Raiders of the Lost Films: Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1928)

If you mention Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, the first name people will think of is Marilyn Monroe. Or, for musical theater fans, perhaps it’s Carol Channing. But before either of them came to be known as Lorelei Lee, Anita Loos was the name everyone associated with the story.

Anita Loos was inspired to write Gentlemen Prefer Blondes after observing a beautiful blonde woman on a train who had no trouble getting the attention of the men on the train when she dropped her book, while Loos was left to struggle with heavy suitcases on her own. She took this idea and wrote some scenarios about a gold digging blonde named Lorelei Lee, adding in some satire based on how she’d seen magazine editor H.L. Mencken fall all over himself fawning over some Ziegfeld showgirls. Thinking he’d get a kick out of the stories, Loos sent them to Mencken, who took the joke well and forwarded them the editor of Harper’s Bazaar. Harper’s Bazaar liked the stories so much, Loos was asked to write more stories based on this character.

Starting in the spring of 1925, stories of Lorelei Lee started appearing in Harper’s Bazaar and a sensation was born. The stories were turned into a book published later that year, which went on to become the second best selling novel of 1926. The antics of Lorelei Lee were also quickly turned into a comic strip and a stage play. Naturally, it was only a matter of time before a film adaptation would be in the works.

Finding Lorelei Lee

Given how massively successful Gentlemen Prefer Blondes was in print and on the stage, a film adaptation was destined to get a lot of buzz, especially around who would play Lorelei. Since the role would go on to be played by major icons like Carol Channing and Marilyn Monroe, you might expect that the 1928 version would have starred a major icon of the silent screen. Perhaps Clara Bow gone blonde. Instead, the role went to someone who would have little name recognition just a few years later.

The casting process for Gentlemen Prefer Blondes was not unlike what would infamously happen a decade later while casting the role of Scarlett O’Hara in Gone With the Wind. Much of the press surrounding the movie referenced Paramount’s extensive search for the perfect Lorelei Lee. Many big names were considered for the part, including Marion Davies, Constance Talmadge, Dorothy Mackaill, and Phyllis Haver. Fans and publications alike had their opinions about who should land the coveted role. In June 1926, Screenland magazine recommended Esther Ralston as their top choice for Lorelei, but also stated that Laura La Plante, Clara Bow, and Louise Brooks could also be good. In October 1926, Motion Picture Magazine ran an item reporting on rumors that Lillian Gish had landed the part, to which an unnamed hotel clerk is quoted as saying, “If Lillian Gish is to have the lead in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, I cease to be a gentleman.”

In the end, Lorelei Lee was first played on screen by an actress named Ruth Taylor. As was the case for Gone With the Wind, the highly sought-after leading role ended up going to an actress who was fairly unknown to the American public. Ruth Taylor was born on January 13, 1905 in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Eventually, her family moved to Portland and, eager to start working in films, she later made her way to Hollywood. Once in Hollywood, she got her start working for Mack Sennett, appearing in a series of short films. The films she made for Mack Sennett were often uncredited, but she did get to appear in shorts with Harry Langdon and Billy Bevan.

By the time Gentlemen Prefer Blondes was released in 1928, Ruth Taylor hadn’t appeared in a feature length film before. Anita Loos and husband John Emerson were involved in the casting process and had just about exhausted the casting directories. In an article titled The Search for Lorelei Lee, published in Photoplay‘s November 1927 issue, it’s said that by the time Loos and Emerson met Ruth Taylor, Paramount was threatening to put in one of their own contract players and Loos and Emerson were threatening to tear up their contracts if that happened. (This article also states that one of the top three contenders for the part of Lorelei was future burlesque queen Sally Rand.) Emerson is quoted as saying, “The trouble was that Lorelei requires brains. Lorelei is just as dumb as John D. Rockefeller in an oil field.” But when they finally saw Ruth Taylor, they immediately knew she was exactly what they were looking for — she had the right look and was able to bring the right characterization to the part.

When Ruth Taylor’s casting was announced, the media machine ran with the whole Cinderella story angle. Pictureplay magazine called it “the break of the year” while many other publications played up how this virtually unknown actress had beaten out hundreds of others for one of the biggest roles in Hollywood. In the aforementioned Search for Lorelei Lee article, Photoplay magazine introduces her to their readers by describing her as, “…the kind of girl modern girls will like tremendously. She is chic, charming, sophisticated, and capable.” The fact that she also landed a five-year contract with Paramount along with the role of Lorelei Lee was another frequent talking point in press for the movie. Shortly after Gentlemen Prefer Blondes was released, Taylor was part of the group of up-and-coming stars named WAMPAS Baby Stars, a group which notably included Lupe Velez, Lina Basquette, and Sally Eilers that same year.

The Movie

In addition to Ruth Taylor, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes also starred Alice White as Dorothy Shaw, Ford Sterling as Gus Eisman, Holmes Herbert as Henry Spoffard, and Mack Swain as Sir Francis Beekman. Plus Anita Loos was not only involved with casting the movie, she and her husband wrote the story and its intertitles. The movie was released on January 18, 1928 and in the time leading up to its release, Paramount promoted it to theater owners as being one of their big special movies of the year, listing it alongside movies like Harold Lloyd’s Speedy, The Last Command with Emil Jannings, Tillie’s Punctured Romance with W.C. Fields, and Beau Sabreur with Gary Cooper.

