Review of City Girl (1930) by Joel A — 17 Apr 2012

'city girl' is kind of the inverse 'sunrise' and was a compromised project for murnau, only being released in a truncated sound version which is now lost. while I much prefer murnau's original title of 'our daily bread', there are some lovely and lyrical scenes here as impressive as anything in 'sunrise', most notably the sequence of lem and kate running through the wheatfields and the final runaway wagon race lit by a single lantern.

good chemistry between the two leads and the earthier mary duncan is an interesting contrast to charles farrell's usual partner janet gaynor. it's somewhat of a miracle this full silent version has survived and there are some nice features related to the lost film '4 devils' on the disc as well.