This is a beautifully photographed film and a lavish production. Recently, I've mostly viewed pre-1920s films, and it's pleasantly revealing to then return to the late 1920s and witness how gorgeous silent films became. Camera movements are fluid and plenty, as are the glossy close-ups, and sometimes the camera moves during close-ups. Even the backgrounds in close-ups are glossed over or manipulated in a way to affect. This production in particular features top-notch production values, including expensive sets and staging. The negative cost alone was reportedly nearly $1.8 million; moreover, historian David Pierce says only "Ben-Hur" (1925) and "Old Ironsides" (1926) had cost more. It shows from start to finish: opening on an ornate antebellum Southern plantation, complete with period costumes, the in-studio created snowstorm and ice flow getaway, the use of a real riverboat and in Legree's rundown home.
As it turned out, the film was a box-office flop, despite the immense and decades-lasting popularity of Stowe's novel and its stage adaptations. Updating the story to America's Civil War and bringing the Union army into the South was a mistake in all regards, but it's doubtful it would've done well in the South anyhow. Reportedly, the stage plays tended to be more faithful to the anti-slavery theme and sympathetic racial views of the novel in Northern US states, while they transformed the story into minstrel shows in Southern ones. With the Jazz Age, the rise of the Ku Klux Klan, segregation and widespread racism, screen versions of "Uncle Tom's Cabin" went out of favor. According to Pierce, this film fell over a half million short of breakeven. Nevertheless, it doesn't seem surprising to me that Carl Laemmle would approve of this production. After all, it had proved a popular source for decades.
Additionally, the last time a director from America's heartland (this one's, Harry Pollard, came from Kansas) made an epic concerning slavery and the Civil War--D.W. Griffith's "The Birth of a Nation" (1915)--it was one of the biggest hits ever. Of course, those are about the only similarities between the two films, as an abolitionist wrote "Uncle Tom's Cabin", and "The Birth of a Nation" was based on a novel by a notorious white supremacist who wrote his book as a racist reaction to "Uncle Tom's Cabin". One other connection, however, is the casting of George Siegmann. He portrayed one of the more appalling racist characters in "The Birth of a Nation", as Silas Lynch, the mulatto made lieutenant governor who leads a black mob to seize control from white Southerners, deny their rights and rape their women. In "Uncle Tom's Cabin", he's the villain again, but as the slave trader and owner Simon Legree. Siegmann also gives the best performance here.
The narrative is also interesting and engaging, but flawed. This adaptation reworks Stowe's novel to focus less on Uncle Tom and more on Eliza, who, surely not coincidentally, is played by the director's wife. To me at least, those playing Eliza and her family are too clearly Caucasians, making the nature of their continued enslavement despite attempts of escape rather unbelievable. In the novel, Eliza and her family escape to Canada shortly after the chase on ice, which was followed by a shootout not included in this adaptation, so there wasn't this problem. In reality, it could be relatively easy for mulattoes this light of skin color to become free or pass as appearing Caucasian. Instead, here, we get rather absurd images of whites auctioned and enslaved among blacks in the South. (There were slaves who appeared white, by the way; I'm merely suggesting that the story is unconvincing in this respect and rather offensive for featuring Caucasian actors in the parts.) Caucasians in these parts weren't unusual, however, and, for romantic roles especially, it would've probably been controversial then to have them appear darker skinned. The 1914 film version, which I've recently viewed, also featured Caucasians as mulattoes, although it was more faithful to the novel--thankfully in this respect. (Also, a girl plays, for no apparent reason, Eliza's child, who in the story is a boy.)
An African American plays Uncle Tom, which was also the case in the 1914 film. James Lowe was too young for the part, though, and spends the proceedings not seeming to know whether to appear older or more vigorous and his own age. Topsy is played by a Caucasian in blackface and as somewhat of a pickaninny stereotype--this role seems to tend to be one of the more offensive. The two deleted scenes included on the Kino DVD feature Topsy and are more racist than anything in the rest of the picture.
As aforementioned, however, I did find the narrative engaging, as well as somewhat emotionally involving, and the film retains enough of Stowe's anti-slavery standpoint to be politically pleasing. More important, I think, it's visually engrossing. Sure, there are pictorially more amazing films from the late '20s, but this is still one of the better ones. The chase across breaking, flowing ice is reminiscent of the climax in "Way Down East" (1920). It also reminds me of the climax in "Our Hospitality" (1923), especially the waterfall suspense. The sequence in "Uncle Tom's Cabin" isn't as good as the ones in those two films, but it's impressive, nonetheless. Some shots of the rest of the blizzard are even, perhaps, more beautifully composed. Some compositions that especially struck me were those through windows and archways of characters looking at other characters. For the beauty of the image alone, this film is worth seeing.
