Dusk to Dawn (1922)

As a young director, King Vidor certainly wasn't adverse to taking chances -- this picture, based on Katherine Hill's novel, The Shuttle Soul, suggests that maybe a soul can live in two bodies at the same time. This was quite an odd concept, even in an era when spiritualism had become something of a fad. Florence Vidor, the director's wife at the time, had a dual role -- as Marjorie Latham, whose brother John (James Neill) is in trouble for forgery, and also as Aziza, an Indian girl who is married to a Rajah (Peter Burke). John wound up in his situation because of a dancer, Babette (Norris Johnson), who has also entangled the son of banker Mark Randall (Herbert Fortier). Randall says he will not prosecute if Marjorie can cure his son, Philip (Jack Mulhall), of his infatuation with Babette. Marjorie gives it her best shot, and Philip falls in love with her instead. But she feels she cannot commit to him because she has strange dreams of India and senses that her soul is not her own. She does manage, however, to discover that Babette was responsible for the forgery, clearing her brother of the charge completely. When the Rajah dies and Aziza perishes on the funeral pyre, Marjorie's soul is finally free and she can marry Philip. Neither critics, nor audiences of the day, quite knew what to make of this mystical drama. ~ Janiss Garza, Rovi