| Women Love Diamonds | |
|---|---|
 Lobby card | |
| Directed by | Edmund Goulding |
| Written by |
|
| Starring | |
| Cinematography | Ray Binger |
| Edited by | Hugh Wynn |
Production company | |
| Distributed by | Loew's Inc. |
Release date |
|
Running time | 70 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | Silent (English intertitles) |
Women Love Diamonds is a 1927 American black and white silent melodrama directed by Edmund Goulding and starring Pauline Starke, Owen Moore, and Lionel Barrymore.
Mavis Ray (Pauline Starke) is a young debutant living with her mother and with the backing of Hugo Harlan (Lionel Barrymore), whom she calls her uncle. She is in love with socialite Jerry Croker-Kelley (Douglas Fairbanks Jr.), and goes with him to meet his family against Harlan's wishes. Mavis and Jerry wish to elope if they cannot get Harlan's permission to marry. At Jerry's house, Mavis finds herself ill at ease with Jerry's family, who live simply despite their wealth. When Harlan comes to the house, he takes Jerry aside and tells him something that causes him to abandon his relationship with Mavis.
Dejected, Mavis later begins falling for her chauffeur, Patrick Michael Regan (Owen Moore). He begins falling for her as well, not caring when Mavis reveals that Harlan is not her uncle, but her lover, and that the woman she calls her mother is actually hired help. However, Patrick's sister (Dorothy Phillips), feels as if this relationship will harm Patrick. She unsuccessfully attempts to speak to Mavis, dying shortly afterwards in childbirth. Not long afterwards, Patrick gets into a car accident.
While Patrick is recovering from his wounds, Mavis takes care of his children. However, she considers herself unworthy of him. After breaking off her relationship with Harlan, Mavis runs away. Several months later, Mavis, who is now working as a nurse, encounters Patrick, who has become a taxi driver. The two decide to try to have a relationship.
uncredited
Women Love Diamonds was directed by Edmund Goulding. [1] Greta Garbo, fresh off filming Flesh and the Devil (1927), was approached to play the lead role. However, as she was in a contract conflict with Metro Goldwyn Mayer at the time, she refused and threatened to go back to Sweden. Pauline Starke was chosen to take her place. [2]
According to a review in Variety , the film looked as if it had an above average budget. [3]
Historian Lea Jacobs notes that Women Love Diamonds does not deal heavily with sexual mores, as would be expected, but more with the power gained from sexuality and wealth. [4] She notes that when Mavis is dealing with the Croker-Kelleys, her "ostentious" mode of dress leads to her being looked down upon; however, with lower-class characters such as the Regans, her dress becomes a symbol of power. [5]
Women Love Diamonds was released on February 12, 1927. [1] It was a commercial flop, earning $30,000 less than its budget. [6]
The review in Variety praised the set, cinematography, and acting; however, the reviewer found the plot weakened by the film's "cautious handling" of the subject matter [3] and noted that the star "fails to draw sufficient sympathy". [5] The review also misidentified the film as Women Want Diamonds, which, according to Jacobs, suggests that there may have been more than one print. [3] Film critic David Shipman writes that Mavis at first comes across as someone who women guiltily admire and men want to own, but later becomes more sympathetic after having a moral epiphany and becoming a nurse. [2]
Jacobs described Women Love Diamonds as perhaps the strangest experiment in dramatizing the gold digger genre; [3] she describes it as resembling the work of German director Rainer Werner Fassbinder. [4] Matthew Kennedy, in his biography of Goulding, describes the film as "a sorry exercise all around". [6] Hal Erickson, writing for Rovi, suggests that Garbo's refusal to do the film did not hurt her career at all. [7]
Grand Hotel is a 1932 American pre-Code drama film directed by Edmund Goulding and produced by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. The screenplay by William A. Drake is based on the 1930 play of the same title by Drake, who had adapted it from the 1929 novel Menschen im Hotel by Vicki Baum. To date, it is the only film to have won the Academy Award for Best Picture without being nominated in any other category.
The Paradine Case is a 1947 American film noir courtroom drama film, set in England, directed by Alfred Hitchcock and produced by David O. Selznick. The screenplay was written by Selznick and an uncredited Ben Hecht, from an adaptation by Alma Reville and James Bridie of the 1933 novel of the same title by Robert Smythe Hichens. The film stars Gregory Peck, Ann Todd, Alida Valli, Charles Laughton, Charles Coburn, Ethel Barrymore, and Louis Jourdan. It tells of an English barrister who falls in love with a woman who is accused of murder, and how it affects his relationship with his wife.
Edward Brewster Sheldon was an American dramatist. His plays include Salvation Nell (1908) and Romance (1913), which was made into a motion picture with Greta Garbo.
Zoe Byrd Akins was an American playwright, poet, and author. She won the 1935 Pulitzer Prize for drama for The Old Maid.
