed a pristine print last month.
Added to my pride at achieving a nearly life-long goal, I was happy to sample the way that this film resides in that sublime space in which shameless/maudlin/touching, not to say cathartic co-exist.
Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. was a fun and astute interview when I parleyed with him in 1992. We talked about Tallulah, but also about Dietrich, Gertrude Lawrence, Joan Crawford. . .and here he was on screen, a baby-faced jeune premier sixty-seven years earlier.