Customer Reviews

Isn't Life Wonderful [VHS]

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Paul and Inga are one of the sweetest couples ever put to film. Two starry-eyed kids in love at a time when it's downright foolish to get married, what with Paul weak from poison gas and Inga working two jobs to scrape together a pitiful dowry, and not an extra room to let anywhere in Berlin. Life is bleak, there's only turnips to eat, money is virtually worthless. So Paul secretly grows potatoes in the shipyard where he lands a job and cultivates his prized plot with utmost dedication, pinning his dreams and staking his faith on that crop which will feed the family through the winter and free him to make a life with his beloved, in the little house he built for them on a little scrap of land. But something awful happens to the potatoes, and Paul and Inga despair of ever seeing their dreams fulfilled ... yet in the end love triumphs as it should.

A simple, affecting story of refugees and postwar survival, ISN'T LIFE WONDERFUL is Griffith's most personal film. It celebrates the hopefulness of young love and the enabling power of strong, warm family ties during a dark, very difficult time. Never treacly and artificial, extremely realistically portrayed, from start to finish filled with memorable scenes and engaging vignettes ~ some of the most touching being actual footage of the war and of refugees traveling to their uncertain future with their meager belongings in tow.

Everyone seems just right for this film. Carol Dempster's appearance is hauntingly gaunt and she acts with a wistful brilliance ~ as mentioned, perhaps her most stellar role. Helen Lowell puts in a fine performance as a long suffering, ailing grandmother. Marcia Harris frets and worries and cares for her family most touchingly. Erville Alderson makes an endearing absent-minded professor. Neil Hamilton is pleasingly handsome as our plucky enterprising hero. Frank Puglia is suitably serious and studious as a waiter working his way through school. But my favorite character in the film was Lupino Lane as the spontaneous, irrepressible Rudolph with his concertina and tendency to break into dance for no apparent reason. (You have to admire that.)

Yes, despite the sheer drudgery and uncertainty of post-war existence Paul and Inga love each other and work very hard and hope to marry; the aunt keeps home and hearth and spirits together as she waits for better times; Grandmother plans a little secret for her beloved Inga; the well-educated Professor grades papers for the local school; Theodor waits tables for spoiled rich Americans with hopes of finishing his own education; and the spunky Rudolph dances a jig in the hallway while he sweeps the floor earning his pittance as a janitor. And everyone feels extra lucky and fortunate because they have each other and that's what makes life wonderful.

ISN'T LIFE WONDERFUL was D.W. Griffith's last independent production before he was forced to sell his Mamaroneck studio to help pay off mounting debts from his Revolutionary War epic AMERICA and his bad business practices. Though little known today compared to earlier films like BIRTH OF A NATION or INTOLERANCE, this little film, in my opinion, is Griffith's masterpiece. It incorporates the best elements of intimate dramas like BROKEN BLOSSOMS with a large scale backdrop like HEARTS OF THE WORLD. In fact it has been said that Griffith made this film to atone for the rabid anti-German sentiments of HEARTS (just as INTOLERANCE was supposedly made to respond to the rabid racial bias of BIRTH OF A NATION).

This story of a poor family's trials and tribulations in inflation ravaged post World War I Germany is remarkably grim and is presented realistically. Griffith came under heavy criticism for presenting a sympathetic portrait of a family in Germany (they were changed from German to Polish although one character tears up a picture of the Kaiser) and for shooting the film in Germany itself. His protege' Carol Dempster gives the performance of her brief career showing what she could have been capable of had Griffith used better judgement as to what he put her in. She plays Inga, a poor girl trying to keep her family's spirits up while trying to realise her own dreams. As the wounded veteran Paul who hopes to marry Inga, Neil Hamilton (who would play Commisioner Gordon on TV's BATMAN 40 years later) gives a sensitive and engaging performance.

The film plays like an early neorealist drama and had an impact on later filmmakers such as G.W. Pabst, Sergei Eisenstein, and even Vittoria De Sica (see UMBERTO D). It is starkly but beautifully photographed and full of social criticism which did not go down well at all with Jazz Age audiences. For modern audiences the film looks like the forerunner that it is and it brings out the best of what Griffith had to say both personally and professionally. A must not only for fans of Griffith and silent film but of film itself.

Good purchase. My relative was in the movie (Walter Plimmer). I received it two days after ordering it.

I fully concur with the first reviewer that this excellent film from KINO's "Griffith Masterworks" series is a masterpiece and no doubt one of Griffith's finest. As writer, director and producer, he managed to present a very realistic portrayal of Polish refugees struggling through the Depression years after World War I in Germany, when a cut of meat cost nine million Marks and people had to live off turnips day in and day out. The setting is far from what the film's title might imply, yet we learn that true love makes the smallest joy seem like life is simply wonderful. There is no over-sentimentality, however, nor too much intense drama or suspense, but the story takes you into the lives of a young couple and their family in such an effective way that you are fully engrossed from start to finish. To help it along is a beautiful music score with piano and violin by Robert Israel featuring some lovely old German folk songs, among others. The authentic German settings and scenery also add character and charm to this film, and gives us insight into the hardships of life at that time while also leaving us with the positive message that life truly can be wonderful, no matter what our circumstances.