The Battle of the Sexes (1914 film)

Last updated

The Battle of the Sexes
Battleofthesexes1915ad.jpg
A newspaper advertisement
Directed by D. W. Griffith
Based onThe Single Standard
by Daniel Carson Goodman
Starring Donald Crisp
Lillian Gish
Cinematography G. W. Bitzer
Edited by James Smith
Rose Smith
Distributed by Mutual Film Company
Continental Feature Film Corporation
Release date
  • April 12, 1914 (1914-04-12)
Running time
50 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguagesSilent film
English intertitles

The Battle of the Sexes is a 1914 American silent drama film directed by D. W. Griffith for the Majestic Motion Picture Company. No complete print of the film is known to exist; [1] however, a fragment has survived. [2] Griffith remade the film as The Battle of the Sexes in 1928 [3] as a comedy-drama and this latter version is available on DVD.

Contents

Plot

Frank Andrews (Donald Crisp) is a well-to-do, middle-class apartment dweller who is devoted to his wife (Mary Alden) and two children, John (Robert Harron) and Jane (Lillian Gish). Andrews enters into a midlife crisis when a fetching young lady, Cleo (Fay Tincher), moves into the apartment next door to the Andrewses.

Cleo takes note of Andrews' interest in her and begins to flirt with him, going so far as to set a fire in her apartment in order to attract his aid. Before long, Andrews and Cleo are involved in an affair, and Andrews begins to neglect both his family and responsibilities at work.

Jane, humiliated and aghast at her mother's silent suffering over the situation, goes next door with the idea of killing Cleo, but instead they strike up a conversation, and a mutual understanding. They hatch a plan whereby one of Cleo's former beaus (Owen Moore) appears to be courting Jane in front of Andrews, who swiftly condemns his daughter's interest in the man.

Jane counters by pointing out Andrews' own poor moral choices, and he sees the error of his ways. Andrews is happily reconciled to his family, and Cleo sets out in search of new digs.

Cast

History and background

The Battle of the Sexes was the second D. W. Griffith feature to be released to the public, following Biograph's long-delayed release of Griffith's first feature, Judith of Bethulia , by barely more than a month. He had already begun The Escape (1914), but production had been stopped when actress Blanche Sweet fell sick with scarlet fever, and the Reliance-Majestic Studio was already in trouble and in need of a viable Griffith property, fast. [4] Griffith decided on a scenario entitled "The Single Standard", written by in-house screenwriter Daniel Carson Goodman and filmed at the Reliance studio in New York City, rather than at the Hollywood studio, which was still being built. According to Lillian Gish, The Battle of the Sexes was shot in only five days. [5] Although the film was complete by February, its release was delayed for two further months. Several reasons have been advanced for the impasse, but scholar Paul Spehr has suggested that both Reliance-Majestic and its distributor, Mutual, were having difficulty developing an effective distribution strategy for longer, multi-reel films in a market still dominated by one- and two-reel subjects. [6] The Battle of the Sexes was premiered at Weber's Theater in New York City on April 12, 1914, and was a considerable success, the first Griffith enjoyed with his name over the title.

Although the film is routinely listed as "lost", Iris Barry mentioned the existence of a short fragment of it in her 1940 monograph on Griffith. [7] The surviving scene takes place in a restaurant, where Mrs. Andrews and the children take a booth, and the children note that Mr. Andrews and Cleo are seated at the booth next to them; Mrs. Andrews has not noticed this, and the children find an excuse to get her out of there just before the scene ends. Were there a minute or two more of this fragment extant, it might be possible to see Rudolph Valentino's alleged screen debut in the bit part of a taxi dancer; he is known to have played as an extra in an early Griffith feature, and a shadowy figure tentatively identified in one of the stills for The Battle of the Sexes may be him.

While the familiar, and now popular, 1928 remake of The Battle of the Sexes plays largely as a comedy, the 1914 original was a melodrama.

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dorothy Gish</span> American actress (1898–1968)

Dorothy Elizabeth Gish was an American stage and screen actress. Dorothy and her older sister Lillian Gish were major movie stars of the silent era. Dorothy also had great success on the stage, and was inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame. Dorothy Gish was noted as a fine comedian, and many of her films were comedies.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Donald Crisp</span> English actor (1882–1974)

Donald William Crisp was an English film actor as well as an early producer, director and screenwriter. His career lasted from the early silent film era into the 1960s. He won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor in 1942 for his performance in How Green Was My Valley.

<i>The Musketeers of Pig Alley</i> 1912 film

The Musketeers of Pig Alley is a 1912 American short drama and a gangster film. It is directed by D. W. Griffith and written by Griffith and Anita Loos. It is also credited for its early use of follow focus, a fundamental tool in cinematography.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Robert Harron</span> American actor

Robert Emmett Harron was an American motion picture actor of the early silent film era. Although he acted in over 200 films, he is possibly best recalled for his roles in the D.W. Griffith directed films The Birth of a Nation (1915) and Intolerance (1916).