(Note: The print does have constant speckling and some scratches due to age, but is, nevertheless, a very good restoration and transfer.)
As it turned out, the film was a box-office flop, despite the immense and decades-lasting popularity of Stowe's novel and its stage adaptations. Updating the story to America's Civil War and bringing the Union army into the South was a mistake in all regards, but it's doubtful it would've done well in the South anyhow. Reportedly, the stage plays tended to be more faithful to the anti-slavery theme and sympathetic racial views of the novel in Northern US states, while they transformed the story into minstrel shows in Southern ones. With the Jazz Age, the rise of the Ku Klux Klan, segregation and widespread racism, screen versions of "Uncle Tom's Cabin" went out of favor. According to Pierce, this film fell over a half million short of breakeven. Nevertheless, it doesn't seem surprising to me that Carl Laemmle would approve of this production. After all, it had proved a popular source for decades.
Additionally, the last time a director from America's heartland (this one's, Harry Pollard, came from Kansas) made an epic concerning slavery and the Civil War--D.W. Griffith's "The Birth of a Nation" (1915)--it was one of the biggest hits ever. Of course, those are about the only similarities between the two films, as an abolitionist wrote "Uncle Tom's Cabin", and "The Birth of a Nation" was based on a novel by a notorious white supremacist who wrote his book as a racist reaction to "Uncle Tom's Cabin". One other connection, however, is the casting of George Siegmann. He portrayed one of the more appalling racist characters in "The Birth of a Nation", as Silas Lynch, the mulatto made lieutenant governor who leads a black mob to seize control from white Southerners, deny their rights and rape their women. In "Uncle Tom's Cabin", he's the villain again, but as the slave trader and owner Simon Legree. Siegmann also gives the best performance here.
The narrative is also interesting and engaging, but flawed. This adaptation reworks Stowe's novel to focus less on Uncle Tom and more on Eliza, who, surely not coincidentally, is played by the director's wife. To me at least, those playing Eliza and her family are too clearly Caucasians, making the nature of their continued enslavement despite attempts of escape rather unbelievable. In the novel, Eliza and her family escape to Canada shortly after the chase on ice, which was followed by a shootout not included in this adaptation, so there wasn't this problem. In reality, it could be relatively easy for mulattoes this light of skin color to become free or pass as appearing Caucasian. Instead, here, we get rather absurd images of whites auctioned and enslaved among blacks in the South. (There were slaves who appeared white, by the way; I'm merely suggesting that the story is unconvincing in this respect and rather offensive for featuring Caucasian actors in the parts.) Caucasians in these parts weren't unusual, however, and, for romantic roles especially, it would've probably been controversial then to have them appear darker skinned. The 1914 film version, which I've recently viewed, also featured Caucasians as mulattoes, although it was more faithful to the novel--thankfully in this respect. (Also, a girl plays, for no apparent reason, Eliza's child, who in the story is a boy.)
An African American plays Uncle Tom, which was also the case in the 1914 film. James Lowe was too young for the part, though, and spends the proceedings not seeming to know whether to appear older or more vigorous and his own age. Topsy is played by a Caucasian in blackface and as somewhat of a pickaninny stereotype--this role seems to tend to be one of the more offensive. The two deleted scenes included on the Kino DVD feature Topsy and are more racist than anything in the rest of the picture.
As aforementioned, however, I did find the narrative engaging, as well as somewhat emotionally involving, and the film retains enough of Stowe's anti-slavery standpoint to be politically pleasing. More important, I think, it's visually engrossing. Sure, there are pictorially more amazing films from the late '20s, but this is still one of the better ones. The chase across breaking, flowing ice is reminiscent of the climax in "Way Down East" (1920). It also reminds me of the climax in "Our Hospitality" (1923), especially the waterfall suspense. The sequence in "Uncle Tom's Cabin" isn't as good as the ones in those two films, but it's impressive, nonetheless. Some shots of the rest of the blizzard are even, perhaps, more beautifully composed. Some compositions that especially struck me were those through windows and archways of characters looking at other characters. For the beauty of the image alone, this film is worth seeing.
(Note: The print does have constant speckling and some scratches due to age, but is, nevertheless, a very good restoration and transfer.)