Edmund Goulding was a British screenwriter and film director. As an actor early in his career he was one of the 'Ghosts' in the 1922 silent film Three Live Ghosts alongside Norman Kerry and Cyril Chadwick. Also in the early 1920s he wrote several screenplays for star Mae Murray for films directed by her then husband Robert Z. Leonard. Goulding is best remembered for directing cultured dramas such as Love (1927), Grand Hotel (1932) with Greta Garbo and Joan Crawford, Dark Victory (1939) with Bette Davis, The Constant Nymph (1943) with Joan Fontaine, and The Razor's Edge (1946) with Gene Tierney and Tyrone Power. He also directed the classic film noir Nightmare Alley (1947) with Tyrone Power and Joan Blondell, and the action drama The Dawn Patrol. He was also a successful songwriter, composer, and producer.
Mata Hari is a 1931 American pre-Code drama film directed by George Fitzmaurice loosely based on the life of Mata Hari, an exotic dancer and courtesan executed for espionage during World War I. The Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer film stars Greta Garbo in the title role. It was Garbo's most commercially successful vehicle. Only a censored version of the film is currently available.
Camille is a 1936 American romantic drama film from Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer directed by George Cukor, and produced by Irving Thalberg and Bernard H. Hyman, from a screenplay by James Hilton, Zoë Akins, and Frances Marion. The picture is based on the 1848 novel and 1852 play La dame aux camélias by Alexandre Dumas, fils. The film stars Greta Garbo, Robert Taylor, Lionel Barrymore, Elizabeth Allan, Jessie Ralph, Henry Daniell, and Laura Hope Crews. It grossed $2,842,000.
The Temptress is a 1926 American silent romantic drama film directed by Fred Niblo and starring Greta Garbo, Antonio Moreno, Lionel Barrymore, and Roy D'Arcy. It premiered on October 10, 1926. The film melodrama was based on a novel by Vicente Blasco Ibáñez adapted for the screen by Dorothy Farnum.
Love is a 1927 American silent drama film directed by Edmund Goulding and released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. MGM made the film in order to capitalize on its winning romantic team of Greta Garbo and John Gilbert who had starred in the 1926 blockbuster Flesh and the Devil.
Torrent is a 1926 American silent romantic drama film directed by an uncredited Monta Bell, based on a novel by Vicente Blasco Ibáñez, and released on February 21, 1926. Torrent was the first American film starring Swedish actress Greta Garbo. The film also starred Ricardo Cortez and Martha Mattox.
Diamond Jim is a 1935 biographical film based on the published biography Diamond Jim Brady by Parker Morell. It follows the life of legendary entrepreneur James Buchanan Brady, including his romance with entertainer Lillian Russell, and stars Edward Arnold, Jean Arthur, Cesar Romero and Binnie Barnes.
Smouldering Fires is a 1925 Universal silent drama film directed by Clarence Brown and starring Pauline Frederick and Laura La Plante. The movie's plot is similar to the 1933 talking picture Female, starring Ruth Chatterton.
Rafaela Ottiano was an Italian-American stage and film actress.
Teenage Rebel is a 1956 American drama film directed by Edmund Goulding and starring Ginger Rogers and Michael Rennie. It was nominated for two Academy Awards; Best Costume Design and Best Art Direction.
Bright Lights is a 1925 American silent romantic comedy film directed by Robert Z. Leonard. The film is based on the story "A Little Bit of Broadway" by Richard Connell, and stars Charles Ray, who achieved stardom by playing ingenious country boys.
Sun-Up is a 1925 American silent drama film directed by Edmund Goulding based upon a successful 1924 play of the same name by Lula Vollmer. The film stars Lucille La Verne, replaying her successful New York stage role, Pauline Starke, and Conrad Nagel.
Goneril is a character in William Shakespeare's tragic play King Lear (1605). She is the eldest of King Lear's three daughters. Along with her sister Regan, Goneril is considered a villain, obsessed with power and overthrowing her elderly father as ruler of the kingdom of Britain.
Lorna Moon was a British author and screenwriter from the early days of Hollywood. She is best known as the author of the bestselling novel Dark Star (1929) and as one of the earliest and most successful female screenwriters. As a screenwriter, she developed screenplays for notables including Gloria Swanson, Norma Shearer, Lionel Barrymore and Greta Garbo.
The Splendid Road is a 1925 American historical drama film directed by Frank Lloyd and starring Anna Q. Nilsson, Robert Frazer, and Lionel Barrymore. Based upon the novel of the same name by Vingie E. Roe, the film is set during the 1849 California Gold Rush.
Garbo Laughs is a 2003 Canadian novel by Elizabeth Hay. Set in Ottawa the novel focuses on Harriet Browning, a writer in her 40s who is obsessed with movies, and a group of her friends and neighbours who live in Old Ottawa South. The title references the 1939 American film Ninotchka which starred Greta Garbo as the titular character and used the phrase "Garbo Laughs" in promotional materials.