''Mama's Affair'' is a 1921 American silent

romantic comedy Romantic comedy (also known as romcom or rom-com) is a subgenre of comedy and slice of life fiction, focusing on lighthearted, humorous plot lines centered on romantic ideas, such as how true love is able to surmount most obstacles. In a typica ...

film directed by

Victor Fleming Victor Lonzo Fleming (February 23, 1889 – January 6, 1949) was an American film director, cinematographer, and producer. His most popular films were ''Gone with the Wind (film), Gone with the Wind'', for which he won an Academy Award for Best ...

and based on the play of the same title by Rachel Barton Butler. Cast members

Effie Shannon Effie Shannon (May 13, 1867 – July 24, 1954) was an American stage and silent screen actress. Biography Shannon had a 60-year career as starring performer and later character actress. She began as a child actor appearing with John McCullou ...

George Le Guere George Le Guere (born George Le Guere Mullally; July 17, 1881 – November 21, 1947) was an American stage and screen actor, he was sometimes credited as George LeGuere. Biography Le Guere was a graduate of Georgetown University and later wor ...

and

Katharine Kaelred Katharine Kaelred (May 9,1882 - March 26, 1942) was an actor on stage and screen. She was from England. The National Portrait Gallery, London, National Portrait Gallery in London has several images of her by Alexander Bassano. The Library of Congr ...

reprise their roles from the Broadway play.

Plot

As summarized in a film publication, a prologue, which explains where the author got her idea for the story, shows

Adam and Eve Adam and Eve, according to the creation myth of the Abrahamic religions, were the first man and woman. They are central to the belief that humanity is in essence a single family, with everyone descended from a single pair of original ancestors. ...

in the

Garden of Eden In Abrahamic religions, the Garden of Eden ( he, גַּן־עֵדֶן, ) or Garden of God (, and גַן־אֱלֹהִים ''gan-Elohim''), also called the Terrestrial Paradise, is the Bible, biblical paradise described in Book of Genesis, Genes ...

. When the serpent tells Eve to bite the apple, Adam takes it away from her. The serpent then tells her to go into hysterics and Adam will give her the apple. Shifting to the modern story, Mrs. Orrin (Effie Shannon), Eve's (Constance Talmadge) mother, goes into hysterics at the thought of losing her daughter. Mrs. Orrin and Mrs. Merchant (Katharine Kaelred), who lives with them, have decided that Eve will marry Mrs. Merchant's son Henry (George LeGuere), an effeminate youngster with rimmed glasses. Fearing her mother's nerves, Eve is willing to marry Henry, so the four of them go to Mama Orrin's birthplace, where the wedding is scheduled to take place on her birthday. During the stay at the hotel Mama has one of her "attacks" and Dr. Harmon (Kenneth Harlan) is called in. He soon discovers the exact trouble and orders Mrs. Orrin to bed with instructions that she not even see her daughter. Mrs. Orrin disobeys these orders and then Eve's nerves give way, causing a second visit by the doctor. He takes Eve away from the mother, but after Henry accuses the doctor of being a fortune seeker, the doctor refuses to have anything to do with Eve. Finally, Eve's eyes are opened and she uses a "treat 'em rough" theory on her mother. Besides winning the love of her doctor, she cures her mother of her hysterics.

Cast

Constance Talmadge Constance Alice Talmadge (April 19, 1898 – November 23, 1973) was an American silent film star. She was the sister of actresses Norma and Natalie Talmadge. Early life Talmadge was born on April 19, 1898 in Brooklyn, New York, to poor par ...

as Eve Orrin *

as Mrs. Orrin *

Kenneth Harlan Kenneth Daniel Harlan (July 26, 1895 – March 6, 1967) was an American actor of the silent film era, playing mostly romantic leads or adventurer types. Early life Harlan was born in Boston, Massachusetts, the son of George W. Harlan and ac ...

as Dr. Harmon *

as Henry Marchant *

as Mrs. Marchant *

Gertrude Le Brandt Gertrude Le Brandt (July 1, 1863 in Illinois – August 28, 1955 in Hollywood) was an American silent film actress. She entered film in 1916 in ''Youth's Endearing Charm'' with actors such as Mary Miles Minter and Harry von Meter. Filmograp ...

as Bundy

Psychoanalytic elements

Plot elements involving Eve's genuine fit of

hysteria Hysteria is a term used colloquially to mean ungovernable emotional excess and can refer to a temporary state of mind or emotion. In the nineteenth century, hysteria was considered a diagnosable physical illness in women. It is assumed that ...

before the planned wedding, the doctor's simple cure of removing Eve from her mother, and Eve's subsequent immediate recovery and ability to live an independent life were consistent with then-current popular understandings of

Sigmund Freud Sigmund Freud ( , ; born Sigismund Schlomo Freud; 6 May 1856 – 23 September 1939) was an Austrian neurologist and the founder of psychoanalysis, a clinical method for evaluating and treating psychopathology, pathologies explained as originatin ...

's theories of repression and the causation of

neurosis Neurosis is a class of functional mental disorders involving chronic distress, but neither delusions nor hallucinations. The term is no longer used by the professional psychiatric community in the United States, having been eliminated from th ...

. The film, however, never directly discusses these notions or uses any

psychoanalytic PsychoanalysisFrom Greek: + . is a set of theories and therapeutic techniques"What is psychoanalysis? Of course, one is supposed to answer that it is many things — a theory, a research method, a therapy, a body of knowledge. In what might be ...

terms in its

intertitle In films, an intertitle, also known as a title card, is a piece of filmed, printed text edited into the midst of (i.e., ''inter-'') the photographed action at various points. Intertitles used to convey character dialogue are referred to as "dialo ...

Preservation

A print of ''Mama's Affair'' is maintained in the

Library of Congress The Library of Congress (LOC) is the research library that officially serves the United States Congress and is the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It is the oldest federal cultural institution in the country. The library is ...

.The Library of Congress American Silent Feature Film Survival Catalog: ''Mama's Affair''
/ref>

References

External links

* * *John Emerson and Anita Loos,
Breaking into the Movies
', Philadelphia: G.W. Jacobs. The ending of the ''Mama's Affair'' scenario is on pages 30–32. {{Adam and Eve 1921 films American films based on plays Films directed by Victor Fleming American black-and-white films Cultural depictions of Adam and Eve American silent feature films 1921 romantic comedy films Films with screenplays by Anita Loos American romantic comedy films Surviving American silent films 1920s American films Silent romantic comedy films Silent American comedy films