JohnHowardReid "Male and Female" (1919) is now available from Alpha in a 57 minutes version. Well, actually it's not what you would call a version. My guess is that some collector or library had a pristine 16mm copy, but somehow managed to mislay reel two. So, in the Alpha version we get a sudden cut of the yacht sailing away from merry England to a scene in ancient Babylon. So although we encounter the lions all right, we miss all the stuff about the shipwreck, the arrival on the island and the sorting out of who's-in-charge. But we do see the rescue and all the back-in-England scenes. Enough of the film survives at Alpha to sustain our interest and appreciate all the fine acting from Thomas Meighan (a subtle, well-shaded performance), Gloria Swanson (in her vampish element here), Lila Lee (as the entrancing Tweeny) and most particularly Rhy Darby – in her only movie appearance – as the lovely, titled lady who wants to marry her chauffeur (played with just the right blend of lower-class charisma by Henry Woodward).

kidboots J.M. Barrie's "The Admirable Crichton" opened on London's West End in 1902 and ran for a staggering 828 performances, the next year it came to Broadway. The play differed from the film in that (in the play) Lord Loam considered class division artificial and during tea parties, servants were expected to mingle with the guests as equals - only Crichton, the butler disapproves, feeling everyone should know their place.The Loam family are introduced as upper class twits with more money than sense. The house is run by the servants - in particular, Crichton (Thomas Meighan), the Loam's dignified butler, who is always at the ready to show people the right way of doing things (especially adoring scullery maid Tweeny (Lila Lee) and boot boy, Buttons (Wesley Barry)). The family beauty - Lady Mary (gorgeous Gloria Swanson) is completely spoilt and has servants to cater to her every whim, from seeing her bathwater is just the right temperature to making sure her toast is not too soft. There is a wonderful bathroom scene, with all the most modern conveniences, including luxurious rose water spraying from a fountain.The Loams go on a South Sea cruise but disaster strikes as their boat hits a rock and they have to make their way to an uninhabited island. True characters come to the fore, the family are lazy and expect their servants to obey their every whim. Crichton soon shows himself a true leader and everyone in the party turns to him for guidance. Two years pass and everyone is living together as equals and pulling their weight, there is no master or servant - all except Crichton, who is now the supreme leader. Mary and Tweeny now fight for the opportunity to serve him supper. Being a DeMille production, there is a spectacular Biblical scene (maybe his first) with Meighan as a bored, callous King, Bebe Daniels as a saucy slave girl and Gloria Swanson as a beggar maid, who goes to the lion's den rather than put aside her Christian principles.They are eventually rescued and Crichton and Lord Loam are the first to remember their "places" in the world. Lady Mary can't forget her love, they were just about to be married when the rescue boat is seen. Back in civilization, Lord Brockelhurst resumes his courting of Mary - all through the film he has shown himself to be pretty flirtatious with Mary's maid - you know when Mary accepts his proposal - her life will not be a happy one. Crichton hides his true feelings about Mary and when she is visited by an old friend who has defied her family, married her chauffeur and lived to regret it - he impulsively asks Tweeny to marry him. They will leave service and sail for America, where everyone is equal (the last scene is particularly sweet as Crichton walks to a farmhouse after finishing ploughing for the day, to find Tweeny waiting for him.)I do agree, I think the titles are profuse and flowery and excessive - they would do credit to a William S. Hart western!!! I also think Thomas Meighan was born for this role - he was manly and masterful. He was also excellent in "Why Change Your Wife?" - Cecil B. DeMille obviously liked him a lot as he popped up in quite a few of his movies. Although Barrie had considered ending his play with Crichton and Mary continuing their affair, even after Lady Mary is married, he decided on a more conventional ending as he thought "the stalls wouldn't like it"!!!Highly, Highly Recommended.

