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Flaming Youth (film)

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Flaming Youth
Lobby card
Directed byJohn Francis Dillon
Written byHarry O. Hoyt (scenario)
Based onFlaming Youth
1923 novel
by Samuel Hopkins Adams
Produced byJohn McCormick
Starring
CinematographyJames Van Trees
Edited byArthur Tavares
Distributed byAssociated First National
Release date
  • November 12, 1923 (1923-11-12) (United States)
Running time
90 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageSilent (English intertitles)

Flaming Youth is a 1923 American silent drama film directed by John Francis Dillon and starring Colleen Moore and Milton Sills, based on the novel of the same name by Samuel Hopkins Adams. Associated First National produced and distributed the film. In his retrospective essay "Echoes of the Jazz Age", writer F. Scott Fitzgerald cited Flaming Youth as the only film that captured the sexual revolution of the Jazz Age.[1]

The film is now considered partially lost.[2] One reel survives and is housed at the Library of Congress.[3][4]

Plot

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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, Cary Scott, who is much older than Patricia (who in the book is in her early to mid-teens). 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 Cary. Realizing that he is the man for her, Patricia settles down into an experimental marriage.

Cast

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Background

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Lobby card

Several films prior to Flaming Youth used the flapper as subject matter, such as The Flapper with Olive Thomas, but the financial success of Flaming Youth made it the movie credited with launching a cycle of movies about flappers and helping Colleen Moore be seen as the originator of the screen flapper.[5][6]

The film's marketing 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 film's advertising extensively. The ads also boasted "neckers[broken anchor], petters, white kisses, red kisses, pleasure mad daughters, [and] sensation craving mothers."[7] The book contained 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.[8]

Reception

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The public reaction to the film was enthusiastic, and it firmly fixed a new kind of female behavior in the public's imagination.[7] In his retrospective essay "Echoes of the Jazz Age", author F. Scott Fitzgerald cited Flaming Youth as the only motion picture that captured the sexual revolution of the Jazz Age.[9] He lamented that its runaway success prompted "Hollywood hacks" to create a number of similar but less daring films and to run "the theme into its cinematographic grave."[1] He also emphasized the fact that Flaming Youth persuaded certain moralistic Americans that their young girls could be "seduced without being ruined."[1] Fitzgerald also praised Colleen Moore's performance in the film, remarking that: "I was the spark that lit up Flaming Youth, Colleen Moore was the torch."[7][10]

Critical reviews

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Colleen Moore with "Dutch Bob" haircut, 1927 publicity photo

While Flaming Youth was successful enough to be held over in most American cities, reactions from film critics were mixed.[11] The January 12, 1924, issue of the Exhibitor's Trade Review cites a review from the Chicago News which called the film "one of the best-told screen novels that has come along", and another review from the Cincinnati Enquirer in which the critic pointed out that the film was not completely faithful to the book. He added that "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."[12] A reviewer for the Indiana Star wrote, "In spite of an awkward story, Miss Moore contributes much merriment to the occasion and Elliott Dexter and Milton Sills lend the frontier element of the film a certain degree of stability."[12]

A critic for The New York Times wrote, "Colleen Moore gives a vivid performance of the jazz-devoted novice once she gets her hold of the theme. There are moments in the beginning when her rendition is a little artificial. But after her awkward trip downstairs in exotic pajamas—which are not really graceful—she lives the part of a pert young thing, whose hair is cut with a bang on the forehead, whose eyes are full of mischief and whose arms are long and slender." The New York Times critic also described Milton Sills as "sympathetic" and Myrtle Stedman as "charming."[13]

Flapper archetype

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Biographer Jeanine Basinger in Silent Stars (1999) reports that "the movie flapper really came into focus in 1923, when Colleen Moore"—heretofore playing ingenues "with no distinctive traits"—appeared in Flaming Youth, and "she more than anyone became the prototype."[14]

The flapper signaled the transition from the pre-World War I feminine ideals, such as the Gibson Girl, to the post-war modern era. She acted out the changes that were taking place "in fashion, sex, social awareness, and politics."[15] Basinger describes the iconic image of the flapper: "flat-chested and angular, big-eyed and lively, and with her hair cut short, very short, straight across the bottom and topped off with bangs"—the distinctive "Dutch Boy bob".[16]

Basinger insists that the Dutch Boy was popularized by Colleen Moore, and not by her contemporary Louise Brooks, whose hairdo appropriates the "trademark" flapper cut.[17]

Censorship

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Films during that period were subject to censorship by state and city censor boards. The Board of Motion Picture Review of Worcester, Massachusetts, banned the showing of Flaming Youth, even though it had been passed by the state board.[18]

When Flaming Youth debuted in Québec cinemas in January 1924,[19] Judge Philippe-Auguste Choquette was petitioned by a delegation of Montreal women to ban the motion picture. It asserted the foreign American film was "obscene" and morally corrosive to young Canadian girls.[20] In response, Judge Choquette ordered all film prints to be seized and all lobby cards to be confiscated. Additionally, theater owners and projectionists who exhibited the film were arrested.[19] Those highly publicized actions caused a legal court case to ensue over the film. The case regarding the film was transferred to Judge Arthur Lachance of the Court of Sessions.[19] Lachance privately viewed the film and deemed its contents to be "immoral."[20] Shortly thereafter, the Canadian board of censors rescinded its previous approval of the film and Flaming Youth could no longer be shown at any cinema in Canada "without violating the Canadian criminal code."[20]

See also

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References

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  1. ^ a b c Fitzgerald 2009, p. 17.
  2. ^ Menefee 2014.
  3. ^ Bennett 2015.
  4. ^ American Silent Feature Film Survival Database Flaming Youth
  5. ^ Pitz 2010.
  6. ^ Ross 2010, pp. 271–290.
  7. ^ a b c Savage 2007, p. 205.
  8. ^ Gebhart 1924.
  9. ^ Fitzgerald 2009, pp. 13–12.
  10. ^ Basinger 1999, p. 420.
  11. ^ "Flaming Youth and the First Flapper". The Midnight Palace. June 20, 2013. Archived from the original on December 12, 2017. Retrieved December 11, 2017.
  12. ^ a b Exhibitor's Trade Review 1924.
  13. ^ The New York Times 1923.
  14. ^ Basinger 1999, p. 412.
  15. ^ Basinger 1999, pp. 412–413: "She represented women in transition from the old to the new..."
  16. ^ Basinger 1999, pp. 420–421.
  17. ^ Basinger 1999, pp. 421, 430.
  18. ^ "Worcester Review Board Bans Pictures". The Exhibitor. 8 (5). Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: 15. October 1, 1924. Retrieved August 15, 2024 – via Google Books.
  19. ^ a b c Variety, January 17, 1924.
  20. ^ a b c Variety, January 31, 1924.

Sources

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