The Plastic Age (film)

Last updated

The Plastic Age
Plasticagemp.jpg
Reprint of the promotional poster
Directed by Wesley Ruggles
Screenplay by
Based on The Plastic Age
by Percy Marks
Produced by B.P. Schulberg
Starring
Cinematography
Distributed by Preferred Pictures
Release dates
  • December 6, 1925 (1925-12-06)(U.S.)
  • July 18, 1926 (1926-07-18)(New York City)
  • April 23, 1928 (1928-04-23)(Finland)
[1]
Running time
73 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageSilent

The Plastic Age is a 1925 American black-and-white silent romantic comedy film directed by Wesley Ruggles and starring Clara Bow, Donald Keith, and Gilbert Roland. [2] The film was based on a best-selling novel from 1924 of the same name, written by Percy Marks, a Brown University English instructor who chronicled the life of the fast-set of that university and used the fictitious Sanford College as a backdrop. The Plastic Age is known to most silent film fans as the very first hit of Clara Bow's career, and helped jumpstart her fast rise to stardom. Frederica Sagor Maas and Eve Unsell adapted the book for the screen. [3] [4]

Contents

Plot

Hugh Carver (Donald Keith) is an athletic star and a freshman at Prescott College. During a hazing initiation by his fraternity brothers, he meets Cynthia Day (Clara Bow), a popular girl who loves to party and have a good time. She introduces him to the pleasures of illicit drinking, dancing at illegal roadhouses, and making out in the back seats of cars. A love-triangle develops between Day, Carver, and Carver's roommate, Carl Peters (Gilbert Roland), who also likes Day. Eventually, Peters gives up his crush on Day and reconciles his friendship with Carver.

Carver's grades, athletic performance and moral character begin to suffer as a result of his late nights and wild partying, and on a visit home, his strict father tosses him out of the house and tells him not to come back until he's 'made good'. After almost being arrested at a roadhouse raid, Day and Carver escape in her automobile, and Day realizes that her lifestyle is bad for Carver, so the two stop seeing each other.

Carver's school performance then improves greatly, and he leads his teammates to victory at the big football game at the end of the year. Peters tells Carver that Day still loves him, and that she has changed, becoming less wild and more mature. Day and Carver are reunited at the end.

Cast

Production

Still from The Plastic Age. PlasticAge 251219.png
Still from The Plastic Age.

The Plastic Age was based on the 1924 novel of the same name, which was written by Brown University professor Percy Marks, a popular novelist at the time. Marks' novels were based on his students, the 'flaming youth in rebellion' of the twenties, who danced to wild jazz, drank from silver flasks, and had petting parties. Benjamin Percival Schulberg, the CEO of Preferred Pictures (a film studio and film distributor, as well as an actors agency), outbid all the major and minor studios for the rights to The Plastic Age; Schulberg paid $35,000 for the copyrights to the novel. The Plastic Age was filmed in the summer of 1925, at both Pomona College, located in Claremont, California, and in Hollywood, at the FBO Studios, the production company owned and operated by Joseph P. Kennedy, the wealthy Boston, Massachusetts banker/stockbroker patriarch of the Kennedy family.

The film became a major hit in late 1925, and was Bow's first hit film. She became a star as a result of its success, which led her to being signed by a major studio and becoming a major star with the 1927 release of It . After seeing The Plastic Age soon after its release, Adolph Zukor, the founder and CEO of Paramount Pictures, contacted Schulberg, who had started his career as a publicist with Paramount before leaving the studio in 1918 to form Preferred Pictures. According to Clara Bow biographer David Stenn, Zukor proposed to Schulberg that he wanted to merge Preferred Pictures with Paramount, so that he could get Bow and make a star out of her, due to what Zukor saw as the great potential that she had as an actress. [5] Schulberg agreed, but wanted Zukor to allow him to produce and control the product that Paramount assigned to him for Bow, which included script, casting, production crew, and wardrobe control. He also wanted to be made an associate producer at Paramount. The deal was made in early November 1925.

