Secrets (1924)
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| German title | Secrets |
| Original title | Secrets |
| Country of production | United States |
| original language | Subheads in English |
| Publishing year | 1924 |
| length | 9 acts, 2549 meters, at 22 fps 101 minutes |
| Rod | |
| Director | Frank Borzage |
| script | Frances Marion |
| production | Joseph M. Schenck |
| music | Samuel Rothafel (world premiere) |
| camera | Tony Gaudio |
| occupation | |
also
| |
Secrets is the title of a silent film melodrama that Frank Borzage filmed in 1924 for Joseph M. Schenck Productions based on a manuscript by Frances Marion , based on a play of the same name that was first performed in 1922. The main roles were played by Norma Talmadge and Eugene O'Brien.
action
The film begins in the present. Mary Carlton is 70 and her husband John is terminally ill. While reading her diary, she falls asleep and dreams of her life with John.
It starts in England in 1865 when they met. John works for her father, William Marlowe, who comes from a wealthy family. Therefore, she is afraid of her strict mother, who would never agree to a relationship with a socially inferior person. When her parents find out about her, they react harshly and forbid her to interact with John. Her father locks her in her room until she becomes sensible again. John, who has meanwhile been released because of the love affair with her, enters her room via the balcony and declares that he wants to emigrate to America. At the risk that her parents would never speak to her again, she decides to go with him. But before they can leave, Mary's father enters and declares that he will send her to Scotland to see her grandmother, where she should stay. After he leaves, Mary writes a suicide note and sneaks off with John.
Five years later. Mary lives with John in a poor farm house in the west of America. John works all day, she bears him a son. One day their farm is attacked by outlaws who threaten John's life. He's about to surrender to them just so they don't kill Mary and the baby, but Mary demands that he fight. He does and eventually copes with the gang.
The years go by. In 1888 Mary celebrated her 39th birthday and re-established contact with her family. But her belief in marriage is shattered when she discovers that John is having an affair with Estelle Manwaring, and that it wasn't the only one. He even admits the affair, which means nothing. Mary, humiliated, offers John a divorce, but he doesn't want to lose her. And although John confesses to her that he has lost all his fortune, Mary forgives her husband.
When she wakes up from her dream, the doctor tells her that John has survived the crisis and will soon be fine.
background
The film, produced by Joseph M. Schenck and his wife Norma Talmadge , was photographed by Tony Gaudio . The costumes were designed by Clare West, the make-up artist was George Westmore.
The film was presented by Joseph M. Schenck and had its world premiere in America on March 24, 1924 at the Astor Theater in Times Square in New York City . The show man of the silent film, Samuel “Roxy” Rothafel, provided a prologue and the illustration music for the premiere . The distribution was held in 1924 by the Associated First National Pictures .
Secrets was shown all over Europe: in the north in Denmark, Sweden, Finland and Norway, in the south in Spain and Portugal.
reception
In 1933, Borzage directed Secrets , a sound film remake of the subject with Mary Pickford as Mary Carlton. At her side, Leslie Howard played the male lead.
- Tradition:
Copies of the film are available: in the Museum of Modern Art (Moma) in New York City, in the Cinémathèque Royale in Brussels , at Gosfilmofond in Moscow (unconfirmed) and in the film archive of the University of California (UCLA) in Los Angeles (unconfirmed). The Library of Congress in Washington DC has Acts 1-3 and 6-9 as 35mm. Nitrate.
- Re-performances:
Secrets ran in 1992 at the Silent Film Festival in Pordenone and then in 2017 at the Silent Film Festival Il Cinema Ritrovato in Bologna in a version restored in 2015 by the Cineteca di Bologna and the Cohen Film Collection from three originals with English subtitles.
Web links
- Secrets in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- Secrets at AllMovie
- Secrets on the Norma Talmadge website
Illustrations
- Images for Secrets (1924) [ photo portrait of Norma Talmadge by Lucas Kanarian , circa 1924, cinema poster , various lobby cards ]
- Film excerpt (scene with the outlaws, 4 '05 ")
literature
- Hervé Dumont: Frank Borzage: The Life and Films of a Hollywood Romantic. MacFarland Verlag, 2015, ISBN 978-1-4766-1331-4 , p. 75 and 88-91.
- Alan Goble: The Complete Index to Literary Sources in Film. New edition. Verlag Walter de Gruyter, 2011, ISBN 978-3-11-095194-3 , pp. 39, 143, 946.
- Frederick Lamster: Souls made great through love and adversity: the film work of Frank Borzage. Scarecrow Press, 1981, pp. Iv, 26, 32.
- Ross Melnick: American Showman: Samuel "Roxy" Rothafel and the Birth of the Entertainment Industry, 1908-1935. (= Film and Culture Series ). Columbia University Press, 2012, ISBN 978-0-231-15904-3 .
- Steven Neale: Screening the Stage: Case Studies of Film Adaptations of Stage Plays and Musicals in the Classical Hollywood Era, 1914–1956. Indiana University Press, 2017, ISBN 978-0-86196-929-6 , pp. 85 and 211.
Individual evidence
- ↑ by Rudolph Besier and May Edginton , cf. Goble p. 39, Neill p. 85, note 4
- ↑ 1889–1980, née Clara Belle Smith, one of Hollywood's first costume designers, worked for DW Griffith and Cecil B. DeMille . See Drake Stutesman at columbia.edu
- ↑ 1879–1932, British hairdresser who emigrated to the USA with his family; including several relatives who became famous in Hollywood. He specialized in wig production and later in make-up and founded the first film make-up department in 1917. See en.wiki
- ↑ 1531 Broadway, New York, NY 10036: opened in 1906, cinema since 1925, cf. cinematreasures.org
- ↑ “Rothafel preparing prologue” in NYMT March 13, 1924, quoted in in Melnick p. 454 note 158, and "One journalist told Roxy that the score he wrote for 'Secrets' was" one of the best you ever wrote "" (ibid)
- ↑ IMDb / release info
- ↑ stanford.edu
- ↑ Mariann Lewinsky at ilcinemaritrovato.it