The Wife of the Centaur | |
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Directed by | King Vidor |
Written by | Douglas Z. Doty |
Based on | The Wife of the Centaur by Cyril Hume |
Starring | Eleanor Boardman John Gilbert Aileen Pringle |
Cinematography | John Arnold |
Edited by | Hugh Wynn |
Distributed by | Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer |
Release date |
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Running time | 81 minutes |
Country | United States |
Language | Silent (English intertitles) |
The Wife of the Centaur is a 1924 American silent drama film directed by King Vidor, [1] and released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer shortly after it formed from a merger of Metro Pictures, Goldwyn Pictures, and Mayer Pictures in April 1924. Metro had acquired the movie rights to Cyril Hume's debut novel Wife of a Centaur (Doran, 1923) in November. [2] A novelist imagines that he has been reincarnated as a creature from Greek mythology and becomes entangled in a love triangle. [3]
As described in a review in a film magazine, [4] author and poet Jeffrey Dwyer (Gilbert) has a conflicted nature, at times he has high ideals but he also feels strongly the appeal of the purely sensual. He is strongly attracted to Joan Converse (Boardman), who drops her flapper nature when she falls in love with him, but he neglects her when he meets the flashing, dashing Inez Martin (Pringle), a worldly woman with strong sex appeal. Inez finally throws him over and marries Harry Todd (McCullough), but the marriage is a failure. Jeffrey, returning to his senses after a period of debauchery and wild jazz parties, marries Joan. They go to a lodge in the mountains and are happy until Inez, seeking to win him, takes a house nearby. For months he fights the infatuation, but one night writes a letter to Joan and goes to Inez. However, his better nature makes him realize himself as he really is, and he returns to Joan, who understands and forgives him.
With no prints of The Wife of the Centaur (1924) located in any film archives, [1] [5] it is a lost film. A few seconds of Boardman from this film is included (from around 3:07 to 3:10) in Twenty Years After (1944), a promotional short made by MGM to celebrate its 20th anniversary.
King Wallis Vidor was an American film director, film producer, and screenwriter whose 67-year film-making career successfully spanned the silent and sound eras. His works are distinguished by a vivid, humane, and sympathetic depiction of contemporary social issues. Considered an auteur director, Vidor approached multiple genres and allowed the subject matter to determine the style, often pressing the limits of film-making conventions.
John Gilbert was an American actor, screenwriter and director. He rose to fame during the silent film era and became a popular leading man known as "The Great Lover". His breakthrough came in 1925 with his starring roles in The Merry Widow and The Big Parade. At the height of his career, Gilbert rivaled Rudolph Valentino as a box office draw.
Goldwyn Pictures Corporation was an American motion picture production company that operated from 1916 to 1924 when it was merged with two other production companies to form the major studio, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. It was founded on November 19, 1916, by Samuel Goldfish, an executive at Lasky's Feature Play Company, and Broadway producer brothers Edgar and Archibald Selwyn, using an amalgamation of both last names to name the company.
Olive Eleanor Boardman was an American film actress of the silent era.
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Wine of Youth is a 1924 American silent comedy drama film directed by King Vidor, and released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, shortly after the merger which created MGM in April 1924. Vidor did not consider it important enough to mention in his autobiography, although it did advance the careers of three young stars-to-be: Ben Lyon, Eleanor Boardman, and William Haines.
His Hour is a 1924 American silent drama film directed by King Vidor. This film was the follow-up to Samuel Goldwyn's Three Weeks, written by Elinor Glyn, and starring Aileen Pringle, one of the biggest moneymakers at the time of the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer amalgamation.
Cyril Hume was an American novelist and screenwriter. Hume was a graduate of Yale University, where he edited campus humor magazine The Yale Record. He was an editor of the collection The Yale Record Book of Verse: 1872–1922 (1922).
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La Bohème is a 1926 American silent drama film directed by King Vidor, based on the 1896 opera La Bohème by Giacomo Puccini. Lillian Gish and John Gilbert star in a tragic romance in which a tubercular seamstress sacrifices her life so that her lover, a bohemian playwright, might pen his masterpiece. Gish, at the height of her influence with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer studios, asserted significant control over the production, determining the story, director, cast, cinematography, and costume design. In February 2020, the film was shown at the 70th Berlin International Film Festival, as part of a retrospective dedicated to King Vidor's career.
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