''The Beautiful and Damned'' is a 1922 American
silent drama film
In film and television, drama is a category or genre of narrative fiction (or semi-fiction) intended to be more serious than humorous in tone. Drama of this kind is usually qualified with additional terms that specify its particular super-g ...
directed by
William A. Seiter
William Alfred Seiter (June 10, 1890 – July 26, 1964) was an American film director.
Life and career
Seiter was born in New York City. After attending Hudson River Military Academy, Seiter broke into films in 1915 as a bit player at Mack Senne ...
and released by
Warner Bros.
Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. (commonly known as Warner Bros. or abbreviated as WB) is an American film and entertainment studio headquartered at the Warner Bros. Studios complex in Burbank, California, and a subsidiary of Warner Bros. D ...
The film, based on
F. Scott Fitzgerald
Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald (September 24, 1896 – December 21, 1940) was an American novelist, essayist, and short story writer. He is best known for his novels depicting the flamboyance and excess of the Jazz Age—a term he popularize ...
's 1922 novel ''
The Beautiful and Damned
''The Beautiful and Damned'' is a 1922 novel by American writer F. Scott Fitzgerald. Set in New York City, the novel's plot follows a young artist Anthony Patch and his flapper wife Gloria Gilbert who become "wrecked on the shoals of dissipati ...
'', starred
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 ...
and
Marie Prevost
Marie Prevost (born Marie Bickford Dunn; November 8, 1896 – January 21, 1937) was a Canadian-born film actress. During her 20-year career, she made 121 silent and sound films.
Prevost began her career during the silent film era. She was d ...
.
Cast
*
Marie Prevost
Marie Prevost (born Marie Bickford Dunn; November 8, 1896 – January 21, 1937) was a Canadian-born film actress. During her 20-year career, she made 121 silent and sound films.
Prevost began her career during the silent film era. She was d ...
as Gloria
*
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 Anthony
*
Harry Myers
Harry C. Myers (September 5, 1882 – December 25, 1938) was an American film actor and director, sometimes credited as Henry Myers. He performed in many short comedy films with his wife Rosemary Theby. Myers appeared in 330 films between 1908 ...
as Dick
*
Tully Marshall
Tully Marshall (born William Phillips; April 10, 1864 – March 10, 1943) was an American character actor. He had nearly a quarter century of theatrical experience before his debut film appearance in 1914 which led to a film career spanning alm ...
as Adam Patch
*
Louise Fazenda
Louise Fazenda (June 17, 1895 – April 17, 1962) was an American film actress, appearing chiefly in silent comedy films.
Early life
Fazenda was born in her maternal grandparents' house in Lafayette, Indiana, the daughter of merchandise broke ...
as Muriel
*
Cleo Ridgely
Cleo Ridgely-Horne (born Freda Cleo Helwig, May 12, 1893 – August 18, 1962) was a star of silent and sound motion pictures. Her career began early in the silent film era, in 1911, and continued for forty years. She retired in the 1930s bu ...
as Dot
*
Emmett King
Emmett Carleton King (May 31, 1865 – April 21, 1953) was an American actor of the stage and screen.
Biography
King began his acting career on stage. His first Broadway appearance was in 1899, in the farce, ''The Father of His Country'', which ...
as Mr. Gilbert
*
Walter Long as Hull
*
Clarence Burton
Clarence Forrest Burton (May 10, 1882 – December 2, 1933) was an American silent film actor.
Biography
Burton was born in Fort Lyon, in Benton County, Missouri and started in show business at the age of 5, playing stock and musical comedy ...
as Bloeckman
*J. Parker McConnell as Maury
*
Charles McHugh as Shuttleworth
*
Kathleen Key
Kathleen Key (born Kitty Lanahan; April 1, 1903 – December 22, 1954) was an American actress who achieved a brief period of fame during the silent era. She is best remembered for playing Tirzah in the 1925 film '' Ben-Hur''.
Early life and ca ...
as Rachel
*
George Kuwa
George Kuwa (born Keichii Kuwahara) was a Japanese and American Issei (Japanese immigrant) film actor of the silent era. He appeared in more than 50 films between 1916 and 1931. He was the first actor to portray Charlie Chan on-screen in the 19 ...
as Tanner
Production
To publicize the film,
Jack L. Warner
Jack Leonard Warner (born Jacob Warner; August 2, 1892 – September 9, 1978) was a Canadian-American film executive, who was the president and driving force behind the Warner Bros. Studios in Burbank, California. Warner's career spanned some ...
, announced that the film's stars, Kenneth Harlan and Marie Prevost, would marry on the film's set. The publicity stunt worked and thousands of fans sent gifts and letters to the couple. However, Warner was unaware that Prevost was still secretly married to her first husband, Sonny Gerke. ''The Los Angeles Mirror'' got wind of Prevost's first marriage and ran a story with the headline "Marie Prevost Will Be a Bigamist if She Marries Kenneth Harlan". Warner was livid over the negative publicity and Prevost's failure to disclose her first marriage despite the fact that the publicity stunt was his idea. Warner quickly arranged an
annullment
Annulment is a legal procedure within secular and religious legal systems for declaring a marriage null and void. Unlike divorce, it is usually retroactive, meaning that an annulled marriage is considered to be invalid from the beginning almost ...
, and when the publicity surrounding the scandal died down, Prevost and Harlan quietly married.
Reception
The film did well at the box office and critics were generally favorable. According to Warner Bros. records the film earned $327,000 domestically and $22,000 from foreign markets.
F. Scott Fitzgerald, however, disliked the film. He later wrote to a friend "It's by far the worst movie I've ever seen in my life-cheap, vulgar, ill-constructed and shoddy. We were utterly ashamed of it."
Preservation status
The film is currently listed as a
lost film
A lost film is a feature or short film that no longer exists in any studio archive, private collection, public archive or the U.S. Library of Congress.
Conditions
During most of the 20th century, U.S. copyright law required at least one copy o ...
,
and no copies of ''The Beautiful and Damned'' are known to exist. Warner Bros. records of the film's negative have a notation, "Junked 12/27/48" (i.e., December 27, 1948). Warner Bros. destroyed many of its pre-1933
nitrate film
Nitrocellulose (also known as cellulose nitrate, flash paper, flash cotton, guncotton, pyroxylin and flash string, depending on form) is a highly flammable compound formed by nitrating cellulose through exposure to a mixture of nitric acid and ...
negatives in the late 1940s and 1950s due to their decomposition.
References
External links
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Beautiful And Damned
1922 films
1922 drama films
Silent American drama films
American silent feature films
American black-and-white films
Films based on American novels
Films based on works by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Films directed by William A. Seiter
Lost American films
Warner Bros. films
1922 lost films
Lost drama films
1923 drama films
1923 films
1920s American films