New York Times July 11, 1921, 9:3

"The Screen"

When a novel is translated into moving pictures and subtitles it must have some special treatment if it is to seem anything vital, something by way of sharpened characterization, intensification of plot or pictorial enhancement to take the place of the novelist's  invigorating words, but in the present case only animated illustrations of no particular distinction have been substituted for the words, and they make a poor substitute.

Thomas Meighan, who takes the leading role, is a nice-looking fellow and he has a certain whimsical manner sometimes that gives his characters a light and agreeable touch, but he scarcely ever creates a living, human being out of an author's fictitious figure, and in "The Conquest of Canaan," he does not even bring to his part the cagy good humor that, for instance, he brought his role in "White and Unmarried." The others in the cast -- Doris Kenyon as Ariel Taber; Louis Hendricks, as Judge Pike; Paul Everton, as Happy Farley, and so on -- are just lay figures without anything to distinguish them from hundreds fo others of their kind on the stage and screen. Nor has the director of the production, R. William Neil, given it any cinematographic individuality.

There have been much worse pictures than "The Conquest of Canaan," and also much better. It's just  mediocre. You can't get excited about it either way.

Probably many of those who see it will have a general idea of the story. They will remember that it is about a small town -- possibly it has been revived because of the popularity of  "Main Street," which it doesn't resemble very closely -- and they may recall that the leading characters are a disreputable young man, a reputable girl who has faith in him, and a hypocritical "leading citizen" whose sense of respectability is so offended by this young man's scandalous behavior that he becomes his vehement enemy. Why Judge Pike should develop such animosity toward as lowly a person as Joe Louden is not explained -- at least, on the screen -- but he does and Joe is finally provoked to show the town just what  and old faker the Judge is. His triumph and the Judge's  downfall are supposed to be an exposure of the tyranny and sham of small-town respectability, but the Judge is made so vulnerable that he's hardly typical. It is easy for Joe to dispose Judge Pike, but he would have an altogether different job on his hands with a Judge Pike of real life. That's why "The Conquest of Canaan" isn't convincing. It's too obviously fiction. ... "   July 11, 1921, 9:3.