''The Plastic Age'' is a 1925 American black-and-white
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 typic ...
film directed by
Wesley Ruggles
Wesley Ruggles (June 11, 1889 – January 8, 1972) was an American film director.
Life and work
He was born in Los Angeles, California, younger brother of actor Charlie Ruggles. He began his career in 1915 as an actor, appearing in a do ...
and starring
Clara Bow
Clara Gordon Bow (; July 29, 1905 – September 27, 1965) was an American actress who rose to stardom during the silent film era of the 1920s and successfully made the transition to " talkies" in 1929. Her appearance as a plucky shopgirl in the ...
,
Donald Keith, and
Gilbert Roland
Luis Antonio Dámaso de Alonso (December 11, 1905 – May 15, 1994), known professionally as Gilbert Roland, was a Mexican-born American film and television actor whose career spanned seven decades from the 1920s until the 1980s. He was twice no ...
.
The film was based on a best-selling
novel from 1924 of the same name, written by
Percy Marks, a Brown University English instructor who chronicled the life of the fast-set of that university and used the fictitious Sanford College as a backdrop. ''The Plastic Age'' is known to most silent film fans as the very first hit of Clara Bow's career, and helped jumpstart her fast rise to stardom.
Frederica Sagor Maas and
Eve Unsell
Eve Unsell (December 6, 1879 – July 6, 1937) was an American screenwriter. She wrote for more than 90 films between 1914 and 1933. adapted the book for the screen.
Plot
Hugh Carver (
Donald Keith) is an athletic star and a freshman at Prescott College. During a hazing initiation by his fraternity brothers, he meets Cynthia Day (
Clara Bow
Clara Gordon Bow (; July 29, 1905 – September 27, 1965) was an American actress who rose to stardom during the silent film era of the 1920s and successfully made the transition to " talkies" in 1929. Her appearance as a plucky shopgirl in the ...
), a
popular girl who loves to party and have a good time. She introduces him to the pleasures of illicit drinking, dancing at illegal
roadhouses, and
making out
Making out is a term of American origin dating back to at least 1949, and is used to refer to kissing, including extended French kissing or heavy kissing of the neck (called ''necking''), or to acts of non-penetrative sex such as heavy pett ...
in the back seats of cars. A
love-triangle develops between Day, Carver, and Carver's roommate, Carl Peters (
Gilbert Roland
Luis Antonio Dámaso de Alonso (December 11, 1905 – May 15, 1994), known professionally as Gilbert Roland, was a Mexican-born American film and television actor whose career spanned seven decades from the 1920s until the 1980s. He was twice no ...
), who also likes Day. Eventually, Peters gives up his crush on Day and reconciles his friendship with Carver.
Carver's grades, athletic performance and moral character begin to suffer as a result of his late nights and wild partying, and on a visit home, his strict father tosses him out of the house and tells him not to come back until he's 'made good'. After almost being arrested at a roadhouse raid, Day and Carver escape in her automobile, and Day realizes that her lifestyle is bad for Carver, so the two stop seeing each other.
Carver's school performance then improves greatly, and he leads his teammates to victory at the big football game at the end of the year. Peters tells Carver that Day still loves him, and that she has changed, becoming less wild and more mature. Day and Carver are reunited at the end.
Cast
Production
''The Plastic Age'' was based on the
1924 novel of the same name, which was written by
Brown University
Brown University is a private research university in Providence, Rhode Island. Brown is the seventh-oldest institution of higher education in the United States, founded in 1764 as the College in the English Colony of Rhode Island and Providenc ...
professor Percy Marks, a popular novelist at the time. Marks' novels were based on his students, the 'flaming youth in rebellion' of the twenties, who danced to wild jazz, drank from silver flasks, and had petting parties. Benjamin Percival Schulberg, the CEO of
Preferred Pictures (a film studio and film distributor, as well as an actors agency), outbid all the major and minor studios for the rights to ''The Plastic Age''; Schulberg paid $35,000 for the copyrights to the novel. ''The Plastic Age'' was filmed in the summer of 1925, at both
Pomona College
Pomona College ( ) is a private liberal arts college in Claremont, California. It was established in 1887 by a group of Congregationalists who wanted to recreate a "college of the New England type" in Southern California. In 1925, it became t ...