Despite the fact that the movie is now considered to be a lost film, there are some details out there which give clues about how it compared to the source material. One review in the December 10, 1927 issue of The Film Spectator said, “The picture followed the book faithfully, but it didn’t follow it far enough. It stopped just where the book was getting interesting.” In a 1930 publication titled Censored: The Private Life of the Movie, one passage says of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, “Fortunately for the movie public, the censors cut any suggestions of immorality from it, as you have seen.” In my article comparing the 1953 version of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes to the book, I noted that the tiara Lorelei longs for never belonged to Lady Beekman in the book, but did in both the movie and the stage musical version. Screenland’s review for the 1928 film mentioned Francis Beekman crowning Lorelei with his wife’s tiara, so that’s a change from the source material which pre-dates both the Marilyn Monroe and Carol Channing versions. The movie also includes credits for Lorelei’s mother and grandmother, but the book mentions Lorelei’s mother had died and a grandmother is never mentioned.

Looking back on the original media coverage for Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, you’ll find some respectable reviews, but the movie seems to have missed the mark on some level. Screenland magazine’s review said of it, it “isn’t the satire some hoped it might be, but it is good entertainment.” One review published in the December 10, 1927 issue of The Film Spectator stated, “There is one thing which can be said of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes: there were very few, if any, mistakes which were due to carelessness. The picture ran pretty smoothly. As a matter of fact, that was in a way what was the matter with it; it ran too smoothly. There were no outstandingly funny scenes and there were no outstandingly good ones. By the same token, there were no outstandingly bad scenes.”

It didn’t take long for the media to start discussing Gentlemen Prefer Blondes in ways that suggests it was something of a then well-known example of a hyped-up movie that fell short. In the September 1929 issue of Picture Play Magazine, a brief mention is made of Ruth Taylor appearing in a play called “Little Orchid Annie” and the writer remarks that based on her performance, she probably would have been a great Lorelei on stage or in a talkie version of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, ending with the note, “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, as you know, didn’t register as a silent film.” In August 1930, Photoplay magazine published an article titled Flashing in the Pan, which stated Gentlemen Prefer Blondes didn’t work for multiple reasons, chief among them was that the story was too well known and there had already been many trite imitations of Lorelei Lee. The author also notes that Ruth Taylor unfairly got a lot of blame for movie not being as successful as hoped.

Going through those original reviews, Ruth Taylor’s performance does get a lot of good notes. Generally, she was praised for being an excellent Lorelei, but some critics had reservations about her long-term prospects as a leading lady. The December 10, 1927 issue of The Film Spectator features a rather lengthy review of the movie in which the author cites weak direction from Malcolm St. Clair and writing that lacked the nuance of the original book, but lauds Ruth Taylor for carrying the movie. This author calls her the perfect Lorelei Lee, but also states they would be surprised if she were to develop the range of Janet Gaynor or Dolores del Rio. In the February 18, 1928 issue of Exhibitors Herald and Moving Picture World, the following is written about Ruth Taylor’s performance in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes:

“The publicity about the new young lady who gets the big break in the thing may or may not have good foundation, but the kid has the stuff for this thing at least…If I had to make books on her I’d say the role would kill her in other things (like Peter Pan all but killed Betty Bronson), but I don’t have to make books. I simply raise the point in order to to suggest that Miss Loos use her influence to keep the girl in Anita Loos projects, even if it means dashing off a series of them.”

Even if the movie didn’t meet initial expectations, it would still be very exciting news if a print were to be discovered. Given how actively involved Anita Loos was with its production, it would be a very significant find. As beloved as the Marilyn Monroe version of the movie is, it’s hard not to be intrigued by what Ruth Taylor’s performance as Lorelei Lee was like, given all those remarks about her being perfect for the part. It would also be the only film version of the story (thus far) which seems to have stayed faithful to its wildly popular source material.

What Ever Happened to Ruth Taylor?

Despite all the buzz around the five-year contract Ruth Taylor signed after being cast as Lorelei Lee, her Hollywood career would be over in less than five years. The May 5, 1928 issue of Exhibitors Herald and Moving Picture World contained an announcement that Ruth Taylor would be appearing with James Hall, who’d had his breakout moment a few years earlier in The Campus Flirt with Bebe Daniels, in a series of three comedy melodramas. Taylor and Hall would end up making just one movie together, 1928’s Just Married. Taylor also starred in 1929’s The College Coquette, but that is the last feature she made where she was the top-billed star. That same year, she also appeared in This Thing Called Love, which had Constance Bennett and Edmund Lowe as the top stars. She also appeared in two short films, 1929’s A Hint for Brides and 1930’s Scrappily Married.

By 1929, Ruth Taylor’s sudden rise to stardom was already being used as a cautionary tale of how damaging too much hype too soon can be. The April 1929 issue of Photoplay featured an article titled Don’t Be Discovered, which notes, “Her failure to live up to predictions in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes is perhaps the obstacle that blocked her road to fame. A case, no doubt, of too much publicity, too much ballyhoo. Only the miracle of a phenomenal performance can raise her now from the leading lady ruck, a position from which there is, for many, no direction to bow but out.”

At some point, Ruth Taylor went to New York to work on the stage and while she was there, she met Paul Zuckerman, a stockbroker and former aviator, at a party. It turned into a whirlwind romance and they were engaged weeks later, marrying on March 17, 1930. News of her marriage resulted in the press making many jokes along the lines of, “here’s one gentlemen who clearly prefers blondes,” with a few jokes in the mix about art imitating life since the actress famous for playing a gold digger ended up marrying a stockbroker.

