Dream Street (1921)

Despite the fact that there is a surfeit of almost theatrical ham on display here, I actually did quite enjoy this love triangle story. It’s the dance hall “Gypsy” (Carol Dempster) who is the fulcrum for men who are keen to make her their’s. Luckily, she isn’t too worried that siblings “Billy” (Charles Emmett Mack) and “Spike” (Ralph Graves) are vying for her attention with all the charm and subtlety of an air raid, nor that after a scene that leave little to our imagination, she has caused the local Chinaman (Charles Fong) to get into trouble with the constabulary. Presently, as the plot thickens, enter the malevolent “Way” (Edward Pell Snr.) who also takes an interest in our flighty dancer and tensions duly mount. Whom might she choose, if anyone? It would be fairly easy to pick this apart, this film. Though I felt Pell probably held the best hand from amongst the characters, the bulk of the acting is really nothing much to write (or mime) home about. Dempster does manage to glisten a little, but like Mack she has a role that calls for too many, almost schizophrenic, persona changes that can at times make you feel almost dizzy. That said, though, it does move along efficiently with solid, if hardly remarkable, production techniques that whilst perhaps not DW Griffiths’s finest hour behind the camera, provides a watchable drama from a still fairly embryonic industry that deliberately or otherwise manages to capture much of the seamy side of London’s sordid Limehouse district. It’s too long, but worth a watch.