Controversy

Even though the film was a wide spread success, the Woman's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) showed concerns for the film's portrayal of alcohol consumption as acceptable, regardless of the restrictions that prohibition brought in. They also voiced their opinion on the swingers' dance style and jazz music as "behaviour which is desperately in need of purification by the cleansing powers of Holy water."[ citation needed ]

Home media

The Plastic Age was released on DVD, through Image Entertainment, in a double-feature format, which includes the Louise Brooks film, The Show Off (1926). David Shepard preserved the film through his company, Film Preservation Associates. Composer Eric Beheim scored the music for The Plastic Age. Kino On Video released the film in August 1999, as part of a 4 video set featuring Clara's work, which includes It (1927).

See also

Related Research Articles

<i>Wings</i> (1927 film) 1927 film

Wings is a 1927 American silent and synchronized sound film known for winning the first Academy Award for Best Picture. Due to the general public's apathy towards silent films, the film was quickly re-released in 1928 with synchronized sound. While the sound version of the film has no audible dialog, it was released with a synchronized musical score with sound effects. The film stars Clara Bow, Charles "Buddy" Rogers, and Richard Arlen. Rogers and Arlen portray World War I combat pilots in a romantic rivalry over a woman. It was produced by Lucien Hubbard, directed by William A. Wellman, and released by Paramount Famous Lasky Corporation. Gary Cooper appears in a small role, which helped launch his career in Hollywood.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Adolph Zukor</span> Hungarian-American film producer (1873–1976)

Adolph Zukor was a Hungarian-American film producer best known as one of the three founders of Paramount Pictures. He produced one of America's first feature-length films, The Prisoner of Zenda, in 1913.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Clara Bow</span> American actress (1905–1965)

Clara Gordon Bow was an American actress who rose to stardom during the silent film era of the 1920s and successfully made the transition to "talkies" in 1929. Her appearance as a plucky shopgirl in the film It brought her global fame and the nickname "The It Girl". Bow came to personify the Roaring Twenties and is described as its leading sex symbol.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gilbert Roland</span> American actor (1905–1994)

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lane Chandler</span> American actor (1899–1972)

Lane Chandler was an American actor specializing mainly in Westerns.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Famous Players–Lasky</span> American motion picture company

The Famous Players–Lasky Corporation was an American motion picture and distribution company formed on June 28, 1916, from the merger of Adolph Zukor's Famous Players Film Company—originally formed by Zukor as Famous Players in Famous Plays—and the Jesse L. Lasky Feature Play Company.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">B. P. Schulberg</span> American film producer (1892–1957)

B. P. Schulberg was an American pioneer film producer and film studio executive.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Frederica Sagor Maas</span> American dramatist (1900–2012)

Frederica Alexandrina Sagor Maas was an American dramatist and playwright, screenwriter, memoirist, and author, the youngest daughter of Jewish immigrants from Russia. As an essayist, Maas was best known for a detailed, tell-all memoir of her time spent in early Hollywood. A supercentenarian, she was one of the oldest surviving entertainers from the silent film era.

<i>Ladies of the Mob</i> 1928 film

Ladies of the Mob (1928) is a 1928 American silent crime drama film directed by William A. Wellman, produced by Jesse L. Lasky and Adolph Zukor for Famous Players–Lasky, and distributed by Paramount Pictures. The film is based on a story by Ernest Booth. This gangster-themed romantic thriller about a criminal's daughter who tries to reform a petty crook whom she loves featured Clara Bow, Richard Arlen, Mary Alden and Helen Lynch.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hiram Abrams</span> Early American movie mogul (1878–1926)

Hiram Abrams was an early American movie mogul and one of the first presidents of Paramount Pictures. He was also the first managing director of United Artists.

<i>Children of Divorce</i> (1927 film) 1927 film

Children of Divorce is a 1927 American silent romantic drama film directed by Frank Lloyd and starring Clara Bow, Esther Ralston, and Gary Cooper. Adapted from the 1927 novel of the same name by Owen Johnson, and written by Louis D. Lighton, Hope Loring, Alfred Hustwick, and Adela Rogers St. Johns, the film is about a young flapper who tricks her wealthy friend into marrying her during a night of drunken revelry. Even though she knows that he is in love with another woman, she refuses to grant him a divorce and repeat the mistake of her divorced parents. Produced by Jesse L. Lasky, E. Lloyd Sheldon, and Adolph Zukor for the Famous Players–Lasky, the film was released on April 25, 1927 by Paramount Pictures.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Louis J. Gasnier</span> Film director

Louis Joseph Gasnier was a French-American film director, producer, screenwriter and stage actor. A cinema pioneer, Gasnier shepherded the early career of comedian Max Linder, co-directed the enormously successful film serial The Perils of Pauline (1914) and capped his output with the notorious low-budget exploitation film Reefer Madness (1936) which was both a critical and box office failure.

