This film has been recently restored to its original part-talking version through the efforts of the Library of Congress, the UCLA film archive, and Warner Bros./Turner Classic Movies. Not much gain, however, unless seeing and hearing the morose Richard Barthelmess sing the title song not once but four times is what you've been waiting for. As melodrama it is crude, lacking the punch that other early gangster melodramas like LITTLE CAESAR and PUBLIC ENEMY have. Direction is competent, not remarkable enough to earn an Oscar nomination, as it did for Frank Lloyd. But this was from Oscar's early years, when artists were nominated for all their work in the eligibility year, which allowed mediocre credits ride on the coattails of their betters.
Review of Weary River
