L'Inhumaine (1924)

As you may have gathered by now, I have a real interest in silent film and try to see as many as opportunity allows.  However, let me confess that not all of them are worth the effort and this one is a case in point.  Or to be fair, it was worth seeing as a rather splendid example of 1920s art and design with stage sets by Leger and other avant garde artists; it even had the occasional interesting filmic effect.  What it didn't have was a story that was ever anything but idiotic nor talented actors.  I subsequently learned that the film was largely financed by an American singer called Georgette Leblanc who also took the lead, the inhumane female of the title.  They obviously had vanity pictures even then, as she was too old, too fat, and too unattractive to play the femme fatale -- and even worse she couldn't act.  At one point, I am convinced, her right breast popped out of her gown briefly and that was pretty off-putting too.  To add insult to injury, the film (at the National Film Theatre) was late starting as the person employed to do a voice-over translation of the French intertitles (!) was late arriving -- and a pretty grotty job of translation she did as well.  It was a very long two hours, not helped by the inanities of the plot.