Lazybones (1925)

While Lazybones may not be as formally exquisite a silent as those Frank Borzage made at the end of 1920s, it does offer its share of aesthetic pleasures. For instance, there are two brief yet visually striking tracking shots around the midway point of the film that underscore its dramatic movement. The first, which is followed by a pictorial overhead view, features a tearful young girl who comes running home to her eponymous "uncle" named Steve (Buck Jones) and asks him why the other children don't like playing with her. And not long thereafter, the girl's dying mother (Zasu Pitts) is seen traveling the same country road (the rustic milieu recalls Borzage's early westerns) to visit this man who once adopted her baby out of kindness.

Furthermore, Borzage expressively employs the soft natural light beaming down from the clear afternoon skies, under which this delicately somber story largely unfolds. But the mood isn't thoroughly despondent. In fact, there's a great running gag about the broken yard door, one which doesn't get fixed for most of the film's twenty-year time frame despite our shiftless protagonist constantly clamoring to be reminded of its state.

Customarily for a work by Borzage, Lazybones doesn't lack for poignant moments of feeling, especially during the later stages when, after returning from the First World War (as a surprise hero, no less), a middle-aged Steve finds himself being attracted to that aforementioned young girl, now a nubile adolescent (Madge Bellamy). Remarkably, though, his intent feels intimate, and genuinely so, rather than incestuous—quite possibly due to the fact that he's largely the reason why she survived as a child and that his act once caused him to sacrifice the love of his youth (the girl's aunt). Unlike a number of Borzage efforts there are no miracles to be found here, just a profound and, ultimately, sorrowful crystallization of absolute, selfless compassion.