drednm Very solid Cecil B. DeMille production of JM Barrie's play, "The Admirable Crichton" with a few DeMille flourishes.Crichton (Thomas Meighan) is a very proper butler in a staid British home. Of course he has a distant crush on Lady Mary (Gloria Swanson), a very pampered and spoiled young lady. Tweeny the household maid (Lila Lee) has a crush on Crichton.The family, headed by a silly old man (Theodore Roberts) decides to take a sailing trip to the South Seas and gathers up a party of family and friends. Of course they run the yacht into a rock and are washed ashore on a deserted island. The rich are all nitwits and haven't a clue how to do anything for themselves. They assume Meighan and Lee will continue to wait on them. Wrong.Slowly it occurs to everyone that there is a new order on the island. The crafty and self-sufficient Meighan sets out to build a shelter, a fire, harvest food, etc. while the rich sit and watch. Their attempts to copy him are sadly disastrous. Eventually they "join" the former butler's group with Meighan as a sort of king.Among the items that have washed ashore after the wreck is a book of poems that talks about a Babylonian king. In a typical DeMille moment, Swanson daydreams about her life in a Babylonian court. The sequence that follows ranks among the most famous in silent film history as Meighan becomes the Babylonian king who sentences the reluctant maiden (Swanson) to the lions' den as his jealous courtesan (Bebe Daniels) gleefully watches. The scene is much shorter than I remembered as the fabulously gowned Swanson walks in among the lions. The famous scene of the bare-backed Swanson with the roaring lion atop her was very real (no double).And so the merry band of islanders, under King Crichton, goes on for a few years until, just before the marriage of Swanson and Meighan), they are "rescued" and returned to their former lives (and stations).Meighan and Swanson are terrific. Roberts is funny as the old man. The supporting cast includes Julia Faye (as a maid), Robert Cain (as Swanson's boring suitor), Edmund Burns (as the vicar), Raymond Hatton (as the silly ass Ernie), Mildred Reardon (as Lady Agatha), and Rhy Darby (as the pitiful Lady Duncraigie who marries her chauffeur).Logic aside, this is a stylish and solid film and features a ravishing 20-year-old Gloria Swanson in one of her first big hits for DeMille. Another famous scene is early in the film as Swanson prepares to taker her morning bath, a ritual that includes several maids, gallons of rose water, and another of DeMille's groundbreaking interior designs.A must see for fans of silent films.

Steffi_P The silent films of Cecil B DeMille, scripted by his long-time collaborator (and mistress) Jeanie MacPherson were often bizarre, overwrought and sometimes just plain silly. Once in a while however they hit the nail right on the head. Male and Female, heavily adapted from JM Barrie's play The Admirable Crichton, is a powerful drama with some strong performances, DeMille's direction at its most lyrical, and MacPherson's storyline only occasionally veering off the rails.The majority of DeMille films from this part of his career begin with a lengthy title card with some kind of moral or motto. However, Male and Female opens with images – the crashing sea, a sunset – before getting onto the intertitles. The typical DeMille silent would then follow this up by introducing us to each of the main characters with a title followed by a shot of them. Male and Female is no exception, but it works these introductions into the film's world and draws the audience in by making them point-of-view shots of a young servant peeping through the keyholes into his masters' and mistresses' bedrooms.The acting style that DeMille had encouraged and developed in his silent pictures since the mid-1910s was largely naturalistic, but with the occasional broad theatrical gesture to highlight a dramatic moment. It was a style that reduced the need for intertitles, without resorting to ridiculous pantomiming. The two leads, Gloria Swanson and Thomas Meighan are both perfectly suited to this style. Meighan was probably the finest male actor DeMille had worked with since Sessue Hayakawa (in 1915's The Cheat), and his performance here is mesmerising. Swanson is also great as usual, although I have to say that although it was her run of pictures with DeMille that made her name, she didn't do her best work with him. Her talent was put to far better use in later features such as Queen Kelly and Sadie Thompson.Aside from the performances, it's the dramatic story and its presentation that makes Male and Female so memorable. Only the basic plot of Barrie's play remains, and this is a typical DeMille/MacPherson story of the reversal of fortune and forbidden love – probably the strongest of this kind that they did before the slant in DeMille's films became increasingly moralist (and, of course, religious). Although DeMille loved these tales of class and inequality (he was at that point a socialist as well as a Christian), it is the impossible love between the two leads that is at the heart of this story. The real tragedy of Male and Female has nothing to do with the selfish pomposity of the aristocrats – it is the fact that the love between the rich woman and the poor man can only exist in this fantasy world of the remote island. This is set up from the beginning with the subplot of Swanson's friend who marries her chauffeur and becomes a social outcast. The final scenes in which the various love triangles are resolved are incredibly moving.The only significant wrong note in Male and Female is a brief and rather pointless flashback to ancient Babylon. These historical inserts had been en vogue since Griffith's Intolerance (a more influential film than some would have us believe), but this one is rather lacklustre and it's hard to see exactly how it fits the main story. It appears more of an excuse for DeMille to work in some epic grandeur (from 1918 to 1922 he only made contemporary dramas and comedies) and MacPherson to explore her interest in reincarnation. The story does need a dramatic highpoint at the stage where the flashback comes in, but they could have done better than the Babylon sequence. Overall however Male and Female is free of much of the preachiness, questionable morality and plot holes that mar many of Jeanie MacPherson's screenplays.Male and Female was Paramount's highest grossing film of 1919, which is no surprise. DeMille's steady flow of captivating images and his emphasis on acting performances are at their best here. In certain aspects it may appear dated, but as with many of DeMille's films we have to suspend our dependence on realism and plausibility. Of course, the island where the action takes place, with its convenient abundance of edible wildlife, sailing distance from England yet remote enough to be shipwrecked for two years, could never really exist – but it's an unreal place created to serve the story. Taken as the silent melodrama that it is, this is a stunning motion picture.