Lightnin'

Starring: John Ford

104 Minutes

USA

1925

Starring: Jay Hunt, Made Bellamy, Ethel Clayton, J. Farrell MacDonald, Edythe Chapman

***/*****

Overlong and overstuffed John Ford comedy that has two strands of plot, opting to primarily follow the less interesting and entertaining of the roads. The leisurely first half hour has quite the pleasantly simple narrative: Lightnin' Bill Jones, Mother Jones, and their adopted daughter Millie run the Calivada Hotel, which has a line separating the border between California and Nevada. Though the overworked and tired Mother also has to contend with her husband's fondness for liquor, and the early scenes where he tries to find ways to drink give the film some amusingly unusual qualities. Once the plot mechanics kick into gear, the film loses some of its luster, introducing some real estate men who wish to purchase the hotel in order to build a railway line. Mother is eager to hand the land over, though under the advice of John Marvin, a young lawyer in love with Millie, Bill resists, and an irate Mother kicks him out and decides she wants a divorce. 

Lightnin' takes a few detours on its way to its predictably sentimental conclusion, and at an hour and forty five minutes there is not enough meat on this thin narrative to justify such a running time. The film sadly does not live up to the promises of these early scenes, and it is easy to lose interest in this business involving the businessmen and their plot and Marvin and Millie's love story when the much more interesting Jones marriage takes a backseat. Even Ford's enthusiasm with the material seems to wane, and these early scenes creatively give life and real detail to the space of the hotel. Once the narrative meanders with Lightnin' on the road by myself and a courtroom climax, the film even halts on visual life with heavy reliance on title cards and long speeches to wrap up all of the loose strands. Ultimately, this is an entertaining Ford silent that sadly stumbles when it abandons its more idiosyncratic inclinations and settles for something more routine.

Viewed on July 14th, 2020

Part of an ongoing John Ford Project with notes from selected films.