Louise Glaum in "Expiation"--1920-Fred Niblo--A morality story --A Box Office Success-Full movie
„
Expiation (
France) /Rakkauden ikuinen taistelu (
Finland)/Sex (
USA)/Kvindernes
Kamp (
Denmark)" is a
1920 American silent drama film directed by
Fred Niblo, written by
C. Gardner Sullivan, produced by J.
Parker Read, and starring
Louise Glaum. Produced by J. Parker Read Jr. Productions.
Fred Niblo (January 6, 1874 --
November 11, 1948) was an
American pioneer film actor, director and producer. As a
Hollywood director, he is most remembered for several notable films beginning with his 1920 work
The Mark of Zorro which starred
Douglas Fairbanks.
The following year he teamed up with
Fairbanks again in
The Three Musketeers and then directed
Rudolph Valentino in
Blood and Sand. In 1925, Niblo was the principal director of the epic Ben-Hur that was one of the most expensive films of the day but became the third highest grossing silent film in cinema history. Niblo followed up on this success with two major 1926 works,
The Temptress starring
Greta Garbo in her second film in
America, and
Norma Talmadge in
Camille. Niblo went on to direct some of the greatest stars of the era including
Joan Crawford,
Lillian Gish, and
Ronald Colman. In
1930 he directed his first talkie with two of the biggest names in show business,
John Gilbert and
Renée Adorée in a film titled
Redemption.
On its surface, the film was a morality story on the evils of marital infidelity. The release of the movie , with its provocative title and explicit scenes of seduction and debauchery, made it the subject of controversy among censors and commentators.
The film's plot centers on
Adrienne Renault (played by Louise Glaum), the beautiful queen of the
Midnight Follies at the Frivolity
Theater. The film opens with Renault's current conquest, a married millionaire,
Philip Overman (played by
William Conklin). Overman is in his private box watching Renault perform her seductive "
Spider Dance." Renault comes on stage dressed as a spider, "clad in a translucent cloak of webs wrapped cloak-like around a body-hugging black sheath." In another scene of debauchery, the film depicts a party at which "stage-door johnnies drink out of women's slippers and scantily clad chorines slide down banisters, their undergarments visible to all and sundry."
The film then shifts to
Mrs. Overman (played by
Myrtle Stedman), home alone in her empty mansion. Her suspicions persuade her to hire a private detective to follow her husband.
Eventually, Mrs. Overman uncovers her husband's infidelity. She begs Renault to release her husband, but Renault refuses, and Mrs. Overmire obtains a divorce. By this time, Renault has fallen in love with a new millionaire,
Dick Wallace (played by
Irving Cummings). Renault marries
Wallace, but Wallace then betrays Renault, falling in love with Renault's young protege,
Daisy (played by
Viola Barry). It was Renault who had coached Daisy in the ways of seducing wealthy married men. Renault begs Daisy to release Wallace, harkening back to the scene where Mrs. Overmire had pled with Renault. As Renault had done with Mrs. Overmire, Daisy refuses to release Wallace.
The film was a box office success, and the
Los Angeles Times reported that it had led to a war being declared in some quarters against "sex pictures." Echoing the response of the producer, J. Parker Read, the
Times in February
1921 wrote: "The movie has an important part in life either for evil or good, and it is the producers' privilege to show the
error of the former and the virtue of the latter.
Anybody who would wish to ban pictures from the screen, would be simply eliminating a highly important, if not the most important phase of life from the pictures."
Resources: wikipedia.org, archive.org
New soundtrack and dubbing: Cinemateca
Music:
Kevin Mac Leod (incompetch.com) licensed under
Creative Commons licence:
Attribution 3.0 Unported (
CC BY 3.0).
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/
3.0/