Tinkling piano music heralds another silent movie adventure; we’re in a sewer, and yet not a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle in sight. (Which is the only reason to be in a sewer, as far as I’m concerned… unless it has something to do with the Ghostbusters.) Two dirty-faced yet strangely robust-looking peasants are hard at work, digging in the sludge. One of them, named Sewer Rat (clearly not our hero, hairy, diminutive and corrupt as he is -- looking up girls’ skirts through a sewer grate!) acts as sounding board to the other, named Chico (Charles Farrell), who announces with lofty ambition: “That’s what I want to be, Rat… a street cleaner! Up there in the sun, among people.” Woah, dude. Aiming for the moon much? Steady on.

Meanwhile, above the surface, a wild-eyed slattern (Gladys Brockwell) is whipping a black-clad young miss (Janet Gaynor), whom it later transpires is her somewhat pathetic sister. They live in a Parisian garret -- yep, we’re in France again -- of the kind in which the worthy heroine often begins her romantic odyssey, or the evildoer receives his disease-ridden comeuppance; all bare floors and no fire and a single chair. Wild-eyed Slattern sends off Spineless Sister to accrue some more of the demon drink (she’s an alcoholic, natch) and while she’s out, a chipper clergyman comes in to announce the joyous news that the sisters’ rich uncle wants to take them away from all this. But first, they must prove themselves worthy: “Tell me: are you always clean and decent?” Rich Uncle demands sternly. “I want the truth, Diane!” (Spineless Sister at last has a name!) “If you and Nana”-- Wild-eyed Slattern -- “haven’t been good girls, I don’t want you in my house.”

Diane, of course, cannot tell a lie (‘cause, in addition to being spineless, she is clearly suffering from Battered Woman Syndrome) and tells the one man who can save her from an ignominious fate that she and her sister have not, in fact, been good girls, and perhaps not especially clean and decent either. Wait, what do they mean by all this? Is this… are they talking about sex? Are Diane and Nana fallen women? Well, suddenly I’m way more interested in the two of them.

"Die, Diane, die!"

Rich Uncle, however, is not. He throws money at their feet, disgusted, and then he and his wife and their friend -- oh yeah, their friend, the dapper Colonel Brissac (Ben Bard), is there too -- depart, leaving Diane to another heaping helping of whoop ass. She at least has the sense to run out into the street this time as her sister attacks in blind (and, I have to say, kind of understandable) rage, but the maddened Nana follows, continuing the beating until at last she is strangling Diane in the gutter to the evident amusement of onlookers. Until, that is, our old friend Chico emerges from the sewer and dangles Nana over an open river of slime. “Do you promise not to abuse that girl anymore? If you do that again, I’ll remove your stomach and fry it!” he scolds. Nana takes off, weak as are all bullies when confronted, and just as I am warming to Chico, just as I’m thinking what a chivalrous and benevolent soul he is under all his dirt (why, I even begin to think he could possibly make it in the competitive world of street cleaning someday), he says of Diane: “A creature like that is better off dead,” before leaving her lying in the gutter! And then I don’t like him so much anymore.

Eventually he relents, picks her up and even offers her food, but he and I are not off to a good start, and I find I am not looking forward to the undoubtedly sadomasochistic romance that will surely develop between the two. (Oh, come on. We all know it’s coming.) True, he airs some pleasingly refreshing atheistic views -- Reverend Camden, of that other Seventh Heaven, would be horrified! -- but when the Padre comes and bestows upon him his dream job as a reward for valor, it seems doubtful that even this redeeming character trait will last very long.

Meanwhile, over at I’m So Pitiful Central, Diane -- who has been looking on in woebegone passivity -- takes up a knife and attempts to plunge it into her stomach, tragic opera heroine-style. Chico saves her life again (“With my knife? That’s just great!”), and then saves her liberty. Nana, the stone cold bitch, tries to get her sister arrested -- Nana’s being taken in by the gendarmes for unspecified crimes; I’m guessing something to do with being a wild-eyed slattern -- but Chico declares of Diane: “She is my wife.” And then they have to make the lie look convincing… so Diane moves in with him!

"Avon calling!"

