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List Price: $24.99Amazon.com's Price: $22.49 You Save: $2.50 (10%)Prices subject to change.
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Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Binding: DVD
EAN: 9786305944416
Format: Black & White, DVD-Video, NTSC
ISBN: 6305944415
Label: United Artists
Manufacturer: United Artists
Number Of Items: 1
Publisher: United Artists
Region Code: 1
Release Date: August 29, 2000
Running Time: 88 minutes
Sales Rank: 55741
Studio: United Artists
Theatrical Release Date: 1928
Editorial Review:
Description:
D. W. Griffith is properly esteemed as 'The Father of Film' from his years of discovery making short films at the pioneer Biograph Company and for such pioneering features as 'The Birth of a Nation,' 'Intolerance,' 'Broken Blossoms,' Way Down East' and 'Orphans of the Storm' (all available on DVD from Image Entertainment), but his later films--several of them lost or almost unavailable--were far less critically hailed. Griffith's 1928 comedy-drama 'The Battle of the Sexes' proves to be the exception. It is the story of a middle-aged magnate (Jean Hersholt) who makes a fool of himself when he strays from his loving but frowsy wife (Belle Bennett) and children (Billy Bakewell and Sally O'Neil) into the cynical arms of a gold-digger (Phyllis Haver) and her dishonest lover (Don Alvarado). As these characters are hurt and healed, Griffith expertly draws fine lines between tragedy and comedy, and his skill makes all the difference between emotional satisfaction and formulaic melodrama.
A middle-aged magnate strays from his loving but frowsy wife and children into the cynical arms of a gold-digger and her dishonest lover in D.W. Griffith's silent comedy-drama.
D.W. Griffith
Sally O'Neil, Jean Hersholt, Belle Bennett, Billy Bakewell, Phyllis Haver, Don Alvarado
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Amazon.com:
D.W. Griffith is hardly known for his light touch or his sense of humor, but both of these hidden talents are evident in this sexy romantic comedy. Griffith shows a smooth, fluid style and a sophisticated hand in the story of a middle-aged family man entranced by a gold-digging jazz baby. Character actor Jean Hersholt (yes, the same one the Oscars named the Humanitarian Award for) is a frumpy, bespectacled middle class husband and an unassuming Wall Street bigwig wooed by blond floozy Phyllis Haver. He's got a family and she has a boyfriend (an oily gigolo described as 'the wrong answer to a maiden's prayer'), but why should that stop a little after-hours fun? This being a Griffith film, the story winds up with a melodramatic climax, but he also displays a sly wit and the winking, thoroughly modern sensibility reminiscent of Ernst Lubitsch's cultured Continental touch. From the clever and elegant introductory scene to the carnivalesque treatment of a lover's tiff to the sentimental coda, Griffith's jazz age sex comedy is lovely, luscious, and more wry than you'd expect from the old man of Victorian melodrama. --Sean Axmaker
Customer Reviews
Average Rating: 
Rating:  - The Griffith Sensibility
This is mature Griffith, an elegant and entertaining film. But despite the engaging performance of a vivacious Phyllis Haver, THE BATTLE OF THE SEXES is not IT. Nor may it remind us of any single jazz-age movie as much as it does the plaintive songs of Henry Clay Work, in particular "Come Home Father," a piece far better suited to Griffith's nineteenth-century sensibility than the jittery dance music of the nightclub orchestra shown here. Did 1928 audiences yawn during this movie? Not a chance. ... Read More
Rating: - One of D.W. Griffith's most entertaining films
This is perhaps the most elegant film D.W. Griffith directed in his legendary career which began at the dawn of cinema in 1908, and ended a few years into the sound era in the early 1930s. Praised as `the Father of Film' for his pioneering of the `narrative film' in the early days, to setting the standard of the great epics such as "Intolerance" in 1916, Griffith still kept up with the changing styles of the 1920s, even though he no longer influenced the course of the film industry as much by this ... Read More
Rating: - Witty Tale of Wanderings & Wiles
A wealthy middle-aged businessman with the perfect family submits to the charms and the flattery of a gold digging flapper. But who's playing whom?
Certainly Marie the gold digger (Phyllis Haver) has an agenda with Mr. Judson (a blindsided, smitten Jean Hersholt). But no more than does oily, conniving Babe Winsor (Don Alverado) with his ladyfriend Marie. Babe is well aware of Marie's winning ways but doesn't care to submit to them personally. (Marie charmingly refers to him as 'perfumed ... Read More
Rating:  - D.W. Griffith has a soul
Though cynical, this shows D.W. Griffith had a soul. This movie shows the destruction of a family. Their middle aged father throws it all away for a pretty gold digger who obviously could care less about him. This role is deliciously played by Phyllis Haver and the scene with her and a piano has to be seen to believe. The best part of the movie is the hurt displayed by the family when they uncover their father's lies. The daughter (Sally O'Neil) is the best thing of this movie. She gives it the touch of innocence ... Read More
Rating:  - Much Better Than Its Original Notices.
Conventional wisdom says that D.W. Griffith didn't make a good movie after he lost his Mamaroneck studio in 1924. Between SALLY OF THE SAWDUST with W.C. Fields (1925) and THE STRUGGLE (1931), Griffith made 6 feature films for United Artists and Paramount. Most of these have been dismissed out of hand since they first appeared and a few are no longer available. THE BATTLE OF THE SEXES (1928) garnered him some of the worst notices of his career (to be outdone by his last film THE STRUGGLE) although preview audiences ... Read More
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