The Circle | |
---|---|
Directed by | Frank Borzage |
Written by | Kenneth B. Clarke |
Based on | The Circle by W. Somerset Maugham |
Starring | Eleanor Boardman Malcolm McGregor Alec B. Francis Eugenie Besserer Joan Crawford |
Cinematography | Chester A. Lyons |
Distributed by | Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer |
Release date | September 22, 1925 |
Running time | 60 minutes |
Country | United States |
Language | Silent (English intertitles) |
The Circle is a 1925 American silent romantic comedy film directed by Frank Borzage. The film stars Eleanor Boardman, Malcolm McGregor, and Alec B. Francis. A young Joan Crawford (whose name was changed that year from Lucille LeSueur through a contest run by the studio) [1] appears in the film's opening scene and later in a photograph viewed by other characters. [2] The screenplay, written by Kenneth B. Clarke, was based on the 1921 play of the same title by W. Somerset Maugham. [3]
The play was filmed again by MGM as an early sound release (also released in a silent version) in 1930 as Strictly Unconventional .
In the 1890s, young Lady Catherine (Joan Crawford) decides to leave her husband, Lord Clive Cheney (Derek Glynne), and her son Arnold in favor of her lover, "Hughie" Porteous (Frank Braidwood). Thirty years later, young Elizabeth Cheney (Eleanor Boardman) is facing the same choice between her husband, the now grown Arnold (Creighton Hale), and her lover, Teddy Luton (Malcolm McGregor). Before going off with Teddy, however, Elizabeth wants to know how the love match between Catherine and Hughie has worked out, so she has invited them to the house while Arnold's now-aged father, Lord Clive (Alec B. Francis), is away on a hunting trip. Scenes of Catherine and Hughie driving toward the house, with only the backs of their heads visible, are intercut.
The prim and fussy Arnold is nervous about the impending visit, but when Lord Clive returns to the house unexpectedly just before Catherine (Eugenie Besserer) and Hughie (George Fawcett) arrive, the older man does not seem at all upset by their arrival. The former young lovers have not aged well. Catherine is flighty, trying to maintain a façade of youth, and Hugh is fat and cranky. Although the two bicker and complain during their visit, Elizabeth sees that they still have a strong bond of affection after thirty years together, and she vows to seek happiness with Teddy instead of the dull safety of marriage with Arnold.
Arnold (as well as Clive and the house butler) is aware that Elizabeth may elope with Teddy and seeks his father's advice. Clive cautions his son against acting too impetuously. Encountering Elizabeth, Arnold fails to offer a passionate response to her possible departure from his life. When Elizabeth asks Teddy how he would react if another man tried to take her he away, he says that he would blacken one of her eyes and close the other, which convinces her of Teddy's passion as Arnold watches, unseen by the two.
Clive talks with Hughie, believing that he has helped to save Arnold's marriage, unaware that Elizabeth and Teddy have driven away in a chauffeured car. The two try to kiss on the bumpy drive without being watched by the driver, who is wearing a cap and driver's goggles. When the car seems to break down, the chauffeur reveals himself to be Arnold. He tells Teddy that he will blacken one of his eyes and close the other, and punches his rival. He then forces Elizabeth back in the car and returns to the house. After dinner, Arnold tells Elizabeth that it is time for bed. Outside the bedroom, he loosens his robe and strides in, closing the door. Meanwhile, Clive and Hughie, unaware of all of these developments, simply think that the foolishness of youth has been averted and break down in laughter with each other.
This ending is a distinct change from Maugham's play, which ends with Teddy and Elizabeth happily running off together.
A 35mm print of the film survives today at the George Eastman Museum. [4] A DVD of it was released by Warner Home Video. [5]
Joan Crawford was an American actress. She started her career as a dancer in traveling theatrical companies before debuting on Broadway. Crawford was signed to a motion picture contract by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in 1925. Initially frustrated by the size and quality of her parts, Crawford launched a publicity campaign and built an image as a nationally known flapper by the end of the 1920s. By the 1930s, Crawford's fame rivaled MGM colleagues Norma Shearer and Greta Garbo. Crawford often played hardworking young women who find romance and financial success. These "rags-to-riches" stories were well received by Depression-era audiences and were popular with women. Crawford became one of Hollywood's most prominent movie stars and one of the highest paid women in the United States, but her films began losing money. By the end of the 1930s, she was labeled "box office poison".
This is an overview of 1925 in film, including significant events, a list of films released and notable births and deaths.
Alexander Raban Waugh was a British novelist, the elder brother of the better-known Evelyn Waugh, uncle of Auberon Waugh and son of Arthur Waugh, author, literary critic and publisher. His first wife was Barbara Jacobs, his second wife was Joan Chirnside and his third wife was Virginia Sorenson, author of the Newbery Medal-winning Miracles on Maple Hill.
