Tolable David
is a modern version of David and Goliath set in a quiet American farming community, disrupted by the arrival of three villainous brothers led by an escaped convict. Our David is a farmer's son who sees his father killed and his brother crippled; torn between fear and duty he finally battles and defeats his Goliath. Lewis Jacobs and Paul Rotha have both pointed out director Henry King's debt to D.W.Griffith, whether conscious or not, but King certainly adds something of his own style and technique to the film. “The narrative is strikingly simple and unmelodramatic, the whole picture was frank and pungent rather than sentimental.” (Lewis Jacobs) “Its atmosphere of rural America is solidly believable and its characterizations effective despite the occasional ‘Mary Pickfordisms.' In some ways (it) is comparable to Sjostrom's The Wind or Renoir's The Southerner, while its poetic sense of landscape may have influenced John Ford.” (Paul Rotha) “In the Soviet Union, Tolable David exercised considerable influence on their developing cinema. Pudovkin, especially, was impressed by the film and cited it repeatedly for its cinematic construction and use of plastic material.” -Georges Sadoul, “The Dictionary Of Films”