SALOMY JAME is an ambitious movie from the dawn of American feature production. Based, as it is, on a stage adaptation of a Bret Harte story -- with interpolations from other stories by that author -- it attempts to do too many things without sufficient focus.
Having seen several adaptations made in this period, I suggest there are several reasons for this, including techniques still too primitive, but mostly because these movies were probably not seen as the primary medium for the story -- it was probably meant for someone already familiar with the Harte story or perhaps the stage play. Given that the IMDb does not show a credit for Harte's writing in the last thirty years, the casual assumptions of the movie makers will be lost in the welter of characters, props and even stage dressing -- during an early scene set in a store my eyes kept being drawn to the immense variety of goods on the shelves.
This is a pity, because the print that turned up in New Zealand and was repatriated to the United States about 2010 is in gorgeous condition and features some work by future stalwarts in front of and behind the camera -- Jack Holt is a stunt double, William Nigh is an actor. Hal Mohr, however, is the cameraman, as he would continue to be for many a decade -- he would be the only write-in Oscar winner in the 1930s and was still working through the end of the 1960s.
Having seen several adaptations made in this period, I suggest there are several reasons for this, including techniques still too primitive, but mostly because these movies were probably not seen as the primary medium for the story -- it was probably meant for someone already familiar with the Harte story or perhaps the stage play. Given that the IMDb does not show a credit for Harte's writing in the last thirty years, the casual assumptions of the movie makers will be lost in the welter of characters, props and even stage dressing -- during an early scene set in a store my eyes kept being drawn to the immense variety of goods on the shelves.
This is a pity, because the print that turned up in New Zealand and was repatriated to the United States about 2010 is in gorgeous condition and features some work by future stalwarts in front of and behind the camera -- Jack Holt is a stunt double, William Nigh is an actor. Hal Mohr, however, is the cameraman, as he would continue to be for many a decade -- he would be the only write-in Oscar winner in the 1930s and was still working through the end of the 1960s.