This is How Movies Should Be Made

the audience applauded

Good idea lost in the noise

The movie is made so realistic it has a lot of that WoW feeling at the right moments and never tooo over the top. the suspense is done so well and the emotion is felt. Very well put together with the music and all.

For someone who has seen Bing Crosby and Carole Lombard in We're Not Dressing you will get a nice musical and comedy treat as Bing sings some nice songs and comedy is nicely handled by Burns&Allen and Leon Errol. But while the broad comedy aspects of The Admirable Crichton are handled well there, the broad range of James M. Barrie's story is done in the Cecil B. DeMille silent film Male And Female. Starring of course DeMille's latest discovery Gloria Swanson.Elliott Dexter a DeMille silent regular was unavailable so Thomas Meighan takes the title role as the butler on Theodore Roberts estate. He has two daughters and a silly sot of a nephew in Raymond Hatton. The daughters are Gloria Swanson and Lila Lee.We have class distinctions in America, but they're not as rigid as they are in the United Kingdom. It's those aspects that are dealt with in Male And Female not the Americanized We're Not Dressing. Meighan has it bad for Swanson, but the rigid class structure makes that union impossible.But when they're shipwrecked on a tropical island while on a cruise the social order is reversed. Theodore Roberts by dint of his title tries to assert his authority. But Meighan as the man with the most knowledge on how to survive upsets that in a hurry. Unlike the Crosby/Lombard film, these folks are here for a few years and thinking even with the social order reversed, it's not like Robinson Crusoe with no one to converse with for years.Barrie both satirizes and deals with the subject class seriously. As for DeMille he gets to do one of his spectacle type sequences in a flashback when the cast imagines they're in ancient Babylon with Meighan as king. In that flashback is a young Bebe Daniels who was getting started and she would shortly being starring in DeMille silent films. DeMille in his autobiography pays compliments to a new member of his team Mitchell Leisen who did the costumes. He would be a DeMille regular until he went out on his own as a director.I liked the film and I'll let you others decide whether there is more Barrie or more DeMille in this film.

J.M. Barrie's "The Admirable Crichton" opened on London's West End in 1902 and ran for a staggering 828 performances, the next year it came to Broadway. The play differed from the film in that (in the play) Lord Loam considered class division artificial and during tea parties, servants were expected to mingle with the guests as equals - only Crichton, the butler disapproves, feeling everyone should know their place.The Loam family are introduced as upper class twits with more money than sense. The house is run by the servants - in particular, Crichton (Thomas Meighan), the Loam's dignified butler, who is always at the ready to show people the right way of doing things (especially adoring scullery maid Tweeny (Lila Lee) and boot boy, Buttons (Wesley Barry)). The family beauty - Lady Mary (gorgeous Gloria Swanson) is completely spoilt and has servants to cater to her every whim, from seeing her bathwater is just the right temperature to making sure her toast is not too soft. There is a wonderful bathroom scene, with all the most modern conveniences, including luxurious rose water spraying from a fountain.The Loams go on a South Sea cruise but disaster strikes as their boat hits a rock and they have to make their way to an uninhabited island. True characters come to the fore, the family are lazy and expect their servants to obey their every whim. Crichton soon shows himself a true leader and everyone in the party turns to him for guidance. Two years pass and everyone is living together as equals and pulling their weight, there is no master or servant - all except Crichton, who is now the supreme leader. Mary and Tweeny now fight for the opportunity to serve him supper. Being a DeMille production, there is a spectacular Biblical scene (maybe his first) with Meighan as a bored, callous King, Bebe Daniels as a saucy slave girl and Gloria Swanson as a beggar maid, who goes to the lion's den rather than put aside her Christian principles.They are eventually rescued and Crichton and Lord Loam are the first to remember their "places" in the world. Lady Mary can't forget her love, they were just about to be married when the rescue boat is seen. Back in civilization, Lord Brockelhurst resumes his courting of Mary - all through the film he has shown himself to be pretty flirtatious with Mary's maid - you know when Mary accepts his proposal - her life will not be a happy one. Crichton hides his true feelings about Mary and when she is visited by an old friend who has defied her family, married her chauffeur and lived to regret it - he impulsively asks Tweeny to marry him. They will leave service and sail for America, where everyone is equal (the last scene is particularly sweet as Crichton walks to a farmhouse after finishing ploughing for the day, to find Tweeny waiting for him.)I do agree, I think the titles are profuse and flowery and excessive - they would do credit to a William S. Hart western!!! I also think Thomas Meighan was born for this role - he was manly and masterful. He was also excellent in "Why Change Your Wife?" - Cecil B. DeMille obviously liked him a lot as he popped up in quite a few of his movies. Although Barrie had considered ending his play with Crichton and Mary continuing their affair, even after Lady Mary is married, he decided on a more conventional ending as he thought "the stalls wouldn't like it"!!!Highly, Highly Recommended.

