The Winning of Barbara Worth

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Audience Member An undeniably charming & made by the numbers Western that stared the young Gary Cooper & Vilma Banky famous for the damsel in distress in Rudolph Valentino's Son of the Sheik 1926. A largely typical love triangle develops in the West with strong production values & solid direction from Henry King. The highlight of the film hands down in the somewhat Biblical Proportions Flood that hits the town. (If you can see past the model work it's great) it's an interesting curiosity. Rated 3/5 Stars •  Rated 3 out of 5 stars 01/31/23 Full Review Audience Member The Winning of Barbara Worth is a decent but ultimately forgettable silent western. It's crafted well enough but the nail in the coffin for the film is that it just has nothing particularly special going for it. The characters are hollow as they carry out a rather generic love triangle. The antagonist is one-dimensional and unsympathetic. Even the climactic flood scene, while technically impressive, isn't really that memorable. The film marks Gary Cooper's Hollywood debut in the role of Abe Lee. To be fair, Cooper and his fellow cast members Ronald Colman and Vilma Banky do their best given what they have, but they're ultimately given so little that it really does not do much good. Like I said, the film is fine. It's entertaining enough to keep ahold of you for 90 minutes, it's just nothing special and would be overstaying its welcome if it ran any longer. Rated 3/5 Stars •  Rated 3 out of 5 stars 02/14/23 Full Review Audience Member A 1926 silent-era western. The Barbara in question is the adopted daughter of a western pioneer. His plan to irrigate his area from the Colorado river is picked up by a New York financier. One of my favorite actors, Ronald Colman is the engineer set to head up the project. He immediately becomes a love interest for Barbara. His main romantic adversary though, is Gary Cooper; a local hometown boy with unresolved feelings for the lady. Everyone, however, is faced with a bigger problem. The corporate financier is playing hardball and cutting financial ties with the settlers. While I've always loved Colman, and always hated Cooper; that becomes less relevant being that this is a silent film. Acting is not the biggest conveyor in the storytelling. The film here was remarkably well-preserved; some of it shot in Nevada locations. Not a genre I will be investigating fully, but a fun one-off nonetheless. Rated 2.5/5 Stars •  Rated 2.5 out of 5 stars 01/23/23 Full Review Audience Member Pretty good western-romance-epic that I never heard of. It's also a pretty full movie with a love triangle, an ambush by bandits, a sandstorm, a town being built in the middle of the desert, and a great flood. Gary Cooper is in it and looks like he should be in college. Rated 4/5 Stars •  Rated 4 out of 5 stars 02/20/23 Full Review Audience Member Interesting cinematography and a very young Gary Cooper, but kind of a dull movie. Rated 2.5/5 Stars •  Rated 2.5 out of 5 stars 02/06/23 Full Review Audience Member <i>The Winning of Barbara Worth</i> is one of my favorite films of the 1920s. Relying on facial expression, body-language, and sheer "mood" and "ambiance" to light up the screen and drive the plot, this silent stunner makes you re-appreciate classic actors (among them Ronald Colman in his prime and a young and rugged Gary Cooper playing the kind of role he'd later epitomize) and the times when acting was a skill and not just about aesthetics and voice-work. All this aside, however, aesthetically, it's a rather haunting film, filled with dusty scenes, wonderfully innovative and mood-intensifying uses of color-shading to indicate the time of day throughout the movie, and some witty quips and dialogue (you almost wish you could hear the actors let it fly themselves, as opposed to reading it on the screen, but it all moves so fast, you barely notice). When the bursting-dam scene arrives, you hardly know what to expect--and then are surprised at what was accomplished in a mid-'20s film. The reactions of the locals are as eerie as they are humorous. By today's standards, the plot, characterizations, and even events may seem a bit trite, if not borderline cheesy--the ending itself is a little too simplified, with Coop's character seemingly giving up Barbara without much of a fight--but all in all, it's great to see this film on DVD. Pay attention to the sound--you can actually here someone laughing in the background at various moments, making it feel like you're watching a modern comedy show with a laugh-track. Rated 4.5/5 Stars •  Rated 4.5 out of 5 stars 01/31/23 Full Review Read all reviews

The Winning of Barbara Worth

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