<i>Wine</i> (1924 film) 1924 film

Wine is a 1924 American silent melodrama film directed by Louis J. Gasnier, produced and released by Universal Pictures under their 'Jewel' banner. The film, which featured Clara Bow in her first starring role, is currently classified as lost.

<i>Rough House Rosie</i> 1927 film

Rough House Rosie is a 1927 American silent romantic comedy film produced and released by Paramount Pictures and directed by Frank Strayer. The film is a starring vehicle for Clara Bow who was then Paramount's most popular actress. Reed Howes, a model turned actor, is Bow's leading man.

<i>Fascinating Youth</i> 1926 film by Sam Wood

Fascinating Youth is a 1926 American silent romantic comedy film directed by Sam Wood. It starred Charles "Buddy" Rogers, along with Thelma Todd and Josephine Dunn in supporting roles. Many well-known personalities made guest appearances in the film, judging a beauty contest in one scene, and Clara Bow makes a cameo appearance in her second film for Paramount Pictures.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Clara Bow filmography</span>

Clara Bow (1905–1965) was a 16-year-old living in the New York City borough of Brooklyn when she won the 1921 nationwide "Fame and Fortune Contest" advertised in Motion Picture Magazine. After submitting their photographs with a completed entry form clipped from the magazine, finalists were given multiple screen tests. As the winner, she was cast in a small role in the silent era film Beyond the Rainbow. Although her part was eventually edited out, the contest inspired her to pursue an acting career. She relocated to Los Angeles and signed with producer B.P. Schulberg. Her 1927 starring role in It, about an attractive and charismatic young woman, led the public to label Bow the "It girl". Over the next two decades, she would make more than 40 silent era films, the majority of them under contract to Paramount Pictures.

David Stenn is an American television writer-producer, biographer, and film preservationist. His television credits range from Hill Street Blues to Boardwalk Empire. He is known for his biographies of Hollywood stars Clara Bow and Jean Harlow.

<i>Her Wedding Night</i> 1930 film

Her Wedding Night is a 1930 American pre-Code comedy film directed by Frank Tuttle and written by Avery Hopwood and Henry Myers. The film stars Clara Bow, Ralph Forbes, Charlie Ruggles, Richard "Skeets" Gallagher, Geneva Mitchell and Rosita Moreno. It was released on September 18, 1930 by Paramount Pictures. Paramount remade the film at the company's Joinville Studios in Paris in several other languages, including the French version titled Marions-nous.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Preferred Pictures</span> American silent film production company

Preferred Pictures was an American film production company of the silent era. Founded in 1920 by the producer B. P. Schulberg following his departure from Paramount Pictures, it was an independent, either distributing its own films or releasing them through First National Pictures. Schulberg's partners were J.G. Bachmann and Al Lichtman, and many of the company's earliest productions featured the actress Katherine MacDonald. She was replaced as the company's leading star by Clara Bow.

<i>The Adventurous Sex</i> 1925 film

The Adventurous Sex is a lost 1925 American silent drama film that was directed by Charles Giblyn and starred Clara Bow, Herbert Rawlinson, and Earle Williams. The Howard Estabrook production was shot in studios in New York City and on location at Niagara Falls.

References

  1. ↑ The La Crosse Tribune (WI) 6 Dec 1925, p. 16.
  2. ↑ Stenn, David (2000). Clara Bow: Runnin' Wild. Rowman & Littlefield. p. 52. ISBN   978-0-8154-1025-6.
  3. ↑ Nelson, Valerie J. (January 7, 2012). "Frederica Sagor Maas dies at 111; silent film screenwriter". Los Angeles Times . Retrieved December 20, 2018.
  4. ↑ Barnes, Mike (January 6, 2012). "Silent Film Era Screenwriter Dies at Age 111". The Hollywood Reporter . Retrieved December 20, 2018.
  5. ↑ Stephens, E. J.; Christaldi, Michael; Wanamaker, Marc (2013). Early Paramount Studios. Arcadia Publishing. p. 67. ISBN   978-1-4671-3010-3.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
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.