Very solid Cecil B. DeMille production of JM Barrie's play, "The Admirable Crichton" with a few DeMille flourishes.Crichton (Thomas Meighan) is a very proper butler in a staid British home. Of course he has a distant crush on Lady Mary (Gloria Swanson), a very pampered and spoiled young lady. Tweeny the household maid (Lila Lee) has a crush on Crichton.The family, headed by a silly old man (Theodore Roberts) decides to take a sailing trip to the South Seas and gathers up a party of family and friends. Of course they run the yacht into a rock and are washed ashore on a deserted island. The rich are all nitwits and haven't a clue how to do anything for themselves. They assume Meighan and Lee will continue to wait on them. Wrong.Slowly it occurs to everyone that there is a new order on the island. The crafty and self-sufficient Meighan sets out to build a shelter, a fire, harvest food, etc. while the rich sit and watch. Their attempts to copy him are sadly disastrous. Eventually they "join" the former butler's group with Meighan as a sort of king.Among the items that have washed ashore after the wreck is a book of poems that talks about a Babylonian king. In a typical DeMille moment, Swanson daydreams about her life in a Babylonian court. The sequence that follows ranks among the most famous in silent film history as Meighan becomes the Babylonian king who sentences the reluctant maiden (Swanson) to the lions' den as his jealous courtesan (Bebe Daniels) gleefully watches. The scene is much shorter than I remembered as the fabulously gowned Swanson walks in among the lions. The famous scene of the bare-backed Swanson with the roaring lion atop her was very real (no double).And so the merry band of islanders, under King Crichton, goes on for a few years until, just before the marriage of Swanson and Meighan), they are "rescued" and returned to their former lives (and stations).Meighan and Swanson are terrific. Roberts is funny as the old man. The supporting cast includes Julia Faye (as a maid), Robert Cain (as Swanson's boring suitor), Edmund Burns (as the vicar), Raymond Hatton (as the silly ass Ernie), Mildred Reardon (as Lady Agatha), and Rhy Darby (as the pitiful Lady Duncraigie who marries her chauffeur).Logic aside, this is a stylish and solid film and features a ravishing 20-year-old Gloria Swanson in one of her first big hits for DeMille. Another famous scene is early in the film as Swanson prepares to taker her morning bath, a ritual that includes several maids, gallons of rose water, and another of DeMille's groundbreaking interior designs.A must see for fans of silent films.

Delightful silent film about a shipwrecked British family and their servants, with a great cast; story based on James Matthew Barrie's classic play The Admirable Crichton. The class structure in Britain at the time is gently ridiculed throughout and therein lies the fun. Special mention goes to Thomas Meighan's incredible performance as the butler Crichton who falls in love with the aristocratic daughter of Lord Loam, Lady Mary. Thomas was so manly, tall, muscular and handsome, completely fascinating to watch in this role, and every other role I have ever seen him in. No wonder he was so popular as a leading man in silents. As far as I am concerned he stole the show. You couldn't take your eyes off him.Gloria Swanson brings a vulnerability to her role, which in the beginning is pretty unsympathetic. During their time on the island she grows the most emotionally, and one cannot help but feel sad for her at the end. Her character gets the fuzzy end of the lollipop (a philandering future hubbie), and the scullery maid Tweeny (pixie Lila Lee) gets the Grand Prize and moves to America to start a new life with Crichton. One strange thing about this version: there was a crew of men on board the boat, but after the shipwreck they are not seen or heard from again. What happened to them? Only Lord Loam and his children and two servants survive, as far as we can determine. Yet we see this crew rowing away from the site of the wreck, two years go by, and they are never accounted for. Odd.The musical score is pretty here but sounded a bit synthetic at times. I would have preferred a straight piano score, her piano moments were lovely. I really enjoyed this silent film. But then I have read almost everything James Barrie has written, so it's not surprising I would love Male and Female, based on his play. I just wish at least one of the silent versions of his "The Little Minister" would have survived, especially the one with Betty Compson.