Frank Borzage was an American film director and actor. He was the first person to win the Academy Award for Best Director for his film 7th Heaven (1927) at the 1st Academy Awards.
Rosemary Murphy was a German-American actress of stage, film, and television. She was nominated for three Tony Awards for her stage work, as well as two Emmy Awards for television work, winning once, for her performance in Eleanor and Franklin (1976).
Judy Catherine Claire Parfitt is an English theatre, film, and television actress. She made her film debut in the 1950s, followed by a supporting role in the BBC television serial David Copperfield (1966). She also appeared as Queen Gertrude in Tony Richardson's 1969 film adaptation of Hamlet.
Eugenie Besserer was an American actress who starred in silent films and features of the early sound motion-picture era, beginning in 1910. Her most prominent role is that of the title character's mother in the first talkie film, The Jazz Singer.
Humoresque is a 1946 American melodrama film by Warner Bros. starring Joan Crawford and John Garfield in an older woman/younger man tale about a violinist and his patroness. The screenplay by Clifford Odets and Zachary Gold was based upon the 1919 short story "Humoresque" by Fannie Hurst, which previously was made into a film in 1920. Humoresque was directed by Jean Negulesco and produced by Jerry Wald.
The Only Thing is a 1925 American silent romantic drama film starring Eleanor Boardman. The film's scenario was written by author Elinor Glyn, and was based on a story adapted from Glyn's novel of the same name.
Sir Cheney Culpeper (1601–1663) was an English landowner, a supporter of Samuel Hartlib, and a largely non-political figure of his troubled times, interested in technological progress and reform. His sister Judith was the second wife of John Colepeper, 1st Baron Colepeper.
Three Wise Fools is a 1923 American silent drama film directed by King Vidor. A print of the film exists at the Cinematheque Royale de Belgique. It showed in Germany at the Union-Theater Nollendorf, Berlin, on November 10, 1924. The cinema was built in 1913 by Joe Goldsoll, who was president of Goldwyn Pictures from 1922-1924.
Proud Flesh is a 1925 American silent comedy-drama film directed by King Vidor and starring Eleanor Boardman, Pat O'Malley, and Harrison Ford in a romantic triangle.
Bright Day is a novel by J. B. Priestley, first published in 1946. One of his better-known works, it combines nostalgia for the northern England that existed before the First World War with an optimism inspired by the conclusion of the Second.
Malcolm McGregor was an American actor of the silent era. McGregor appeared in more than 50 films between 1922 and 1936. He was born in Newark, New Jersey and died in Hollywood, California.
Eleanor de Bohun, Countess of Ormond was an English noblewoman born in Knaresborough Castle to Humphrey de Bohun, 4th Earl of Hereford, and Elizabeth, daughter of King Edward I of England and Eleanor of Castile. After the deaths of her parents, she was placed in the care of her aunt Mary of Woodstock and brought up at Amesbury Priory alongside various cousins including Joan Gaveston, Isabel of Lancaster and Joan de Monthermer. Edward II of England gave the priory a generous allowance of 100 marks annually for the upkeep of Eleanor and her younger cousin, Joan Gaveston.
Elizabeth Cheney was a member of the English gentry, who, by her two marriages, was the great-grandmother of Anne Boleyn, Jane Seymour, and Catherine Howard, three of the wives of King Henry VIII of England, thus making her great-great-grandmother to King Edward VI, the son of Henry VIII and Jane Seymour, and Elizabeth I, the daughter of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn. Her first husband was Sir Frederick Tilney, and her second husband was Sir John Say, Speaker of the House of Commons. She bore a total of eight children from both marriages.
Strictly Unconventional is a 1930 American pre-Code drama film directed by David Burton, written by Sylvia Thalberg and Frank Butler, and starring Catherine Dale Owen, Paul Cavanagh, Tyrell Davis, Lewis Stone and Ernest Torrence. It was released on May 3, 1930, by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. It is based upon the 1921 play The Circle by W. Somerset Maugham.
The Circle: a Comedy in Three Acts is a play by W. Somerset Maugham. It was first produced at the Haymarket Theatre, London on 3 March 1921, and has been revived several times in the West End and on Broadway.
The playwright, novelist and short-story writer W. Somerset Maugham, was a prolific author from the late 19th century until the 1960s. Most of his earliest successes were for the theatre, but he gave up writing plays after 1932. Many of his plays have been adapted for broadcasting and the cinema, as have several of his novels and short stories. The New York Times commented in 1964, "There are times when one thinks that British television and radio would have to shut up shop if there were not an apparently inexhaustible supply of stories by Maugham to turn into 30-minute plays. One recalls, too, the long list of movies that have been made from his novels − Of Human Bondage, The Moon and Sixpence, The Painted Veil, The Razor's Edge and the rest.