Lazybones (1925) - film review

Everyone refers to Steve Tuttle as Lazybones, and with good reason.  He spends his days idling around, too lazy even to patch up the house he lives in with his aged mother.  He ought to get married.  He has taken a shine to Agnes Fanning.  But what’s the hurry?   There’ll be time enough for all that later.  One day, Steve sees Agnes’s sister Ruth drowning in the river.  With unaccustomed haste, he comes to her rescue and learns that she had wanted to kill herself.  Ruth has recently lost her husband, a seaman, and was on her way back home with her newborn baby, Kit.  Unable to prove that she was married, Ruth is convinced that her mother and all the townsfolk will believe the child to be illegitimate.  To save Ruth from disgrace, Steve agrees to adopt Kit and bring her up as though she were his own.  In doing so, he loses Agnes.  Eighteen years later, Steve returns to his hometown, having fought in the Great War.  Kit is now an attractive young woman, the very image of her mother, and Steve realises that he is love with her.  But she has fallen for another man of her own age...

An exquisitely crafted portrait of unrequited love, Lazybones represents one of the high points of Frank Borzage’s extraordinarily productive filmmaking career.  The film transcends the conventional melodrama of its era, having a raw lyrical quality and simplicity that cannot fail to captivate and move an audience.  Borzage’s delicacy and humanity are apparent in virtually every shot and the film has a realism that prevents it from ever feeling contrived or mawkish.  

The titular role is played by Buck Jones, a major star of popular westerns at the time.  Here he gives a sympathetic and totally convincing performance in a low key part that combines pathos and humour to great effect.  Zasu Pitts and Jane Novak heighten the film’s emotional impact as the principal heroines, both talented and highly photogenic young actresses of the period.  Beautifully photographed in the realist tradition, with natural locations that vividly evoke a calmer, less hurried time to the one in which we now live, Lazybones is one of those rare films from the silent era which truly engages with a modern audience and leaves a lasting impression.

© filmsdefrance.com 2009

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