Ruth Taylor’s career as an actress essentially came to an end after her wedding. Her last credited role after that was in a single episode of the TV series Trapped in 1950. While her career in Hollywood was short-lived, she created a legacy that would be very influential in Hollywood decades later. Her son, Buck Henry, had a notable acting career of his own, ranging from The Graduate and Heaven Can Wait to 30 Rock and Hot in Cleveland, as well as earning writing credits for The Graduate and What’s Up Doc?

Raiders of the Lost Films: London After Midnight (1927)

In 1927, Lon Chaney was one of Hollywood’s biggest stars, having made several on-screen triumphs in movies like The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Oliver Twist, and The Phantom of the Opera, which remain some of the most celebrated performances and films of the silent era. After having starred alongside Norma Shearer and John Gilbert in 1924’s He Who Gets Slapped, the first film ever fully produced by the then newly-formed Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Chaney began working under contract to MGM the following year and would remain at the studio for the final five years of his career. During his time at MGM, he starred in several of the most memorable movies of his career, including two versions of The Unholy Three, Tell It to the Marines, The Unknown, and Laugh, Clown, Laugh. But while many of the movies he made at MGM are still available and are shown on Turner Classic Movies, perhaps the most notorious of them all is one we can’t see: London After Midnight.

No series about lost films would be complete without discussion of London After Midnight. 90 years after its release, it is now widely regarded as the holy grail of lost films. The last known print of the film was destroyed in an MGM vault fire during the 1960s. (There seems to be some debate over whether the fire happened in 1965 or 1967.) The vault when up in flames when an electrical fire broke out, destroying London After Midnight along with original prints of several other early MGM titles, including movies made prior to MGM’s 1924 formation, some Our Gang shorts, original versions of Tom and Jerry cartoons, the color sequence from The Broadway Melody, the uncut version of Laurel and Hardy’s Blotto, and The Divine Woman, the only lost Greta Garbo film.

In London After Midnight, Lon Chaney plays Scotland Yard inspector Edward C. Burke, who is called to investigate the death of Roger Balfour. Balfour’s friend, James Hamlin (Henry B. Walthall), is convinced Balfour would never kill himself and Burke initially has his doubts about Hamlin’s nephew Arthur (Conrad Nagel), but since a suicide note is found, in which Balfour asks his daughter Lucille (Marceline Day) to forgive him, the case isn’t investigated any further.

Five years later, Balfour’s former home is being inhabited by a bizarre looking man with sharp teeth and a beaver hat (also played by Lon Chaney), along with two corpse-like female companions. When the new maid (Polly Moran) arrives, she’s convinced they’re vampires and directly responsible for the death of Balfour. Burke and Hamlin then realize the lease for the new, odd tenants is signed by none other than Balfour. After Lucille reports hearing the voice of her father calling to her, Burke and Hamlin discover that Balfour’s corpse is missing from its tomb and when they look inside the house, they see what appears to be Balfour having a conversation with the man in the beaver hat. At this point, Burke decides to use hypnosis to solve the case once and for all.

Upon its release in 1927, London After Midnight became one of the highest grossing films of the year. Out of all the films Chaney and Browning made together, London After Midnight was the most financially successful. Despite all of the hype that’s built around the movie over the years, it was hardly hailed as a masterpiece. Initial reviews were pretty mixed. Variety said of it:

“Will add nothing to Chaney’s prestige as a trouper, nor increase the star’s box office value. With Chaney’s name in lights, however, this picture, any picture with Chaney, means a strong box office draw. Young, Browning and Chaney have made a good combination in the past but the story on which this production is based is not of the quality that results in broken house records.”

The New York Times wasn’t terribly impressed with it, either:

“It is a somewhat incoherent narrative, which, however, gives Lon Chaney an opportunity to turn up in an uncanny disguise and also to manifest his powers as Scotland Yard’s expert hypnotist. You are therefore treated to close-ups of Mr. Chaney’s rolling orbs, which, fortunately, do not exert their influence on the audience.”

The New Yorker also had issues with the film’s plot:

“Mr. Browning can create pictorial terrors and Lon Chaney can get himself up in a completely repulsive manner, but both their efforts are wasted when the story makes no sense.”

In the 2000 documentary Lon Chaney: A Thousand Faces, interviewees who had seen London After Midnight also commented they felt it wasn’t that great of a movie. Historian H.A.V. Bulleid stated that he thought people would be very disappointed if they actually saw London After Midnight, while Mary Hunt, a moviegoer in the 1920s, said it was so fantastic and unreal it couldn’t be taken seriously, but the makeup was remarkable. Forest Ackerman seemed to be the most enthusiastic about it, saying that he believed Groucho Marx modeled his slouching walk after the walk of the man in the beaver hat.

Had prints of London After Midnight remained in circulation over the years, is it possible that the film might have eventually undergone a critical re-evaluation at some point? Maybe, but at this point, it hardly seems relevant to even ponder it. The fact that it’s been missing for about 50 years now has helped cement its legacy as one of Hollywood’s most notorious movies in a way that no amount of praise from film critics ever could.

It’s not hard to understand why London After Midnight is such a sought-after movie. This is a movie that involved two of the biggest icons of the horror genre: Lon Chaney and Tod Browning. Don’t get me wrong — finding any lost Lon Chaney movie at all would be huge news in the film world. But a lost film that involves these two legends together makes it that much of a bigger deal. Even if it’s not such a great movie, it’s awfully hard not to at least be intrigued by the idea of getting to see Lon Chaney in a double role. And Chaney wasn’t the only one to have a double role, so to speak. Beyond his role as director, Tod Browning also wrote The Hypnotist, the short story the movie was based on.

