. . . no matter how much you may wish to join the bride-to-be's friend, played by here by actress Ellinor Vanderveer, in having the male folk in one's circle NOT be filched away by the charms of the indigenous set. Unlike the mutinous sailors in the two BOUNTY movies, the guys aboard the large ocean-going yacht in THE LOVE CHARM do NOT have the excuse that there are no women around of their own race, or that returning to England will result in their hanging (or even that they have not seen their own social set of women for the first six months of their voyage). In this case, they are traveling WITH the women of their own set, whose "charms" prove no match for those of the native girls as soon as the latter appear in their survey of a nearby island via spy glass. Though THE LOVE CHARM does not do a very good job of explaining what all these white people are doing gallivanting around the South Seas of 1928 in the first place, the story line could be summarized with one or both of the adages beginning "the grass is always greener . . . " and\or "the darker the berry . . . " Suffice it to say no one is holding a gun to the groom-to-be's head when he allows himself to be "leid," or when he and his cohort plot to ditch their women for a quick return to this Isle of Love.
4 Reviews
Every Little Movement Has a Meaning All Its Own
boblipton25 November 2013
A yacht shows up at a small island where the wahinis are dancing the hula -- in colorful tops, alas. The men are charmed. The ladies are disapproving the the yacht owner falls in love with one of the dancers in this late silent, two-strip Technicolor short from Tiffany.
Tiffany was a poverty Row studio with ambitions. They hired John Stahl and fronted some prestigious stuff, including distributing some two-strip movies, before they crashed and burned in the early 1930s under the stresses of the Depression. This particular short, which turned up in New Zealand, is in very good shape. It was shot by Technicolor's Ray Rennahan to show off the process. There are lots of colorful leis, the ladies all wear clearly differentiated dresses in strikingly different colors, the trees are almost emerald green and the sands are pink: which is actually the point of this production.
As for the story, it is a simple one, credited to Duncan Renaldo, better remembered for playing the Cisco Kid in the movies and on the television. He had ambitions, though: half a dozen screenplays, one turn as director and a few as an associate producer in the late 1940s. The director was a busy actor who directed about thirty movies. This was his last.
Tiffany was a poverty Row studio with ambitions. They hired John Stahl and fronted some prestigious stuff, including distributing some two-strip movies, before they crashed and burned in the early 1930s under the stresses of the Depression. This particular short, which turned up in New Zealand, is in very good shape. It was shot by Technicolor's Ray Rennahan to show off the process. There are lots of colorful leis, the ladies all wear clearly differentiated dresses in strikingly different colors, the trees are almost emerald green and the sands are pink: which is actually the point of this production.
As for the story, it is a simple one, credited to Duncan Renaldo, better remembered for playing the Cisco Kid in the movies and on the television. He had ambitions, though: half a dozen screenplays, one turn as director and a few as an associate producer in the late 1940s. The director was a busy actor who directed about thirty movies. This was his last.
The Love Charm review
JoeytheBrit3 May 2020
Technicolor Makes it Worth Watching
Michael_Elliott3 December 2013
The Love Charm (1928)
** 1/2 (out of 4)
Decent silent one-reeler was thought lost for nearly eighty years until a print turned up in New Zealand along with other films from this era. The story is pretty simple as a yacht winds up on an island where its owner (Lucio Flamme) realizes that his life is pretty boring with his fiancée. He then sees a beautiful native woman (Ann Christy) and the two fall in love. There's really not too much that happens throughout the ten-minute running time but with such a short time I must admit that this helped keep me involved in the picture. There's no question that this thing isn't going to win any major awards but there are still enough good things here to make it worth viewing. The best is obviously the two-strip Technicolor, which actually holds up quite well and especially when you consider that this was lost for so many decades. This Technicolor really shines during the outdoor scenes where we get to see the sand and the ocean. I thought the performances were also good enough for this type of film as both Flamma and Christy manage to be charming together in their own way. The lack of a real story certainly hurts the picture at times but then again, it's so simple that you can't help but enjoy it.
** 1/2 (out of 4)
Decent silent one-reeler was thought lost for nearly eighty years until a print turned up in New Zealand along with other films from this era. The story is pretty simple as a yacht winds up on an island where its owner (Lucio Flamme) realizes that his life is pretty boring with his fiancée. He then sees a beautiful native woman (Ann Christy) and the two fall in love. There's really not too much that happens throughout the ten-minute running time but with such a short time I must admit that this helped keep me involved in the picture. There's no question that this thing isn't going to win any major awards but there are still enough good things here to make it worth viewing. The best is obviously the two-strip Technicolor, which actually holds up quite well and especially when you consider that this was lost for so many decades. This Technicolor really shines during the outdoor scenes where we get to see the sand and the ocean. I thought the performances were also good enough for this type of film as both Flamma and Christy manage to be charming together in their own way. The lack of a real story certainly hurts the picture at times but then again, it's so simple that you can't help but enjoy it.
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