Black Oxen

Writer F. Scott Fitzgerald, in an essay titled 'Echoes of the Jazz Age,' cited three movies that defined the spirit of that unique time. They are 1921 'The Sheik,' the mostly lost 1923 'Flaming Youth' and 1923 "Black Oxen." The last movie, based on the 1923 Gertrude Atherton best-selling novel of the same name, concerns an Austrian countess (Corinne Griffith) who hasn't aged in years and is spotted by an old boyfriend (Tom Ricketts). Stunned, he informs his young friend Lee (Conway Tearle) of his remarkable observation.

As a quasi-science fiction movie, December 1923's "Black Oxen" tackles the problem-or grace-of aging. It turns out the countess earlier had received a rejuvenating glandular treatment and a type of modern day facelift, X-Ray surgery. Janet (Clara Bow) epitomizes the youthful flapper who's attracted to Lee, since they both share the same age and interests. But Lee's attracted to the more mature-acting countess, much older than he realizes.

Corinne Griffith, nicknamed 'The Orchid Lady of the Screen,' was considered one of the most beautiful actresses in silent movies. According to her biographer, Anthony Slide, the phrase "the camera loves her" was attributed to Griffith. At 22, after winning a beauty contest in Southern California, Griffith signed a $15 a week contract in 1916 with Vitagraph. Rising in popularity because of her sheer attractiveness, she signed with First National in 1923 with "The Black Oxen," under Frank Lloyd's direction, as her first film with the studio.

After her movie acting career ended in the early 1930's, she married Washington Redskins football owner and businessman George Preston Marshal. Griffith wrote the lyrics to the team's song, 'Hail to the Redskins,' one of professional football's most famous post-touchdown songs, until the name was dropped.

For actress Clara Bow, "Black Oxen" was her largest role in her budding career. One of many actresses who drew the attention of movie scouts by winning beauty contests, Bow, living in Brooklyn, N. Y., entered a publication's annual awards at 16. She earned the 1921 second place silver trophy, along with some bit parts in New York movies. With resume in hand, she journeyed to Hollywood a year later.

After one film there, Bow dropped in on director Frank Lloyd, who was frustrated over trying to find the right actress to play the vivacious Janet for "The Black Oxen." Bow recalls, "When I came into his office a big smile came over his face and he looked just tickled to death." Once filming was completed, the director told reporters, "Bow is the personification of the ideal aristocratic flapper, mischievous, pretty, aggressive, quick-tempered and deeply sentimental."

Bigger parts awaited Bow as she matured into one of later silent movie's biggest star.

Sadly, I would like to know how this film ends. The DVD that is available of course is short the missing reels - the film ends at a dinner party. It's not a great transfer but worth watching. Clara Bow is an obnoxious little flapper who is in love with Conway Tearle - a small complication throughout. I agree with the previous comment that Corrine Griffith who is supposed to be around 60, when made up looks much older. She seems infirmed with a cane but there is no explanation about this.

It would be wonderful if the missing reels would turn up in Russian or the Czech Republic or the Netherlands or anywhere. This film was long on my want list so when I saw it advertised on DVD I took a chance and ordered it.

Once again a curiosity of the silent era. Unfortunately, this is another incomplete film. We don't know what the result of all this interest in youth revitalizing surgery will lead to. The main character, Mary, became old at a time when her continued work was critical to the return of Austria to power after the war. While she was hospitalized, a treatment was performed which left her forever young. Now she has come to the attention of those who knew her years before. A man falls in love with her and things get pretty complicated because she is nearly a hundred years old. Soon all the old women in the film, some friends of hers, begin to want to do the same treatment. The problem is that just as we are about to find out what happens, we run out of film. I understand this was based on a popular piece of fiction. Still, it is an interesting idea. Barely science fiction, really. Are all mythical medical discoveries in movies science fiction? Perhaps.

"Black Oxen" by Gertrude Atherton was the #1 best-selling novel of 1923, going through 14 printings in a single year. The novel gained a racy reputation, due to its (for the time) frank discussion of women's sexual organs, and because of some innovative language. (This novel featured the first use of the word "sophisticate" as a noun.) The film version was rushed into production almost immediately, but is well-made and not a quickie.

"Black Oxen" (the 1923 novel) is science fiction, although few of its readers realised that fact. The 1924 film "Black Oxen" is a science-fiction movie, but is not immediately recognisable as such because the film emphasises ideas rather than sci-fi gadgetry. The film takes its title from a verse by Yeats: "The years like great Black Oxen tread the world". A much later science-fiction novel, also cried 'Black Oxen' (by New Zealand author Elizabeth Knox, published in 2001), takes its title from this same source.

Lee Clavering (played by Conway Tearle) is a handsome playboy in jazz-era Manhattan. (In the novel, Clavering was a playwright: in this movie, he allegedly writes a newspaper column, but seems to spend all his time carousing.) In a nightclub, he meets a mysterious Austrian beauty named Madame Zatianny (Corinne Griffith) and he's instantly attracted to her. Clavering's older friends Mr and Mrs Oglethorpe are also intrigued by Mme Zatianny, because she is an exact double for Mary Ogden, a socialite of the 1890s who disappeared in Europe many years ago. But Mary Ogden would now be 58 years old, whilst Mme Zatianny is a young woman. Can she perhaps be Mary Ogden's daughter?

SPOILER COMING: As a romance develops between Clavering and Zatianny, he discovers the bizarre truth. Years ago, Mary Ogden went to Vienna and volunteered for a medical experiment, in which her ovaries were irradiated with radium treatments. This rejuvenated the fiftyish Mary, restoring her to the sexual vitality and physical youth of her early twenties. She re-invented herself as the European beauty Zatianny, and has now returned to her old haunts. For reasons never properly explained, the radium treatment works only on women, not men.

This is a strange film, but an interesting one. In flashbacks, we see Mary Ogden as she looked in her fifties: the make-up on Corinne Griffith is not very convincing, and she looks as if she's in her seventies, not her fifties. Also, the movie implies that a woman in her fifties is hopelessly old, beyond any hope of emotional happiness. If this is true, it's down to social prejudice rather than biological fact.

Clara Bow is good in a small role as the Oglethorpes' socialite daughter, and more subdued than usual. "Black Oxen" is a good example of how silent films sometimes had narrative advantages over talking films. Corinne Griffith has to play an American and a (supposed) European. In a sound film, she would have to speak her lines in two different accents. The European accent would probably have been a fairly ludicrous one, dispelling the credibility of her character. Because "Black Oxen" is a silent film, the accent problem is avoided.

An enigmatic young woman becomes the talk of Jazz Age Manhattan when it appears she's the same socialite who left New York for Europe decades before. They actually are one and the same thanks to x-ray treatments that reverse the ageing process but will her new beau care once he finds out? Like ARE PARENTS PEOPLE? made the following year, the movie's trying to say something about age-ism but I'm not sure if the point was made because it's missing the last reel. Still, I enjoyed what I saw thanks to its star, the extravagantly beautiful Corrine Griffith, and it's impossible to look away whenever Clara Bow's flirtatious flapper appears on screen.