The Sorrows of Satan

This movie is available from Grapevine Video. Only two of the three films that Griffith did for Paramount exist, the only being "Sally of the Sawdust", that co-starred W.C. Fields. This one has Adolpe Menjou making an interesting entrance and exit as a well-dressed Prince of Darkness. Top billed, he actually has less footage than Ricardo Cortez or Carol Dempster, the actress Griffith really tried to make a star; she starred in almost all 1920's Griffith films up to this point and would vanish from the film scene much more effectively than Garbo would or could after this. Lillian Gish she wasn't. Actually, her pretty but not very beautiful looks help with the story of Cortez being dazzled with the fetes that Menjou takes him to. He actually even marries somebody else, played by Lya De Puti. The plot with this is somewhat ridiculous. However, Griffith's cross-cutting of the fetes and Dempster's loneliness is very effective. I really liked the showing of newspaper slowly covering the meal that Cortez was supposed to show up to and of she pretending he was there. (Echos of Chaplin's similar scene in "The Gold Rush".) I had much more fun watching "America" and "Isn't Life Wonderful", two other and the better known Griffith-Dempster films. But enjoyed Dempster more in this one.