Chaney and Browning are hardly the only noteworthy people to be involved with London After Midnight, either. It also starred some other actors whose names are likely to be familiar to fans of silent films and early talkies, like Marceline Day, Conrad Nagel, and Polly Moran. So whether you’re a fan of classic film in general or are just a big fan of horror movies in particular, London After Midnight truly occupies an important place in film history.

Another aspect of the London After Midnight mythology is the fact that the film became entangled in a murder case. In London’s Hyde Park on October 23, 1928, a man named Robert Williams was arrested for the murder of Julia Magnan. Upon his arrest, he told police that he’d done it because she was teasing him and that in an epileptic fit, he’d been taunted by a vision of Lon Chaney as he appeared in London After Midnight. Although Williams was initially sentenced to death, his sentence was later changed to allow him to serve his sentence at an asylum instead. So as if it weren’t enough that London After Midnight is famous for being lost, the fact that it was once blamed for driving a man to madness brings a whole different level of intrigue to the whole thing.

Although London After Midnight is not known to exist in its original form, it is still possible to get an idea of what it was like. In 2002, Turner Classic Movies produced a reconstructed version of the movie following the original script and using existing film stills. This version runs about 45 minutes and still occasionally airs on the channel. It was also included as a bonus feature in the Lon Chaney Collection released on the TCM Archive label in 2003, but that set now appears to be out of print. It was also remade in 1935 as The Mark of the Vampire, starring Lionel Barrymore and Bela Lugosi.

The important thing to remember is that although London After Midnight is now considered a lost film, there is still hope that a copy of it may be discovered someday. Over the years, there have been numerous rumors about prints of it being found, but unfortunately, those have turned out to be unsubstantiated. But there are several other cases of thought-to-be-lost films being found in archives and private collections. Even among the titles believed to be casualties of the 1965/1967 MGM vault fire alone, copies of some of those have turned up over the years. One of the most noteworthy examples would be 1922’s The Toll of the Sea, the second Technicolor feature to be made in Hollywood. Although it was thought to have been lost in the fire, the original camera negative was eventually found, minus the final two reels, and was restored by the UCLA Film & Television Archive in 1985, complete with newly-shot footage to replicate the missing footage. Perhaps, one day we will be able to tell a similar tale for London After Midnight.

Raiders of the Lost Films: Flaming Youth (1923)

It’s often said that Hollywood has a fixation on youth, and this hardly a new trend. Throughout the entire history of American cinema, there have consistently been actors and actresses who shoot to superstardom for being the personification of youth.

As time moves progresses, so does the image of youth. During the 1910s, Mary Pickford was one of the most famous women in the world, celebrated for playing little girls in movies like Poor Little Rich Girl and The Little Princess. Although Pickford was well into her twenties at the time, the spirit and charisma she brought to those young characters won over audiences all over the world. Her long, curled hair became a symbol of the wholesome innocence of her characters.

By the early 1920s, things were beginning to change. After the end of World War I, many young women, known as flappers, were turning their backs on more conservative values by wearing dresses with higher hemlines, smoking, drinking, listening to jazz, going out dancing, working, dating, and generally having a whole lot of fun. Flappers also famously wore short bobbed hair styles; the antithesis of Mary Pickford’s long curls.

It was only a matter of time before Hollywood started capitalizing on this shift in youth culture. 1920’s The Flapper, starring Olive Thomas, was the first movie to focus on flappers and eventually, actresses like Clara Bow, Louise Brooks, and Joan Crawford would also become icons for playing characters that embody the lifestyle. But before all of them, there was Colleen Moore in 1923’s Flaming Youth.

Flaming Youth was based on the novel of the same name by Samuel Hopkins Adams, also published in 1923. The novel quickly caused an uproar over its uncensored, sexually frank take on the flapper lifestyle and the lives of young women. By the time he wrote Flaming Youth, Adams had already built up a reputation as a journalist and novelist and didn’t want the salacious content of Flaming Youth to overshadow his other works, so he published it under the pseudonym Warner Fabian. (The Harvey Girls, The Gorgeous Hussy, and It Happened One Night were also based on works written by Adams.) The book caused such a stir that F. Scott Fitzgerald once wrote a letter to Adams saying that he wished he had been the one to write Flaming Youth.

As is the case with so many book-to-film adaptations, Flaming Youth isn’t completely faithful to its source material, but that didn’t stop it from being a worldwide smash upon its release. Colleen Moore stars as Patricia Fentriss, a young woman whose mother passes away after her hard-partying life catches up with her. Her mother hopes Patricia will go down a different path in life, but Patricia becomes a flapper and enjoys the wild life that comes with it. Like many flappers, Patricia is also not a fan of the idea of getting married. So when she meets Cary Scott (Milton Sills), her mother’s former boyfriend, she falls in love with him, but moves on to having an affair with a violinist when Cary leaves for Europe. However, that fling comes to an end after she and the violinist get into a fight during a party on a yacht, which ends with her jumping overboard to escape. After being rescued, Patricia is nursed back to health by Cary and changes her mind about marriage.

F. Scott Fitzgerald said of Flaming Youth, “I was the spark that lit up Flaming Youth, Colleen Moore was the torch.” Colleen Moore was already an established star in 1923, but Flaming Youth brought her to a new level of stardom. Her sleek, black bobbed haircut and bangs remain a definitive part of the flapper image.

