The Blonde Saint | |
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Directed by | Svend Gade |
Written by | Marion Fairfax (scenario) |
Based on | The Isle of Life by Stephen French Whitman |
Produced by | Sam E. Rork |
Starring | Lewis Stone Doris Kenyon Gilbert Roland |
Cinematography | Tony Gaudio |
Distributed by | First National Pictures |
Release date |
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Running time | 70 minutes 7 reels (6,800 feet) |
Country | United States |
Language | Silent (English intertitles) |
The Blonde Saint is a 1926 American silent romantic adventure film directed by Svend Gade. It was produced by Sam E. Rork and released through First National Pictures. Lewis Stone and Doris Kenyon star and young newcomer Gilbert Roland is featured. [1]
The plot of the film bears a striking resemblance to the plot of the Warner Brothers talkie, One Way Passage (1932), although this silent film appears to have been more exotic.
As described in a film magazine review, [2] playboy Sebastian Maure has taken an interest in the prim and proper Ghirlaine "Anne" Bellamy, but she resists him as he has such a reputation, believed in nothing, and lived but to satisfy his own desires. Her better self tells her to go with the more virtuous Vincent Pamfort, and she finally tells Maure that she is going to leave to go to England to be with Pamfort. Maure gets her to go on a ship going to Palermo, and when near Sicily he grabs Anne and jumps overboard. They swim to a small island with a fishing village. They find that the village is suffering from a cholera plague. Maure devotes himself to the care of the poor. Anne, prompted by his self sacrefice, does her share of nursing and begins to wonder whether she is glad that Maure has promised to give her up. In answer to a letter from Maure, Pamfort arrives at the island, but now Anne elects to stay with Maure.
Producer Rork's 19-year-old daughter, Ann Rork, has a major role in the film as she has in her father's later produced The Notorious Lady (1927). Lewis Stone also returned in The Notorious Lady. [3] [4]
This was the final film of screenwriter Marion Fairfax. She and producer Rork had formed a partnership to make films in 1925, but, following the completion The Blonde Saint and a severe illness, she left film making and then wrote only for periodicals. [5]
An abridged and or incomplete version of survives in the British Film Institute National Film and Television Archive, London. [6]
Lewis Shepard Stone was an American film actor. He spent 29 years as a contract player at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and was best known for his portrayal of Judge James Hardy in the studio's popular Andy Hardy film series. He was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor in 1929 for his performance as Russian Count Pahlen in The Patriot. Stone was also cast in seven films with Greta Garbo, including in the role of Doctor Otternschlag in the 1932 drama Grand Hotel.
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Luis Antonio Dámaso de Alonso, known professionally as Gilbert Roland, was a Mexican-born American film and television actor whose career spanned seven decades from the 1920s until the 1980s. He was twice nominated for the Golden Globe Award in 1952 and 1964 and inducted into the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1960.
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Marion Fairfax was an American screenwriter, playwright, actress, and producer.
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