Saturday, October 02, 2021

The Face on the Barroom Floor (1914)

Third viewing; previously viewed on May 29, 1996 and January 6, 2006.

A bum walks into a bar and tells his story: he was once a painter who fell in love with a woman and she traded him for a man whose portrait he was painting.

This is a (purportedly) comic adaptation of a (then) famous poem. The main actor enlivens the piece, and that's the film's main attraction. But the film has some intelligent ideas, like making the man who stole the protagonist's loved one fat and middle-aged (and rich) instead of handsome and young. That, and the encounter in the park, are what one could call the reality touch.

Rating: 56 (down from 63)

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