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Movie

Wormwood

1915 · 50 min

A grim, cautionary melodrama that drags you through a man's self-destruction with heavy moralizing and tragic inevitability.

Overview
This picture deals with the fates of Gaston Beauvais, an aristocratic young banker of Paris, and Pauline de Chauvilles, his fiancée. Beauvais discovers that Sylvion, his best friend, has long carried on a clandestine love affair with Pauline. An artist acquaintance urges Gaston to comfort himself with absinthe. Gaston in his despair yields. From that moment the wreck of his career begins. Maddened by absinthe, he denounces Pauline at the marriage-altar on his wedding day, as Sylvion's cast-off mistress. Still driven by absinthe, he murders Sylvion and ultimately his brutalities drives Pauline, now a pitiful outcast of the streets, for she fled her home in shame after Gaston cast her off, to end her pathetic existence in the dark waters of the Seine.

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In the UKNo streaming, rental or purchase options known.
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How it feels

Written by AI. It can be wrong.

Tone
  • darkstrength 3 of 3
  • bleakstrength 3 of 3
  • melancholicstrength 2 of 3
  • earneststrength 1 of 3
Pacing
measured, 2 of 4, from slow-burn to relentless
Attention
engaged, 3 of 4, from background-friendly to demanding
Themes
  • addiction
  • betrayal
  • grief
  • guilt
  • death
Places
  • big city
Era
period
Audience
adult
Form
None
Content intensity
  • Gore none
  • Language none
  • Violence mild
  • Sex mild
All scales, 0 to 10
Scales, 0 to 10
ScaleValue0 to 10
Action2
Horror2
Humour0
Realism6
Romance3
Tension6
Darkness8
Complexity4
Emotional weight8

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Where to watch in the UK

No UK streaming, rental or purchase options are known.

Streaming data from JustWatch.TMDB

Details

Genres
drama
Directed by
Marshall Farnum
Written by
Garfield Thompson
Starring
John St. Polis, Ethel Kaufman, Charles Arthur, Edgar L. Davenport, Stephen Grattan
Runtime
50 min
Country
United States of America
Languages
No Language

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