Flaming Youth (film)
Flaming Youth was a 1923 silent film featuring Colleen Moore that centered on the story of a young woman named Patricia Frentiss. The portrayal cemented Colleen's position in the film world as the prototypical flapper (though it was not the first "flapper" film made).
| Flaming Youth | |
|---|---|
| File:Flaming youth 2.JPG Magazine advertisment for the film Flaming Youth starring Colleen Moore. | |
| Directed by | John Francis Dillon |
| Written by | Samuel Hopkins Adams (novel, as Warner Fabian) Harry O. Hoyt (scenario) |
| Produced by | Associated First National |
| Starring | Colleen Moore Milton Sills Elliott Dexter |
| Cinematography | James Van Trees |
| Distributed by | Associated First National |
Release date | November 12, 1923 |
Running time | 9 reels (8,433.9 feet) |
| Country | United States |
| Languages | Silent (English intertitles) |
Story
When Mona Frentiss dies, she has her confidante "Doctor Bobs" watch over her family, especially her youngest daughter Patricia. The family has been raised in a most unconventional manner, with Mona having a much younger lover and the father Ralph keeping his own lover on the side. As Patricia grows older, she attracts the attention of her mother's former lover, the much older (than Patricia, who in the book is in her early to mid teens) Carey Scott. Patricia tempts fate with her wild ways, nearly loses her virtue to a musician aboard an ocean-going boat, and is saved in time by Carey. Realizing that he is the man for her, she settles down into an experimental marriage.
Cast
- Colleen Moore - Patricia Frentiss
- Milton Sills - Cary Scott
- Elliott Dexter - Dr. Bobs
- Sylvia Breamer - Dee Fentriss
- Myrtle Stedman - Mona Fentriss
- Betty Francisco - Connie Fentriss
- Phillips Smalley - Ralph Fentriss
- Walter McGrail - Jamieson James
- Ben Lyon - Monty Standish
- George Barraud - Fred Browning
- John Patrick - Warren Graves
- Gino Corrado - Leno Stenak(billed as Geno Corrado)
- Gertrude Astor - Annie
- Michael Dark - Sidney Rathbone
Background
Flaming Youth is a 1923 silent film about youth in 1920s America based on the novel Flaming Youth by "Warner Fabian" aka Samuel Hopkins Adams. The film was produced and distributed by Associated First National. John Francis Dillon directed the picture. Colleen Moore starred in a role that would later become iconic for her. Moore's costar was Milton Sills. Though a lost film, one reel survives of this film in the Library of Congress. Two years later director Dillon and star Colleen Moore reteamed for a followup titled We Moderns.[1]
There had been several films prior to Flaming Youth to use the flapper as its subject—most famously, The Flapper with Olive Thomas. However, Flaming Youth was the one that best captured the imagination of the American public because it was based on a scandalous book, possibly based on the diaries of a real young woman, and because it featured Colleen Moore, who was already a well-known and respected dramatic actress who had been looking for a break-out role at the time she signed with First National.
Marketing of the film played up the racier aspects of the story, and a "skinny-dipping" sequence shot in silhouette (which still largely survives in the Library of Congress) was used in the films advertising extensively. The book contained some very adult subjects which were largely glossed over in the film. To counter potential negative backlash, a good deal of humor was injected into the film, so that many audiences thought the film was actually a burlesque of the whole flapper movement when, in fact, it was intended to be a dramatic film. Following the success of the film, rumors abounded to the effect that Colleen's next film would again re-team her with director Dillon and co-star Sills, but this was not to be and in May 1924, Moore dismissed the "flapper craze" as an after-war phenomenon which had served its purpose.[2]
See also
References
- ^ Flaming Youth at silentera.com database
- ^ to Myrtel Gebhart, The Los Angeles Times, May 18th 1924
Further reading
- Jeff Codori (2012), Colleen Moore; A Biography of the Silent Film Star, McFarland Publishing ISBN 978-0-7864-4969-9, EBook ISBN 978-0-7864-8899-5