<i>Judith of Bethulia</i> 1914 film

Judith of Bethulia (1914) is an American film starring Blanche Sweet and Henry B. Walthall, and produced and directed by D. W. Griffith, based on the play "Judith and the Holofernes" (1896) by Thomas Bailey Aldrich, which itself was an adaptation of the Book of Judith. The film was the first feature-length film made by pioneering film company Biograph, although the second that Biograph released.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Henry B. Walthall</span> American actor (1878–1936)

Henry Brazeale Walthall was an American stage and film actor. He appeared as the Little Colonel in D. W. Griffith's The Birth of a Nation (1915).

<i>Hearts of the World</i> 1918 film by D. W. Griffith

Hearts of the World is a 1918 American silent World War I propaganda film written, produced and directed by D. W. Griffith. In an effort to change the American public's neutral stance regarding the war, the British government contacted Griffith due to his stature and reputation for dramatic filmmaking.

<i>The New York Hat</i> 1912 film

The New York Hat is a silent short film which was released in 1912, directed by D. W. Griffith from a screenplay by Anita Loos, and starring Mary Pickford, Lionel Barrymore, and Lillian Gish.

<i>Home, Sweet Home</i> (1914 film) 1914 American film

Home, Sweet Home (1914) is an American silent biographical drama directed by D. W. Griffith. It stars Earle Foxe, Henry Walthall and Dorothy Gish.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fay Tincher</span> American comedy actress (1884-1983)

Fay Tincher was an American comic actress in motion pictures of the silent film era.

<i>The Battle at Elderbush Gulch</i> 1913 film

The Battle at Elderbush Gulch is a 1913 American silent Western film directed by D. W. Griffith and featuring Mae Marsh, Lillian Gish, and Alfred Paget.

<i>The House of Darkness</i> 1913 film

The House of Darkness is a 1913 American short drama film directed by D. W. Griffith.

The Quicksands is a 1914 American short drama film directed by Christy Cabanne.

<i>The Great Love</i> (1918 film) 1918 film

The Great Love is a 1918 American silent war drama film directed and written by D. W. Griffith who, along with scenario writer Stanner E.V. Taylor, is credited as "Captain Victor Marier". The film stars George Fawcett and Lillian Gish. Set during World War I, exterior scenes were shot on location in England. The Great Love is now considered to be a lost film.

<i>The Greatest Thing in Life</i> 1918 film

The Greatest Thing in Life is a 1918 American silent drama film about World War I, directed by D. W. Griffith and starring Lillian Gish, Robert Harron, and David Butler. The film is now considered lost as no prints are known to exist.

<i>A Romance of Happy Valley</i> 1919 film

A Romance of Happy Valley is a 1919 American drama film directed by D. W. Griffith and starring Lillian Gish. Believed lost for almost 50 years, a print was discovered in 1965 in the State Film Archives of the Soviet Union, which donated it to the Museum of Modern Art.

<i>True Heart Susie</i> 1919 film

True Heart Susie is a 1919 American drama film directed by D. W. Griffith and starring Lillian Gish. A print of the film survives in the film archive of the British Film Institute. The film has seen several VHS releases as well as a DVD issue.

<i>The Greatest Question</i> 1919 film

The Greatest Question is a 1919 American drama film directed by D. W. Griffith. Based upon a novel by William Hale, the film has a plot involving spiritualism.

<i>The Escape</i> (1914 film) 1914 film

The Escape is a 1914 American silent drama film written and directed by D. W. Griffith and starred Donald Crisp. The film is based on the play of the same name by Paul Armstrong who also wrote the screenplay. It is now considered lost. The master negative of the production was destroyed in the disastrous 1914 Lubin vault fire in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

<i>The Battle of the Sexes</i> (1928 film) 1928 film by D. W. Griffith

The Battle of the Sexes is a 1928 American synchronized sound comedy film directed by D. W. Griffith. While the film has no audible dialog, it was released with a synchronized musical score, singing and sound effects using both the sound-on-disc and sound-on-film process. The film starred Jean Hersholt, Phyllis Haver, Belle Bennett, Don Alvarado, and Sally O'Neil. It was released by United Artists. The film was a remake by Griffith of an earlier film he directed in 1914, which starred Lillian Gish. Both films are based on the novel The Single Standard by Daniel Carson Goodman; the story was adapted for this production by Gerrit J. Lloyd.

References

  1. ↑ Battle of the Sexes (1914) at TheGreatStars.com; Lost Films Wanted (Wayback Machine)
  2. ↑ "Progressive Silent Film List: The Battle of the Sexes". Silent Era. Retrieved April 22, 2008.
  3. ↑ "Progressive Silent Film List: The Battle of the Sexes". Silent Era. Retrieved April 22, 2008.
  4. ↑ Bitzer, G.W., Billy Bitzer, His Story. Farrar, Straus & Giroux, New York, NY, 1973
  5. ↑ Gish, Lillian, with Pinchot, Ann, The Movies, Mr. Griffith and Me. Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliff, NJ, 1969
  6. ↑ "LE GIORNATE DEL CINEMA MUTO : XXIII edizione : Sacile, 9-16 Ottobre 2004 : Program". Cinetecadelfriuli.org. Retrieved October 26, 2017.
  7. ↑ Barry, Iris, D. W. Griffith: American Film Master. The Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY, 1940
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.