The Love of Sunya | |
---|---|
Directed by | Albert Parker |
Written by | Earle Browne (adaptation) Cosmo Hamilton (titles) Lenore J. Coffee (uncredited) |
Based on | The Eyes of Youth by Max Marcin and Charles Guernon |
Produced by | Gloria Swanson |
Starring | Gloria Swanson John Boles Pauline Garon |
Cinematography | Robert Martin George Barnes (uncredited) |
Music by | William P. Perry (1970s re-issue) |
Distributed by | United Artists |
Release date |
|
Running time | 78 minutes |
Country | United States |
Language | Silent (English intertitles) |
The Love of Sunya (also known as The Loves of Sunya) is a 1927 American silent drama film directed by Albert Parker and based on the play The Eyes of Youth by Max Marcin and Charles Guernon. Produced by and starring Gloria Swanson, it also stars John Boles and Pauline Garon. [1] A copy of The Love of Sunya survives in the Paul Killiam collection. [2]
A young woman is given by a mystic an occasional glimpse into her future, notably her future with different men.
The film was Swanson's first independent production; she later called it an "agonizing ordeal". She chose to film another adaptation of Max Marcin and Charles Guernon's play, for it had been filmed once before in 1919, starring Clara Kimball Young, and was a resounding success on Broadway. [3] Swanson hired Albert Parker, who had directed the 1919 film, in the hope, given that Parker was already familiar with the material, that the production would be quicker. [4]
Swanson ignored advice to shoot the film in Hollywood and opted to rent space in William Randolph Hearst's Cosmopolitan Studios in New York City. Production began in September 1926 but problems quickly arose due to Swanson's lack of experience as a producer. [3] [5] The production soon ran over budget and was marred by several other problems, mainly the lack of a suitable cameraman to deal with the film's intricate double exposures. [6] According to Swanson's autobiography, the services of cinematographer George Barnes were eventually secured, though he is given no screen credit.
The Love of Sunya premiered at the grand opening of the Roxy Theatre in New York City on March 11, 1927. Swanson later wrote that the film received a standing ovation. [2] Despite this initial good reception and decent reviews from critics, [7] the film performed poorly at the box office, and barely recouped its budget. [8] Swanson felt it was terrible. Owing to its failure, producer Joseph M. Schenck convinced Swanson to come back to Hollywood and to film something more commercial. Swanson agreed but ended up filming the more controversial Sadie Thompson (1928) instead, which became her most successful independent production.
Gloria Josephine Mae Swanson was an American actress. She first achieved fame acting in dozens of silent films in the 1920s and was nominated three times for the Academy Award for Best Actress, most famously for her 1950 turn in Billy Wilder's Sunset Boulevard, which also earned her a Golden Globe Award.
Sadie Thompson is a 1928 American silent drama film that tells the story of a "fallen woman" who comes to Pago Pago to start a new life, but encounters a zealous missionary who wants to force her back to her former life in San Francisco. The film stars Gloria Swanson, Lionel Barrymore, and Raoul Walsh, and it is one of Swanson's more successful films. Due to the public's apathy towards silent films, a sound version was prepared in the latter half of 1928. While the sound version has no audible dialog, it features a synchronized musical score with sound effects along with a theme song.
Erich Oswald Hans Carl Maria von Stroheim was an Austrian-American director, screenwriter, actor, and producer, most noted as a film star and avant-garde, visionary director of the silent era. His 1924 film Greed is considered one of the finest and most important films ever made. After clashes with Hollywood studio bosses over budget and workers' rights problems, Stroheim found it difficult to find work as a director and subsequently became a well-respected character actor, particularly in French cinema.
Herbert Brenon was an Irish-born U.S. film director, actor and screenwriter during the era of silent films through 1940.
Male and Female is a 1919 American silent adventure/drama film directed by Cecil B. DeMille and starring Gloria Swanson and Thomas Meighan. Its main themes are gender relations and social class. The film is based on the 1902 J. M. Barrie play The Admirable Crichton.