The film was a big box office success, which comes as no surprise given the controversial nature of the book and the fact that the movie’s promotional materials played up its scandalous content. One lobby card described the movie as, “A spicy society exposé so startling that the author dared not sign his right name,” and promised to give, “…the bald facts, the truth about our modern society with its gay life, its petting parties, its flapper dances, its jazz.” Another lobby card asked, “How far can a girl go?”, and elaborated, “She smoked cigarettes. She drank. She went to petting parties. She led the pace of the gayest life in the gayest society.”

Theater lobby display promoting Flaming Youth

With hype like that, it’s hard not to be intrigued by it. At one point, the film was even banned in Canada and a theater owner was fined $5 for showing the film. In fact, The Exhibitor’s Trade Review advised theater owners in their December 1923 issue to exploit the film’s controversy:

“The best way to arouse the interest of the curious is to condemn the picture. There is here a peculiar psychology which makes people impatient to see what they have been told not to. Here is your cue for exploitation. Get out letters warning the people that the picture is rife with bold situations and un-restained necking parties and advise them not to see it and forbid their children to do likewise. They will come hotfooting it to your theatre.

Inflame the minister with the outrages against society on the part of the younger generation, and get him to preach a sermon on the subject using the picture to illustrate his point.”

Reviews from the era generally paint it as being an enjoyable movie. The Exhibitor’s Trade Review said of it, “What makes this picture different, is not its subject matter, but the manner in which the story is handled by a competent cast. It is the same old tale of the jazz crazy modern age, chock full of picturesque scenes and amusing situations.”

While Colleen Moore certainly got the most attention for her role, Milton Sills and Myrtle Stedman (who played Patricia’s mother) also got good notes from the New York Times. Many of the less favorable reviews point out that it isn’t a completely faithful adaption of the book. One reviewer from the Cincinnati Inquirer didn’t care for any of the characters and wrote, “Throughout the production, scarcely a single admirable character appears, and the audience is regaled with the antics of a lot of childish adults and adulterated children. Consequently, the members of the cast, though many of them are talented, work against unfair handicaps.”

Despite the fact that Colleen Moore was such a big hit in Flaming Youth, she didn’t stick to flapper roles for much longer. The following year, she starred in The Perfect Flapper, but it wasn’t as well received. By that time, other actresses had also made a name for themselves for playing flappers, particularly Clara Bow, so Moore simply moved on with her career. Although she publicly declared that she was done with flapper pictures, Moore would go on to star in 1929’s Why Be Good, in which she plays a young, modern, forward-thinking woman.

The flapper type fell out of popularity in American culture around the time of the stock market crash of 1929 when their lifestyle was suddenly deemed frivolous. In the 1930s, there was a return to a more wholesome image of youth in cinema, with stars like Shirley Temple, Mickey Rooney, and Judy Garland becoming some of the top box office draws. It wouldn’t be until the mid-to-late 1950s and early 1960s that we got to see the more adult side of youth again in movies like Rebel Without a Cause, Peyton Place, Splendor in the Grass, and A Summer Place.

Flaming Youth is a prime example of how a movie being a major success upon its release doesn’t necessarily guarantee preservation. While many of the definitive flapper flicks of the 1920s, such as Clara Bow’s It and Joan Crawford’s Our Dancing Daughters, still exist and are very easy to see, Flaming Youth is now a partially lost film. Originally, Flaming Youth had a runtime of 90 minutes, but only about 10 minutes worth of footage is known to still exist.

The few minutes that remain are fascinating for a multitude of reasons. If you’re a fan of 1920s fashion and beauty, you’re going to love the footage of Patricia getting dolled up for a party. An infamous skinny dipping sequence during a wild party, shown in silhouette, is among the existing footage and is a perfect example of how director John Francis Dillon used artistic vision as a way to sidestep censorship, something which was pointed out in many reviews from 1923. But most importantly, it’s still easy to see why Colleen Moore was such a delight to audiences.

Unfortunately, Flaming Youth isn’t the only Colleen Moore to become lost over time. Despite being one of the biggest stars of the 1920s, only about half of her films are still known to exist in a complete state. But it’s certainly not due to a lack of effort on Moore’s part, which makes the fact that so many of her films are lost all the more heartbreaking. She personally gave prints of her films to the Museum of Modern Art, but due to an administrative oversight, they weren’t properly cared for. Years later, she contacted MOMA to check on the condition of her films and learned they had deteriorated too badly for them to be saved. Despite all of her efforts to find other prints of her films, she had little luck. Perhaps one day, a complete print will be found somewhere and the world will be able to see Colleen Moore at her peak once again.

Underworld (1927)

After pulling off  a big robbery, gangster Bull Weed (George Bancroft) crosses paths with a homeless, alcoholic man he nicknames Rolls Royce (Clive Brook). Bull likes Rolls Royce’s style, so he decides to make him part of his gang. Bull is a pretty big shot gangster who thinks he’s untouchable. With Bull’s help, Rolls Royce gets his act together and ends up becoming a valuable part of Bull’s gang. Before alcoholism took over his life, Rolls had been a lawyer so he’s got lots of knowledge that’s very helpful for Bull’s many schemes.

Not only is Bull extremely proud of his criminal enterprise, he’s also very proud of his girlfriend Feathers (Evelyn Brent). Things start to get complicated when Rolls Royce and Feathers start to fall in love with each other. One night at a party attended by every major gangster in town, Bull finds out he’s not as untouchable as he thought. When he discovers a rival gangster trying to get Feathers’ attention, Bull kills him, is caught, and sentenced to death.

