7th Heaven (1927 film)
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This film has been preserved in the National Film Registry in 1995. | ||
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7th Heaven (also known as Seventh Heaven) is a 1927 American silent romantic drama directed by Frank Borzage, and starring Janet Gaynor and Charles Farrell. The film is based upon the 1922 play Seventh Heaven, by Austin Strong and was adapted for the screen by Benjamin Glazer. 7th Heaven was initially released as a standard silent film in May 1927. On September 10, 1927, Fox Film Corporation re-released the film with a synchronized Movietone soundtrack with a musical score and sound effects.
Why It Rocks
- It's considered by many to be one of the great romances in silent film, and marked the culmination of director Frank Borzage’s career (He also won the first Oscar for Best Direction).
- Like many of his best films, it has a vivid pictorial quality and depth, with a story that's unusually focused and driven, even when it veers into the absurd. His greatest accomplishment may have been his depiction of love as a mystical achievement, a force of destiny as much as an earthly struggle. The director wasn't concerned about narrative balance, or plausibility, rather he was trying to pinpoint and capture emotions. He was also unconcerned about technique, unless he could use it to support his goals. The film characterizes a perfect blend of optimistic romantic fantasy and German influenced production design.
- His style may be most evident in the film's climax, which intercuts between two plotlines in a manner that renders logic and realism irrelevant. For example, what had been portrayed as a tenement stairwell early in the film suddenly transforms into an ornate, spiral staircase; It was filmed from an overhead crane that rises over two stories.
- Based on a play by Austin Strong with a three-year Broadway run, the film's a romance with strong religious overtones, that followed an affair in Paris between a sewer worker and a prostitute during World War I. There isn't all that much of a proper plot, aside from the war being portrayed as a force that cruelly separated the lovers of Europe, however, the film still works well enough in spite of, or perhaps, because of that.
- Watching the film today, viewers are drawn into the intricacies of relationships, the shifting balance of power between people falling in love, despite Borzage playing intimate scenes out in front of hundreds of extras. With the story bordering so closely on maudlin, even by contemporary standards, it could have easily became melodramatic. Fortunately, the versatile director was able to handle the emotional aspects of the story.
- Frank Borzage was making huge demands on viewers on deeper levels as well. The film tells us that religion, government, and society itself cannot effect our salvation. The only thing worth living for is love, even if we must die to win it. The message was irresistible to audiences of the time.
- Great spectacles such as sweeping war scenes, marshaling "the whole French army of taxi cabs" into a blazing No Man's Land.
The Film