Seena Owen was an American silent film actress and screenwriter.
Carol Dempster was an American film actress of the silent film era. She appeared in films from 1916 to 1926, working with D. W. Griffith extensively.
Marie Pauline Garon was a Canadian silent film, feature film, and stage actress.
The Last Warning is a 1928 sound part-talkie American mystery film directed by Paul Leni, and starring Laura La Plante, Montagu Love, and Margaret Livingston. In addition to sequences with audible dialogue or talking sequences, the film features a synchronized musical score and sound effects along with English intertitles. The film apparently only survives in a cut-down edited silent version which was made for theatres who had not yet converted to sound. The soundtrack for the sound version, which was also released on sound-on-disc format, survives in private hands on Vitaphone type discs.
John Boles was an American singer and actor best known for playing Victor Moritz in the 1931 film Frankenstein.
Film Booking Offices of America (FBO), registered as FBO Pictures Corp., was an American film studio of the silent era, a midsize producer and distributor of mostly low-budget films. The business began in 1918 as Robertson-Cole, an Anglo-American import-export company. Robertson-Cole began distributing films in the United States that December and opened a Los Angeles production facility in 1920. Late that year, R-C entered into a working relationship with East Coast financier Joseph P. Kennedy. A business reorganization in 1922 led to its assumption of the FBO name, first for all its distribution operations and ultimately for its own productions as well. Through Kennedy, the studio contracted with Western leading man Fred Thomson, who grew by 1925 into one of Hollywood's most popular stars. Thomson was just one of several silent screen cowboys with whom FBO became identified.
Samuel Sax was an American film producer. He produced 80 films between 1925 and 1946, including the last films of Roscoe Arbuckle. From 1938 to 1941, Sax headed Warner Brothers's British subsidiary at Teddington Studios in London.
Don't Change Your Husband is a 1919 American silent comedy film directed by Cecil B. DeMille and starring Gloria Swanson. The film was the third of six "marriage films" directed by DeMille and the first DeMille film starring Gloria Swanson. A print of the film is stored at the George Eastman House. The film was released on DVD by Image Entertainment with The Golden Chance. A Chinese silent film, Don't Change Your Husband (1929), used the same English title, and a similar plot arc.
For Better, for Worse is a 1919 American silent drama film directed by Cecil B. DeMille and starring Gloria Swanson. The film was the second of four "marriage films" directed by DeMille and the second DeMille film starring Gloria Swanson. For Better, for Worse was adapted for the screen by William C. DeMille. Jeanie MacPherson wrote the film's scenario.
Blind Husbands is a 1919 American drama film written and directed by Erich von Stroheim. The film is an adaptation of the story The Pinnacle by Stroheim.
Eyes of Youth is a 1919 American silent drama film directed by Albert Parker and starring Clara Kimball Young. The film was based on the stage play Eyes of Youth, performed on Broadway in 1917-18 and starred Marjorie Rambeau. This film also features Rudolph Valentino in a role as a thief/con artist.
Wilfrid North, also spelled Wilfred North, was an Anglo-American film director, actor, and writer of the silent film era. He directed 102 films, including short films; acted in 43 films; and wrote the story for three films.
Edward Kline Lincoln was an American silent film actor and director. Lincoln appeared in over 65 silent films and was best known for movies like For the Freedom of the World (1917), The Light in the Dark (1922) and The Man of Courage (1922).
The Power Within is a 1921 American silent drama film directed by Lem F. Kennedy and starring William H. Tooker, Nellie Parker Spaulding and Pauline Garon.
Enlighten Thy Daughter is a 1934 American drama film directed by John Varley and starring Herbert Rawlinson, Charles Eaton and Claire Whitney. It was shot at the Photocolor Studios in Hastings-on-Hudson, New York. It is a remake of the 1917 silent film of the same title by Ivan Abramson.