Hell's Heroes (Wyler, 1929): BFI Southbank, NFT1, 3.15pm
This film, part of the Silent Cinema strand at BFI Southbank, will be introduced by BFI National Archive curator Bryony Dixon.
Chicago Reader review:
“Down With Ford! Long Live Wyler!” was the title of a 1948 article by
French writer and filmmaker Roger Leenhardt, and I’m hard-pressed to
think of a more dubious pronouncement by a major critic. But it starts
to become plausible if one compares William Wyler’s gritty and
beautifully photographed western Hell’s Heroes (1929) with John Ford’s
sentimental remake, 3 Godfathers (1948). Three escaping bank robbers
find themselves caring for an orphaned baby in the cruel desert, and
Wyler does a matchless job of keeping this Christian allegory life-size
and unsentimental without ever diluting its emotional power. With
Charles Bickford, Raymond Hatton, and Fred Kohler.
Jonathan Rosenbaum
Here (and above) is an extract.
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