Although Rolls and Feathers are conflicted about whether or not they should accept this opportunity to be together, Rolls comes up with a plan to break Bull out of prison. Unfortunately, the plan goes horribly awry and Bull thinks he’s been double crossed. But Bull escapes and ends up getting into a big standoff with the police while Rolls and Feathers try to set the record straight with him.

You’d be hard pressed to find a classic gangster movie that wasn’t influenced in some way by Underworld. The story might not be particularly complex, but Underworld effectively set the tone for all the gangster movies that would become hugely popular just a few years later. When you watch it, you’ll inevitably see see moments that make you think of Little Caesar, Scarface, and The Public Enemy. With Josef Von Sternberg at the helm, Underworld is a bit more stylish than the classic Warner Brothers gangster classics, but it’s no less brilliant. All three leads give excellent performances that really light up the screen. On the whole, Underworld has aged very well. If you’re a big fan of gangster movies, this is an absolute must-see.

The Freshman (1925)

More than anything else, Harold Lamb (Harold Lloyd) dreams of being able to go away to college and be a big man on campus. He works hard to be able to go to Tate College,  but since he’s not the coolest guy in town, he decides to see a movie called “The College Hero” over and over again and takes notes on everything the main character does. Once his parents see some of the things Harold is planning to do, like doing a jig anytime he meets someone new, they know this isn’t going to end well.

Once Harold arrives at Tate College, his behavior does make him popular, but for all the wrong reasons. He quickly becomes a target for other students to pick on and Harold’s tendency to try to buy popularity doesn’t do him any favors. The only real friend he has is girl named Peggy (Jobyna Ralston), who he had met on the train to Tate and just happens to be his landlord’s daughter. She sincerely has a crush on Harold for the person he really is, not the person he tries to be.

Eventually, Harold realizes that if he really wants to be popular, he needs to get on the football team. Of course, Harold’s try-out is a complete disaster, but the coach admires his persistence and when one of the team’s most popular players suggest they make him the team’s water boy and let him think he’s a replacement, the coach goes along with it. Thinking he’s made the team, Harold tries taking another step up the social ladder by hosting the school’s Fall Frolic, but the night ends up being another disaster when his tailor isn’t able to have his suit ready on time. Since his suit is only held together with very loose stitches, the tailor has to secretly keep stitching him back up throughout the night. Then things get even worse when Harold and a popular student get into an argument over Peggy and Harold finds out how the other students really see him.

But when Tate College is playing in a big football game, Harold finally has a chance to earn the popularity he’s always wanted. The players on the other team are so strong, all of Tate’s players are forced out of the game because of injuries. Harold is eager to get in the game, but the coach hesitates until he has no other choice. After he finally gets in the game, Harold nearly loses the whole game, but he manages pull through in the end.

I absolutely despise football, but watching The Freshman is one of the rare occasions I will gladly watch something football-related and have a darn good time doing so. Harold Lloyd is an absolute genius and The Freshman is one of his best movies. He was so perfect at playing sincere, likable, but kind of dorky characters; he had it down to a fine art. Not only is Lloyd’s performance excellent, it’s full of absolutely hilarious jokes but still has a lot of heart to it. This is everything a good silent comedy should be. The Freshman is an absolute delight, plain and simple. If you’re just starting to get into silent films and are looking for some movies to help you get started exploring silent comedy, The Freshman is one I would very highly recommend.

A Throw of Dice (1929)

If there’s one thing cousins and rival kings Sohat (Himansu Rai) and Ranjit (Charu Roy) can’t resist, it’s gambling. While on a hunting trip together, the two kings are more interested in gambling with each other than they are in actually hunting. Unbeknownst to Ranjit, Sohat has conspired to kill Ranjit with a poisoned arrow during the trip so it will look like an accident and he’ll be able to take control over Ranjit’s kingdom. But they happen to be hunting close to where Kanwa (Sarada Gupta), a healer turned hermit, lives with his daughter Sunita (Seeta Devi) so Ranjit it taken there to recover. Meanwhile, Ranjit falls in love with Sunita, as does Sohat. Sunita loves Ranjit and isn’t interested in Sohat’s attempts to win her over. But Kanwa refuses to let his daughter marry Sunita because of his gambling habit and they plan to run away together.

After spending a blissful week together before their wedding, Sunita suddenly decides to leave Ranjit after she gets word that her father is dead and she’s presented with some evidence that suggests Ranjit had murdered him. As she leaves to head home, Sohan meets up with her and tries to make her think he’s trying to protect her from Ranjit while Ranjit has a friend of his try to catch up with her and explain the truth.

Once she’s convinced of Ranjit’s innocence, Sunita decides to go through with the wedding. But on the big day, Sohan arrives with the one thing that could put the wedding to a complete halt — some dice.

Even if you think a movie about two men vying for a woman’s affection sounds trite, A Throw of Dice is still very much worth seeing. Once you see it, it’s not the kind of movie you ever forget seeing. Its beautiful cinematography, beautiful costuming, and exquisite scenery make it stand out from other Hollywood productions that have similar plots. This film is absolutely stunning. It’s been compared to some of Cecil B. DeMille’s work because of its spectacular scenery and large crowd scenes, but there was no need to build sets for A Throw of Dice on a Hollywood soundstage when they could film it on location in India. It’s simply one of the most visually beautiful films I’ve ever seen. If you have any interest in film history, particularly in world cinema, this is a must see. Very few movies that were made in India during the silent era still exist intact today, so A Throw of Dice is a rare chance to see a silent film that was filmed in India and starred Indian actors.

