The Struggle

I wish Griffith had gotten to make more movies in the sound era. The Struggle is uneven but those last fifteen minutes are fantastic, and almost feel like a monster movie.

Griffith's swan song has most of his strengths and weaknesses. It's a simplistic morality play, but it's done with sensitivity and wit (answering the phone: "No, I'm not home."). Griffith takes to sound surprisingly well - there's even a scene of Hawksian overlapping dialogue. He goes out with a whimper, but not a bomb. Oh, except for the short bit insulting the black maid. You'd think the man who spent a life trying to atone for Birth of a Nation would know better.

Old-timey schmaltz, and the final film from David W[as-a-racist] Griffith, the guy who invented cinema. Mostly very boring, although the last ~15 minutes are indeed pretty crazy.