, located in
Claremont, California
Claremont () is a suburban city on the eastern edge of Los Angeles County, California, United States, east of downtown Los Angeles. It is in the Pomona Valley, at the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains. As of the 2010 census it had a popu ...
, and in Hollywood, at the
FBO Studios, the production company owned and operated by
Joseph P. Kennedy, the wealthy
Boston
Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...
,
Massachusetts
Massachusetts (Massachusett: ''Muhsachuweesut Massachusett_writing_systems.html" ;"title="nowiki/> məhswatʃəwiːsət.html" ;"title="Massachusett writing systems">məhswatʃəwiːsət">Massachusett writing systems">məhswatʃəwiːsət'' En ...
banker/stockbroker patriarch of the
Kennedy family
The Kennedy family is an American political family that has long been prominent in American politics, public service, entertainment, and business. In 1884, 35 years after the family's arrival from Ireland, Patrick Joseph "P. J." Kennedy beca ...
.
The film became a major hit in late 1925, and was Bow's first hit film. She became a star as a result of its success, which led her to being signed by a major studio and becoming a major star with the 1927 release of ''
It''. After seeing ''The Plastic Age'' soon after its release,
Adolph Zukor
Adolph Zukor (; hu, Zukor Adolf; January 7, 1873 – June 10, 1976) was a Hungarian-American film producer best known as one of the three founders of Paramount Pictures.Obituary '' Variety'' (June 16, 1976), p. 76. He produced one of America' ...
, the founder and CEO of
Paramount Pictures
Paramount Pictures Corporation is an American film and television production company, production and Distribution (marketing), distribution company and the main namesake division of Paramount Global (formerly ViacomCBS). It is the fifth-oldes ...
, contacted Schulberg, who had started his career as a publicist with Paramount before leaving the studio in 1918 to form Preferred Pictures. According to Clara Bow biographer
David Stenn, Zukor proposed to Schulberg that he wanted to merge Preferred Pictures with Paramount, so that he could get Bow and make a star out of her, due to what Zukor saw as the great potential that she had as an actress.
Schulberg agreed, but wanted Zukor to allow him to produce and control the product that Paramount assigned to him for Bow, which included script, casting, production crew, and wardrobe control. He also wanted to be made an associate producer at Paramount. The deal was made in early November 1925.
Controversy
Even though the film was a wide spread success, the
Woman's Christian Temperance Union
The Woman's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) is an international temperance organization, originating among women in the United States Prohibition movement. It was among the first organizations of women devoted to social reform with a program th ...
(WCTU) showed concerns for the film's portrayal of alcohol consumption as acceptable, regardless of the restrictions that
prohibition
Prohibition is the act or practice of forbidding something by law; more particularly the term refers to the banning of the manufacture, storage (whether in barrels or in bottles), transportation, sale, possession, and consumption of alcoholi ...
brought in. They also voiced their opinion on the Swingers Dance style and Jazz music as "behaviour which is desperately in need of purification by the cleansing powers of Holy water."
Home media
''The Plastic Age'' was released on DVD, through
Image Entertainment
RLJ Entertainment (formerly Image Entertainment) is an American film production company and home video distributor, distributing film and television productions in North America, with approximately 3,200 exclusive DVD titles and approximately 34 ...
, in a double-feature format, which includes the
Louise Brooks film, ''
The Show Off'' (1926).
David Shepard preserved the film through his company, Film Preservation Associates. Composer Eric Beheim scored the music for ''The Plastic Age''.
Kino On Video released the film in August 1999, as part of a 4 video set featuring Clara's work, which includes ''It'' (1927).
References
External links
*
*
Lobby cardat silentsaregolden.com
Stills and reviewat moviessilently.com
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Plastic Age, The
1925 films
1925 romantic comedy films
American black-and-white films
American romantic comedy films
American silent feature films
Films directed by Wesley Ruggles
Films based on American novels
Films produced by B. P. Schulberg
Films set in universities and colleges
Preferred Pictures films
1920s American films
Silent romantic comedy films
Silent American comedy films