| Free to Love | |
|---|---|
 Still with Bow | |
| Directed by | Frank O'Connor |
| Screenplay by | Adele Buffington |
| Produced by | B. P. Schulberg |
| Starring | Clara Bow Donald Keith |
Production company | B.P. Schulberg Productions |
| Distributed by | Preferred Pictures |
Release date |
|
Running time | 60 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | Silent (English intertitles) |
Free to Love is a 1925 American silent drama film directed by Frank O'Connor. The film stars Clara Bow and Donald Keith. [1] [2]
After threatening him with a gun but relenting, Marie Anthony, who was recently released from a reformatory, is adopted by Judge Orr and becomes the fiancée of the young minister James Crawford, who intends to assist former convicts. Gang leader Jack Garner, who threatens to disclose what he knows of her past, succeeds in temporarily separating the lovers. Tony, a hunchback that Marie has befriended, warns her that Crawford's father is a confederate of criminals. Trying to shield the latter, Marie is arrested and accused of murder when Tony kills Garner, but is released when Tony later confesses. The senior Crawford commits suicide. Marie and her lover are reunited. [3]
As well as being available on DVD, a copy of Free to Love is held at UCLA Film and Television Archive. [4]
In a 2008 essay, Russel Johnson analysed the film "to illuminate the history of eugenics in the United States". [5] The title of the film was said to figure among those that "are themselves an explanation of Clara Bow's persona and career" [6] as was the scene where the character she plays "descended a gigantic staircase, leading six tuxedoed men by a leash." [7]
Clara Gordon Bow 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 film It brought her global fame and the nickname "The It Girl". Bow came to personify the Roaring Twenties and is described as its leading sex symbol.
Ida Estelle Taylor was an American actress who was the second of world heavyweight champion Jack Dempsey's four wives. With "dark-brown, almost black hair and brown eyes," she was regarded as one of the most beautiful silent film stars of the 1920s.
The Plastic Age is a 1925 American black-and-white silent romantic comedy film directed by Wesley Ruggles and starring Clara Bow, Donald Keith, and Gilbert Roland. 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 adapted the book for the screen.
B. P. Schulberg was an American pioneer film producer and film studio executive.
Charles Edgar Schoenbaum A. S. C. was an American cinematographer. His known film credits began in 1917--although he probably had earlier films--and ended with his untimely death from cancer in 1951. He was nominated for an Academy Award in 1949 for his work on Little Women.
The Daring Years is 1923 American silent melodrama film directed by Kenneth Webb and produced by Daniel Carson Goodman. The film starred Mildred Harris, Clara Bow, Charles Emmett Mack, and Tyrone Power Sr.
Sally, Irene, and Mary is a 1925 American silent comedy drama film starring Constance Bennett, Sally O'Neil, and Joan Crawford. It is based on the 1922 play of the same name by Eddie Dowling and Cyrus Woods and takes a behind-the-scenes look at the romantic lives of three chorus girls and the way their preferences in men affect their lives. The play was adapted again in 1938, again titled Sally, Irene, and Mary and directed by William A. Seiter. That version stars Alice Faye, Joan Davis, and Marjorie Weaver in the title roles, and co-starred Tony Martin, Fred Allen, and Jimmy Durante.
The Midshipman is a 1925 American silent romantic drama film directed by Christy Cabanne. The film stars Ramon Novarro and Harriet Hammond. Joan Crawford had an early uncredited role as an extra.
Kiss Me Again is a 1925 American silent romantic comedy film directed by Ernst Lubitsch. It stars Marie Prevost, Monte Blue, and Clara Bow. The film was based on the French play Divorçons! (1880), by Victorien Sardou and Émile de Najac, and the adapted version of the play Cyprienne.
Parisian Love is a black and white 1925 American silent romantic crime drama film directed by Louis J. Gasnier and starring Clara Bow. The film was produced by B.P. Schulberg Productions. A copy of this film still survives.
My Lady of Whims is a 1925 American silent comedy film directed by Dallas M. Fitzgerald. The film was originally seven reels, but a shortened five reel version survives. This film starred Clara Bow at age 20.
Clara Bow (1905–1965) was a 16-year-old living in the New York City borough of Brooklyn when she won the 1921 nationwide "Fame and Fortune Contest" advertised in Motion Picture Magazine. After submitting their photographs with a completed entry form clipped from the magazine, finalists were given multiple screen tests. As the winner, she was cast in a small role in the silent era film Beyond the Rainbow. Although her part was eventually edited out, the contest inspired her to pursue an acting career. She relocated to Los Angeles and signed with producer B.P. Schulberg. Her 1927 starring role in It, about an attractive and charismatic young woman, led the public to label Bow the "It girl". Over the next two decades, she would make more than 40 silent era films, the majority of them under contract to Paramount Pictures.
The Ancient Mariner is a 1925 American silent fantasy drama film based on the popular 1798 poem, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner by Samuel Taylor Coleridge. The film was directed by Henry Otto and Chester Bennett, and it was adapted for the screen by Eve Unsell. The film stars Clara Bow, Gladys Brockwell, Nigel De Brulier and was distributed by Fox Film Corporation. The film is presumed to be lost.
Alfred Emory Johnson was an American actor, director, producer, and writer. As a teenager, he started acting in silent films. Early in his career, Carl Laemmle chose Emory to become a Universal Studio leading man. He also became part of one of the early Hollywood celebrity marriages when he wed Ella Hall.
The Scarlet West is a 1925 American silent historical drama film directed by John G. Adolfi and starring Robert Frazer and Clara Bow. It was distributed by the First National company.
The Hunted Woman is a 1925 American silent drama film directed by Jack Conway and starring Seena Owen, Earl Schenck, and Victor McLaglen.
Emilie Johnson was a Swedish-American author, scenarist, and movie producer. She was the mother of American actor, director, producer, and writer Emory Johnson. In 1912, Emory Johnson dropped out of college and embarked upon a career in the movie business, starting as an assistant camera operator at Essanay Studios.
The Adventurous Sex is a lost 1925 American silent drama film that was directed by Charles Giblyn and starred Clara Bow, Herbert Rawlinson, and Earle Williams. The Howard Estabrook production was shot in studios in New York City and on location at Niagara Falls.
Fighting Youth is a lost 1925 American silent action film directed by B. Reeves Eason and starring William Fairbanks, Pauline Garon and George Periolat. A notorious brawler promises his fiancée that he will give up fighting, but then is persuaded to take party in a charity boxing match.
Northern Code is a 1925 American silent Northern romantic drama film directed by Leon De La Mothe and starring Robert Ellis, Eva Novak, and Josef Swickard.
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