Happiness | |
---|---|
Directed by | King Vidor |
Screenplay by | J. Hartley Manners |
Based on | Happiness by J. Hartley Manners |
Starring | Laurette Taylor |
Cinematography | Chester A. Lyons |
Production company | |
Distributed by | Metro Pictures |
Release date |
|
Running time | 76 minutes ; 8 reels |
Country | United States |
Language | Silent (English intertitles) |
Happiness is a 1924 American silent comedy film directed by King Vidor and starring stage actress Laurette Taylor in one of her rare film appearances. The film is based on the 1914 Broadway play of the same name written by Taylor's husband J. Hartley Manners. [1] [2]
As described in a film magazine review, [3] Jenny Wray, the sole support of her mother, obtains work in a modiste's shop. She is called on to deliver several gowns to Mrs. Chrystal Pole. Mrs. Pole, who is bored with life, becomes interested in Jenny's philosophy of happiness, and induces her to make her home at the Pole mansion. However, Jenny soon tires of it and returns to Brooklyn. She continues to cultivate the friendship of Mrs. Pole, who aids her in her efforts to have her own modiste's shop. Fermoy MacDonough, an electrician, falls in love with Jenny and they marry. In several years Jenny has a shop of her own and continues to spread happiness.
Happiness marked the second and final cinematic collaboration between Vidor and well-known stage actress Laurette Taylor. Based on the one-act play of the same name by Taylor's husband J. Hartley Manners the film adaption was a box office success, due in part to Vidor's personal interest in the theme and Taylor's, restrained performance [4]
Taylor would make one more movie with M-G-M studios in 1924, One Night in Rome , directed by Clarence Badger. [5]
Manners' vehicle for Laurette Taylor is largely a facsimile of his 1912 play Peg o' My Heart, with the setting moved from rural British Isles to the urban New York City.
The film version introduces a new facet to Manners' "creaky" scenario. Vidor's identification with the Populist movement and its pro-agrarian and pro-nativist ideals is enlarged in Happiness to include a broader spectrum of the working class, including poor and urban immigrants. The entrepreneurial Jenny (Taylor) struggles in this Brooklyn lower-class milieu to ultimately achieve social and financial security. Vidor makes explicit his political philosophy when the now successful Jenny encounters her early alter-ego, a poor, but ambitious girl (also named Jenny) on the streets of Brooklyn, with the inter-title "And the endless chain of Jennys goes on in all big cities..." [6]
Prints of Happiness are preserved at George Eastman House and Gosfilmofond (Russian State archives) Moscow. [7]
King Wallis Vidor was an American film director, film producer, and screenwriter whose 67-year film-making career successfully spanned the silent and sound eras. His works are distinguished by a vivid, humane, and sympathetic depiction of contemporary social issues. Considered an auteur director, Vidor approached multiple genres and allowed the subject matter to determine the style, often pressing the limits of film-making conventions.
Laurette Taylor was an American stage and silent film star who is particularly well known for originating the role of Amanda Wingfield in the first production of Tennessee Williams's play The Glass Menagerie.
John Hartley Manners was a London-born playwright of Irish extraction who wrote Peg o' My Heart, which starred his wife, Laurette Taylor, on Broadway in one of her greatest stage triumphs.
The Other Half is a 1919 American drama film directed by King Vidor. Produced by the Brentwood Corporation, the film starred Vidor’s wife Florence Vidor and featured comedienne Zasu Pitts.
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Peg o' My Heart is a 1922 American silent drama film directed by King Vidor and starring Laurette Taylor. It is based on the 1912 play written by Taylor's husband J. Hartley Manners. The play starred Laurette Taylor and famously ran a record number of performances on Broadway. Six reels of the original eight reels survive at the Library of Congress.
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Main Street is a 1923 American silent drama film based on the 1920 novel of the same name by Sinclair Lewis. It was produced and distributed by Warner Bros. and directed by Harry Beaumont. A Broadway play version of the novel was produced in 1921. It was the first film to be released after the foundation of Warner Bros. Pictures on April 4, 1923.
To-Day is a 1917 silent film drama directed by Ralph Ince, who is also credited as the film's writer, and starring Florence Reed. A story about prostitution, this film is based on a 1913 stage play Today by George Broadhurst and Abraham S. Schomer and starred Emily Stevens which ran for an astounding 280 performances in eight months' time. Actors Gus Weinburg and Alice Gale are the only actors in the film that appeared in the play. It is considered to be a lost film.
The Song of Songs is a 1918 American silent drama film produced by Famous Players–Lasky and based on a 1914 stage play version by Edward Sheldon of the 1908 novel by Hermann Sudermann, The Song of Songs. This picture was directed by Joseph Kaufman and stars Elsie Ferguson. This was Kaufman's last film before his death on February 1, 1918, very early on during the 1918 flu pandemic.
Mademoiselle Modiste is a 1926 American silent romantic comedy film produced by and starring Corinne Griffith and distributed by First National Pictures. Robert Z. Leonard directed Griffith in a story based on a popular 1905 Victor Herbert operetta on Broadway, Mlle. Modiste, with a libretto by Henry Martyn Blossom, which was similar to the MGM film The Merry Widow. It is now considered a lost film.
Peg o' My Heart is a 1912 play written by J. Hartley Manners. It has three acts, a medium-sized cast, one setting, and moderate pacing. The story is set at the English mansion of the socially prominent Chichester family, whose lives are changed by the introduction of an Irish-American heiress into their midst.