There follows a good twenty minutes of Living in Sin in Chico’s own (nicer) garret, and Diane, who was already more than half in love with him, falls ever deeper. He keeps telling her: “This means nothing! Don’t even think of staying here!” but now that he’s a street cleaner at last and he has someone to keep house for him and dress him and groom him (seriously) he realizes life is pretty sweet. “If you want to stay, I can’t stop you,” he says, and then with barely any warning he’s calling his seventh floor apartment “Heaven” (get it?) and buying her flowers and a pretty dress and, hey, they’re getting married! Domestic tranquility prevails for a time... but not a very long time. ‘Cause: WAR!

Dammit. Again? Didn’t Wings just do this to me?

Chico and his street cleaner friend Gobin (David Butler) must away to defend France, but not before our man declares his love for Diane (“At last!”) and they indulge in some hot and heavy making out I can’t believe got by the censors. They marry in an ad hoc ceremony involving religious medallions and a plea from our atheist hero (“Good God, if you really exist, make this a true marriage!”), and I’m unexpectedly pulling for this couple, so fond now of Chico and Diane’s abrupt and proximity-based romance that I quite fear the perils war can bring. Bye, Chico! Take care!

With him out of the way, who should arrive at the door but Nana, wild-eyed and slatternly as ever, whip in hand. But the Diane who just got pseudo-married isn’t the Diane of the past, and, oooh, girlfight! Nana is satisfyingly defeated without much effort… but not so the Kaiser! Much time passes in a flurry of explosion-heavy montages and women waiting patiently.

Chico, off to clean the streets around that big castle in the sky...

Then, out of nowhere, Colonel Brissac is back. (Remember him, from the very start of the movie?) Diane’s working away in a munitions factory and he’s there, dapper as ever, putting the moves on her. “Listen, Diane. The world is topsy-turvy… Ideals, faith, traditions, all have been smashed! What do the old rules matter now? Each day could be the last. Let me take care of you!” Smooth, huh? But she remains loyal to Chico, and he to her… every day at eleven he goes off by himself, just to say her name. I kind of love Chico now, and when he is -- inevitably, one must feel -- killed in the war, I am almost as distraught as Diane.

Then, yay, the Armistice is signed, the war is over! But not for Diane. She goes on a tear about how God is dead and how much life sucks and Colonel Brissac (oh, yeah, he’s there again) looks on like “Woah, maybe I don’t want to shack up with this crazy chick after all” and then… wait! Who’s this pushing through the jubilant crowds? Is it… can it be? Hey, I know those luxuriant locks!

But, get this! Just as Chico is rushing home, Brissac says: “From now on, I will take care of you” and Diane says, without missing a beat, “I think it would be okay to make a fresh start” before falling into his arms. Jesus, Queen Victoria! Don’t mourn for too long, will ya?

"I really hope my bride doesn't hook up with anyone else in the, oh, twenty seconds she thinks I'm dead!"

Then in comes Chico right on eleven (thanks for the shot of the clock there, movie), blind but alive. “Diane,” he exults, “I was hit by many splinters! They thought I had died in the trenches, but I will never die!” (Oh, really?) He will never die because he’s come over all religious, giving up his determined atheism (“Now that I am blind, I can finally see!”) and sure that he will overcome his blindness by and by. We are then treated to a fourth reprise of the movie’s theme song (it’s called “Diane”, and the words “seventh heaven” are repeated many, many times), a beam of Heavenly light hits the reunited couple to the delight of the Padre (and, no doubt, the curses of the thwarted-in-love Colonel Brissac) and c’est finis.

So, Seventh Heaven. You know what? I really liked this movie. Way more than Wings, for a start. It’s Green Card meets Pretty Woman meets Cold Mountain with added luxuriant Gallic mustaches. The quality of the silent movie-era performances aren’t nearly so laughable as in Wings: indeed, Janet Gaynor’s speaking eyes work remarkably well in this medium, although Wild-eyed Slattern is a disaster all around, and how happy I am that she got what was coming to her. The editing in this movie is far superior to that of Wings, also, keeping the story moving along at a brisk pace; the war looks infinitely more warlike; and Charles Farrell is way better looking than anyone in Wings -- even Gary Cooper. I can’t believe I’m about to say this, but I actually think I might even be prepared to seek out other silent movies directed by Frank Borzage. I love his work.

My only problem with Seventh Heaven, really, concerns the ending. No, not that Chico Found God, or even that he ended up coming back from the grave (despite his touching battlefield death scene). My main worry is that he came back without his vision.

’Cause how’s he going to be a street cleaner now?

  -- Rachel Hyland