Film

The Patent Leather Kid

A 1927 silent film about a cocky boxer drafted into WWI, forced to discover manhood beyond the ring. Richard Barthelmess carries this weeper with genuine charisma, moving between comedy and stark trauma. It's for anyone curious about how silents handled male pride, war's cost, and redemption—genuine emotion caught in celluloid before sound arrived.

If you liked this

Wings1927

The best WWI aviation film ever made, released the same year. Stunning aerial sequences, real stakes, and Gary Cooper's quiet heroism. If you loved the boxer's journey, this captures the same collision of youth and war's brutality.

But Three hours of silent film with dated romantic subplots that interrupt the flying sequences. The pacing slackens noticeably in the second act.

Wings poster

All Quiet on the Western Front1930

A masterpiece about ordinary men destroyed by a war none of them wanted. Lew Ayres is heartbreaking, and the trench scenes remain genuinely horrifying. It's what The Patent Leather Kid gestures toward—the reality behind the heroism.

But Relentlessly bleak and exhausting. Some find the anti-war message heavy-handed, and the sound design emphasizes suffering rather than glamorizes it.

All Quiet on the Western Front poster

The Crowd1928

King Vidor's masterpiece about ordinary American life—ambition, pride, marriage, disappointment. John Gilbert is magnificent. Same era as Patent Leather Kid but focused entirely on the interior life of a regular man trying to matter.

But The ending is deliberately open-ended and unsatisfying. It's slow, introspective, and unapologetically sad.

The Crowd poster

Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from The Patent Leather Kid

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

Midnight Express1978

Both are about masculine pride destroyed by institutional violence. But where Barthelmess finds honor in his suffering, Davis finds only trauma and escape. One sanctifies the wound; one rejects the sanctification.

A man wrongfully imprisoned in Turkey is beaten, tortured, and broken. Brad Davis is ferocious. Like Patent Leather Kid, it's about pride colliding with systems larger than the self—but here there's no redemptive heroism, just survival and rage. The violence is explicit and unforgiving.

But Extremely violent and sexually disturbing. The politics are complicated—many Turks feel it misrepresents their country. Relentlessly grim with no catharsis.

Midnight Express poster
More like this (7)

The Big Parade1925

John Gilbert as a soldier whose love for a French girl is inseparable from his WWI experience. Epic but intimate, with genuine emotion and Vidor's brilliant direction. The war sequences are visceral; the romance is earned.

But The second half drags slightly, and the romantic resolution feels rushed. At over two hours, patience is required.

The Big Parade poster

The Vanishing American1925

Richard Dix as a Native American who enlists in WWI to prove his worth to a prejudiced nation. Genuinely angry about systemic racism while being a Hollywood film of its era. Surprisingly modern in its moral clarity.

But The racial politics are complicated—the film means well but can't escape its 1925 perspective. Some scenes feel uncomfortably patronizing by modern standards.

The Vanishing American poster

7th Heaven1927

Janet Gaynor and Charles Farrell in a romantic drama set partly during WWI. Tender and visually gorgeous. The film that won the first Academy Award for Best Actor. Pure romantic cinema from the silents' peak.

But The plot is sentimental to the point of manipulation. If you're allergic to earnest emotion and coincidence-driven drama, this will test your patience.

7th Heaven poster

The General1926

Buster Keaton's silent masterpiece—a Civil War comedy that's structurally perfect and wildly funny. Different war, different tone, but the same era of filmmaking. If you appreciate what Barthelmess brings to drama, watch what Keaton does with comedy.

But It's very much a 1926 film. The racial attitudes are deeply period. Some of the humor requires patience to land.

The General poster

Intolerance: Love's Struggle Throughout the Ages1916

D.W. Griffith's ambitious epic intercuts four historical periods to explore injustice. Visually revolutionary, narratively ambitious. See what the silents could attempt before The Patent Leather Kid refined the form into intimate human drama.

But At over three hours, the editing can feel chaotic. Griffith's racial politics are abhorrent. The Babylonian sequences are overwhelming rather than integrated.

Intolerance: Love's Struggle Throughout the Ages poster

Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans1927

F.W. Murnau's masterpiece about marriage, temptation, and redemption. Like Patent Leather Kid, it's about a man learning what matters. Visually inventive and emotionally devastating. The best film of 1927.

But More experimental and less plot-driven than you might expect. If you want narrative clarity, this moves into dream logic and mood.

Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans poster

The Man Who Would Be King1975

Like Patent Leather Kid, it's about men discovering manhood through conflict, and pride preceding catastrophic humbling. But Huston's heroes are willing con artists who choose their fate; Barthelmess's hero has war forced upon him. The film is adventure where the kid's story is tragedy.

John Huston's adventure film: two con men try to become gods in Afghanistan. Sean Connery and Michael Caine are magnetic. It's about male fantasy, ambition, and the cost of playing soldier beyond your competence. Rollicking fun with genuine philosophical depth.

But The colonial attitudes are very much a 1975 film's version of Empire. If you need modern perspective, you won't find it here. Some find it bloated.

The Man Who Would Be King poster

People

Cast

Directing

Writing

Production

Recommended by

The Story of Alexander Graham Bell