Smouldering Fires (film)

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Smouldering Fires
Smouldering Fires (1925, poster).jpg
Film poster
Directed by Clarence Brown
Charles Dorian (2nd unit)
Written by Melville W. Brown
Screenplay by Sada Cowan
Howard Higgin
Story bySada Cowan
Margaret Deland
Howard Higgin
Intertitles:
Dwinelle Benthall
Produced by Carl Laemmle
Starring Laura La Plante
Malcolm McGregor
Tully Marshall
Wanda Hawley
Pauline Frederick
Cinematography Jackson Rose
Edited byEdward Schroeder
Production
company
Release date
  • January 18, 1925 (1925-01-18)(USA)
Running time
80 minutes
7,356 feet on 8 reels
CountryUnited States
Language Silent (English intertitles)
Smouldering Fires

Smouldering Fires is a 1925 Universal silent drama film directed by Clarence Brown and starring Pauline Frederick and Laura La Plante. The movie's plot is similar to the 1933 talking picture Female , starring Ruth Chatterton. [1] [2]

Contents

Copies of this film are archived by UCLA and George Eastman House. In 1953, the film entered the public domain in the United States because the claimants did not renew its copyright registration in the 28th year after publication. [3] It is available on video, and numerous prints exist in private collections. [4]

Plot

As described in a film magazine, [5] Jane Vale (Frederick), a forty year old business woman who ran a great industrial plant left to her by her father, awoke to the realization that she was in love with Robert Elliott (McGregor), a youth scarcely more than half her age. This lad first attracted her attention by opposing her policy in a matter of production. She was passing at the time and heard him refer to her executive staff as "yes" men. Her general manager was for firing the boy on the spot, but instead, she made him her assistant. As a result, gossip spread about the factory through the envious mouths of his fellow employees. Feeling bound by his honor to defend her, on an occasion when a tough employee makes a scurrilous remark, the boy strikes him, knocking him down. Jane sees the fight although she is not seen by any of her workers. Then she gets the thrill of her life when, Elliott, the lad, announces that he is engaged to marry Miss Vale. Just before their marriage, Jane's young sister, Dorothy (La Plante), returns home from college and pays her a visit. The latter is about Elliott's age. The two immediately fall in love with each other, but conceal their growing passion out of love for Jane. Elliott goes through with the marriage, and later, on a mountain climb, circumstances result in Dorothy falling into his arms. It is then that they decide to tell Jane. But again they fail when they realize the pain it will cause her. After a party which was made up of Dorothy's younger friends, Jane discovers that Elliott and Dorothy love each other. Jane pretends that she has fallen out of love with Robert and seeks a divorce. In this way, she paves the way for his freedom and her sister's happiness.

Cast

Members of "The Committee:"

Reception

Reviewer Hal Erickson wrote that the film "is a first-rate silent 'soap opera', immaculately performed by its superb cast and brilliantly directed." While praising the American release version, he made note that the "slightly longer European version is even better, with some remarkably mature (albeit non-lurid) setpieces". [6]

In The First Female Stars: Women of the Silent Era, author David W. Menefee writes that the film "presented Pauline (Frederick) in a memorable light, successfully carrying off the role of a woman business executive." [7]

In Movies and American Society, author Steven J. Ross wrote that Smouldering Fires was "a cautionary tale of what happens when businesswomen become too successful." [8]

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References

  1. ↑ Donald W. McCaffrey, Christopher P. Jacobs (1999). Donald W. McCaffrey, Christopher P. Jacobs (ed.). Guide to the Silent Years of American Cinema (illustrated, annotated ed.). Greenwood Publishing Group. pp.  246 247. ISBN   9780313303456. Smouldering Fires, 1925.
  2. ↑ Hall, Mordaunt (March 31, 1925). "Smouldering Fires (1925)". The New York Times . Retrieved November 25, 2010.
  3. ↑ Pierce, David (June 2007). "Forgotten Faces: Why Some of Our Cinema Heritage Is Part of the Public Domain". Film History: An International Journal. 19 (2): 125–43. doi:10.2979/FIL.2007.19.2.125. ISSN   0892-2160. JSTOR   25165419. OCLC   15122313. S2CID   191633078.
  4. ↑ "Pauline Frederick - Smouldering Fires (1925)". Stanford University . Retrieved November 25, 2010.
  5. ↑ "Smouldering Fires". Universal Weekly. 20 (18). New York City, New York: Moving Picture Weekly Pub. Co.: 40 December 13, 1924. Retrieved August 25, 2021.
  6. ↑ Erickson, Hal. "Review: Smouldering Fires". Allmovie . Retrieved November 25, 2010.
  7. ↑ Menefee, David W. (2004). The First Female Stars: Women of the Silent Era (illustrated ed.). Greenwood Publishing Group. p. 69. ISBN   9780275982591.
  8. ↑ Steven J. Ross, ed. (2002). Movies and American society. Volume 10 of Blackwell Readers in American Social and Cultural History (6, reprint ed.). Wiley-Blackwell. p. 69. ISBN   9780631219606.
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