Sarah and Son

"Sarah and Son" is a very old fashioned film...the sort they made mostly in the late 1920s to the early 30s. The plot is a weepy thing with a longsuffering mother and her estranged son...sort of like what you'd also have seen in "So Big" (1932) or "Madam X" (1920, 1929). It's also the style film you really wouldn't see much of after the early talking picture days.

Sarah (Ruth Chatterton) is a woman who has fallen for the wrong man. Her husband turns out to be a lazy louse. He's so awful that one day he sells their baby and then joins the Marines in time to fight in WWI. Sarah is naturally beside herself with grief. Following the war, she discovers the name of the family the husband sold the baby to...but they refuse to return the child. Considering they are rich and she is a poor woman with little means, she eventually realizes it's futile and gives up...for now.

Now, ten years later, Sarah has become a world famous opera singer and has the means to fight back for her boy. And, considering how miserable the boy is, perhaps she'll get him back and they'll become a family once again. But what is next? Surely, getting him back won't be that easy in such a soapy picture...especially when the family with the boy are not above trickery to keep him.

In the early days of talking pictures, films tended to try too hard when it came to sound. Musicals were all the rage and in the case of this film, having Chatterton affecting such a strong accent was considered a good thing. Today, it just seems like she was overdoing the accent a bit and it made me wish the film either had subtitles or she'd dropped this odd Dutch-like accent. It's really hard to believe her performance garnered her an Oscar nomination, though many of the early winners and nominees are dated when you see them today (such as Mary Pickford in "Coquette").

Overall, a modestly enjoyable but very dated film that is mostly of interest to old movie buffs. Otherwise, the story is a bit hard to believe, the accent too thick and the story a bit sappy. Not bad, mind you...but also not all that good either.

By the way, years after the film was first released, it was re-released with a new title very sloppily slapped onto the title screen.