Don Juan (1926)

As a young child, Don Juan (John Barrymore) is warned of one thing by his father — take all the love he can get from women, but be careful to not give them your love in return. Don Juan’s father Don Jose (also John Barrymore) knows a thing or two about being spurned by women, first when he finds out his wife is cheating on him, then he’s killed by a woman who stabs him. Don Juan takes his father’s advice to heart and after graduating college, he lives in Italy and establishes quite the reputation with women. At the time, Italy was being ruled by the Borgia family and Lucrezia Borgia (Estelle Taylor) has heard all about him. She personally invites Don Juan to a party she’s throwing and he goes, knowing what happens to people who defy the Borgias.

At the party, Don Juan is quite unimpressed with Lucrezia, but is instantly enamored with Adriana della Varnese (Mary Astor). Adriana is the kind of woman who makes him forget about all those warnings his father had given him about women. Lucrezia becomes extremely jealous and tries to get her to marry Count Donati (Montagu Love) and plots to kill her father. But then Don Juan get in the way of her scheme and officially wins Adriana’s affections. But Lucrezia isn’t willing to give up so easily and continues to threaten Adriana into marrying Donati. Even knowing how dangerous it can be to cross the Borgia family, Don Juan still refuses to marry Lucrezia and stops Adriana’s wedding. Lucrezia tries to have Don Juan locked up and put to death, but he stops at nothing to marry the woman he loves.

Although it doesn’t feature any spoken dialogue, Don Juan is significant for being the first commercially released feature film with a synchronized soundtrack and sound effects on Vitaphone. Don Juan was definitely meant to be a big prestige picture for Warner Brothers. Not only did it utilize the new Vitaphone technology, it starred John Barrymore, one of the biggest stars in the world at the time, and featured a lot of lavish sets and costumes, plus some exciting action scenes. It even does a good job of using first-person camera perspective in some shots. Warner Brothers clearly pulled out all the stops and it definitely shows. Although the story drags a little bit, it’s generally a very entertaining movie and an excellent action role for the great John Barrymore. It’s not hard to see how this one was a huge hit when it was released and it remains very likable today. (Also, don’t forget to keep an eye out for Myrna Loy in a small role!)

Greed (1924)

As a young man, McTeague (Gibson Gowland) works as a miner and doesn’t come from a wealthy family. His mother would love for him to have a better life, so when a traveling dentist comes to town, she begs him to take McTegue along as an apprentice. The dentist agrees and before long, McTeague has his own dentistry office in San Francisco. He’s not rich, but getting by and he has a good friend in Marcus (Jean Hersholt). Marcus is in love with his cousin Trina (ZaSu Pitts) and he wants to marry her. But when she suddenly needs some dental work done one day, it would prove to be a fateful day for all involved.

Marcus brings Trina to see McTeague and while they wait, she decides to buy a lottery ticket, not really expecting to win. When McTeague meets Trina, he falls in love with her and Marcus tries to be supportive and gives him his blessing to start courting her. It’s hard for Marcus to put his feelings aside and it gets even more difficult when they decide to get married. As difficult as that is, it gets worse when Trina finds out her lottery ticket was a winner and she’s won $5,000. Marcus becomes extremely resentful toward McTeague for not only taking Trina away from him, but for taking that money away from him, too.

$5,000 is a life-altering amount of money (the movie is set around the turn of the last century) and it could do a lot to help a newlywed couple get started in life together. McTeague wants to get a small house so they can stop living in a small apartment in a boarding house, but Trina refuses to spend any of the money. She insists on doing everything as cheaply as humanly possible, even if it means living on days old meat and living in an apartment one of their neighbors was murdered in, so she can squirrel away more money that she never intends to spend. Trina’s penny pinching ways cause a lot of tension between her and McTeague and things only get worse when Marcus spitefully rats McTeague out for practicing dentistry without a license. The couple has to sell virtually all of their possessions and McTeague struggles to find more work. Trina refuses to even let him have a few cents for car fare for him to go look for work on a rainy day.

Eventually, McTeague leaves town to work as a fisherman and takes $450 Trina had saved in addition to her winnings since they’ve been married. Trina is left behind absolutely furious and when she has to have some of her fingers amputated, she’s forced to become a school janitor for extra money, still unwilling to spend any of her $5,000. She even withdraws  the money from the bank so McTeague can’t get to it and sleeps on it at night. When McTeague returns from his fishing excursion, he finds Trina and asks her for a little money so he can get something to eat, but she refuses. The next day, McTeague confronts Trina again, but this time he kills her in a fit of rage and takes her $5,000.

Since McTeague is now a wanted criminal, he has no other choice to leave town, so he does and gets back into the mining game. But it isn’t long before begins to worry the authorities are after him. He takes a few supplies and heads into Death Valley on his own with cops following not far behind. Among the authorities is Marcus, who would love nothing more than to see McTeague brought to justice.

Greed is a movie that certainly has a level of notoriety in film history. Director Erich Von Stroheim infamously spent two years filming 85 hours worth of footage for this movie. Filming the scenes in Death Valley alone took two months and Von Stroheim’s original cut of Greed was an astonishing 42 reels long (approximately 8 hours, but could be longer depending on the speed it was projected at.) Von Stroheim only screened his original cut once for about a dozen people before Irving Thalberg insisted it be cut down to a more manageable length. Von Stroheim cut it down to 24 reels and wanted it released as two separate movies, but that didn’t happen. Instead, Thalberg had it cut down to 10 reels. For years, Greed only existed in an extremely truncated form. The hours of footage that were part of Von Sternberg’s original cut are believed to be lost, but the movie has been restored to a 4-hour long version using still photos to fill in some of the missing gaps.

