Lazybones

Programme: Bordwell / Thompson : Carte Blanche Directed by Frank Borzage (USA 1925) With Buck Jones, Madge Bellamy, Virginia Marshall 95 min / B&W / Subtitles: ⁄ PIANO Here is a perfect case of a small gem of a film by Frank Borzage being overshadowed by his most famous silent work, Seventh Heaven . I remember being bowled over by this film during the 1992 Le Gionate del Cinema Muto festival in Pordenone, which included a Borzage retrospective. Lost until a print was discovered in 1970, Lazybones was a revelation. It’s a simple story of an utterly unambitious young man in a small town, played by the amiable cowboy star Buck Jones. He secretly does a great kindness that makes him the pariah of the town and loses him the love of his life. Swiss film historian Hervé Dumont described it well, writing that it was “revealed as the most poignant–and the most accomplished–of Borzage’s works before Seventh Heaven .” – Kristin Thompson Theatre: Plateau