7th Heaven (1927)

7th Heaven is an American romantic film drama first released in 1927, directed by Frank Borzage.  The film is based on a play by Austin Strong and stars Janet Gaynor, Charles Farrell, Ben Bard, Albert Gran and David Butler.  Our overall rating for this film is: excellent.


Paris, 1914.  Chico, an atheistic loner, has grown tired of toiling in the sewers and hopes that one day he will become a street washer like his neighbour Gobin.  Meanwhile, sisters Diane and Nana receive an unexpected visit from their wealthy relatives, who offer them the prospect of a better life.  When Diane admits to being a prostitute, her relatives turn their back on her and her sister.  Infuriated, Nana chases Diane into the street and begins to beat her.  Chico comes to the unfortunate woman’s rescue.  When a policeman threatens to take Diane into custody, Chico saves her a second time by saying that she is his wife.  Knowing that the police will later call at his home to confirm this, Chico allows Diane to stay with him in his humble seventh floor lodgings.  Initially, Chico feigns disinterest in his houseguest and warns her that once the police have called she must go on her way.  But Diane’s heart has been moved by Chico’s kindness and she soon discovers that she is in love with him.  It is not long before Chico becomes aware of his true feelings for Diane and they agree to marry.  But before they can do so, war is declared and Chico realises that he has no choice but to enlist in the French army...

7th Heaven is the film that made Janet Gaynor an overnight star and further cemented Frank Borzage’s reputation as one of Hollywood’s greatest directing talents.  Gaynor had previously played the female lead in F.W. Murnau’s Sunrise, but this was released a few months after Borzage’s film.  7th Heaven was the first of twelve films in which the actress starred opposite another icon of the silent era, Charles Farrell, making one of the most popular screen pairings in cinema history.

The film was based on Austin Strong’s hit Broadway play, first performed in October 1922, and was itself a major success, grossing $2.5 million, a figure that was exceeded by only twelve other films in the silent era.  It was also lauded at the first ever Academy Awards ceremony in 1929.  In addition to Gaynor’s Best Actress win (which rewarded her for her performances in this film, Sunrise and Borzage’s next film Street Angel), the film garnered Oscars for Best Director (the first of two wins for Borzage) and Best Writing (Adaptation).  The film was also nominated in the Best Picture and Best Art Direction categories.  It was remade by Henry King in 1937 as Seventh Heaven, starring Simone Simon and James Stewart.

7th Heaven typifies Frank Borzage’s distinctive brand of cinema, both stylistically and thematically.  Heavily influenced by his contemporary Murnau, Borzage uses expressionistic design and lighting to create mood and camera motion (including some very long tracking shots) to help make the spectator an active participant in the drama.  These perfectly honed techniques lend the film its beguiling mix of romanticism and modernity, making it far more accessible to a modern audience than most films of this era.  Visually, this is one of Borzage’s more striking films, achieving an epic quality through its authentic recreation of 1910s Paris and some harrowingly realistic WWI battle sequences.

The central theme of this film is one that recurs in much of Borzage’s work, namely the power of love to transform lives for the better.  Here, it is love that elevates a cynical sewer worker and a downtrodden prostitute from the lower depths in which they had previously wallowed to a state of being that is as close to Heaven as mortal man may get.  The staircase (another Borzage motif) which takes the young lovers up to Chico’s attic room symbolises not only their inescapable sexual union but also the spiritual ennobling which comes from the love that they have awakened in each other.  Here, love is not just an emotion or an adjunct to animal lust, but a force of nature that is as tangible as gravity, with the power to change lives and provide the means by which men and women may confront and defeat future adversities.  Borzage would also have us believe that love is the truest manifestation of God’s will, a medium through which telepathic communication between individuals is possible, although mercifully he does not labour the point.

Given that film’s source is a horribly contrived piece of melodrama, Borzage achieves a small miracle in refashioning it as a believable and exquisitely poignant piece of cinema.  Even when things stray perilously close towards mawkishness in the final reel, the characters and their situation are still anchored solidly in reality and we cannot help but be profoundly moved by their story.  Few films convey the redeeming power of love as eloquently and with such warmth and sincerity as this sensitively crafted drama from one of the true masters of cinema.

© James Travers 2009

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