Now rightfully celebrated as being one of the finest films to be produced during the silent era, Greed was greeted to less enthusiasm after its original release. The restored version does a good job of giving us a better idea of what Von Stroheim’s original vision was. The length alone is something that will deter a lot of people from watching it and I know some people aren’t big fans of using still photos in place of lost footage, but it’s really the kind of movie every self-respecting silent film fan should watch at least once. Admittedly, I don’t have the most patience for 3+ hour long movies, but I love Greed. Since it’s been a few years since I last saw it in its entirety, I re-watched it again before writing this post and I’d almost forgotten how good it is. It may be slow paced, but it’s a very compelling look at the power greed can have over people. I know I would be absolutely thrilled if that lost footage ever turned up somewhere.

The Magician (1926)

Margaret Chauncey (Alice Terry) is a sculptor who is seriously injured when part of a sculpture she’s working on breaks off and falls on her. Since her spine is injured, the surgery necessary to treat her is very sensitive. Luckily, Doctor Arthur Burdon (Ivan Petrovich) is the one who performs the operation on Margaret and he’s well-known for being one of the best surgeons around. As he performs the operation on Margaret, the procedure is observed by several medical students, including Oliver Haddo (Paul Wegener), who has an interest in hypnotism and magic, in addition to medicine. Haddo is on the search for finding a way to create human life.

Margaret’s operation is a big success and Arthur and Margaret fall in love afterward. It isn’t long before they’re engaged. Meanwhile, Haddo uncovers the secret to creating life in a book and it requires a maiden’s blood. Haddo decides that Margaret is the one whose blood he wants to use to conduct his experiments with. He tries following Margaret and Arthur around, trying to get close to her. Even though she doesn’t like him at all, he uses hypnotism to put her under his spell. One day, he comes to see her at home and makes it seem like a statue has come to life. He asks her to come see him the following morning and even though she doesn’t want to go, she isn’t able to stop herself from going.

Just before Margaret and Arthur are to be married, Haddo uses his control over her to force her to marry him instead. He and Margaret’s uncle know she would not go with him on her own, so Arthur tracks them down in Monte Carlo, where Margaret is now quite the gambler under Haddo’s control. She gets in touch with Arthur to let him know she’s not there on her own accord and he helps her escape. But just when they think she is safe, Margaret suddenly disappears one day. Haddo has tracked her down and kidnaps her so he can continue with his experiments.

I wouldn’t call The Magician one of my favorite movies, but it’s another movie I’m surprised I don’t hear mentioned very often. Rex Ingram’s direction is great and John F. Seitz’s cinematography is fantastic. The scene where Haddo makes it appear as if Margaret’s statue has come to life is particularly effective, thanks to both Ingram’s direction and Seitz’s cinematography. Story-wise, The Magician is something of a cross between Frankenstein and I’m going to say The Barbarian, just because it’s the first movie that comes to mind for me when I think of movies about a man going to horrifying lengths to control a woman. Fortunately, The Magician isn’t offensive like The Barbarian and is actually a pretty good movie that deserves to get more credit for being a great example of silent horror. If you see this one on TCM, be sure to set your DVR for it because it’s absolutely worth seeing at least once.

Street Angel (1928)

When Angela’s (Janet Gaynor) mother is gravely ill and needs medicine, she becomes desperate to do anything to get the money she needs. She tries prostitution, but when she doesn’t succeed with that, she steals the money. She’s arrested and sentenced to spend time in a workhouse, but she escapes to her home to see her mother, but her mother has died. With no money and nowhere else to go, she hides from the law by joining a traveling circus.

Despite everything she’s been through, Angela is content with her life in the circus. Although she isn’t specifically out to find love, she ends up falling in love with a street painter named Gino (Charles Farrell). While she can’t forget her past, he sees her for who she really is. But when she falls and breaks her ankle, she has to give up performing in the circus so she and Gino go back to her hometown of Naples. She hasn’t told him about her past and it’s not easy being back home. Gino continues to paint and although he’s improving as a painter, they struggle to get by until he get hired to paint a mural for a church. She’s also afraid of her secret past being  revealed.

Gino really wants to marry Angela, but then her worst fears come true when a police officer recognizes her and she has to serve her one-year sentence in the workhouse. The officer gives her an hour to say goodbye to Gino, but she still won’t tell him what’s going on so she simply disappears from his life. Without Angela around, Gino is completely lost in life. His once promising painting career has gone downhill and he’s fired from painting the mural. When Angela is released, she’s once again, completely alone and penniless. With no other choice, she heads down to the wharf with the other prostitutes. It just so happens that Gino is down by the wharf looking for a woman to paint.

Street Angel is one of three movies that earned Janet Gaynor the honor of being the first actress to win a Best Actress Academy Award, the other two movies being Sunrise and 7th Heaven. Both Gaynor and Charles Farrell deliver great performances, they had great, very natural chemistry together. Gaynor in particular had the perfect amount of vulnerability that the role needed.

In both Street Angel and 7th Heaven, Gaynor was directed by Frank Borzage, who does an exceptional job with Street Angel. For a movie full of mundane settings, Borzage found ways to work in some extremely dramatic shots and beautiful cinematography. Thanks to him, not only is the movie’s story beautiful, it looks just as beautiful, too, and Janet Gaynor’s performance was the icing on the cake.