Our Modern Maidens

OUR MODERN MAIDENS (1929) comes with a synchronized audio track (music and sound effects) but is still a "silent" film, with dialogue conveyed via intertitle cards. The story concerns carefree young people, out of college and into society, the world in the palms of their hands. Joan Crawford hams it up to a ridiculous extent with her jazz baby routine. Although she was the star of the picture, Crawford is the least appealing character in the film. Her look here isn't very feminine. By contrast Anita Page is awfully cute as the sweet and naive friend.

Page loves dashing young Douglas Fairbanks Jr., who is pretty serious about Crawford, his longtime sweetheart. Meanwhile, Crawford is playing around with Rod La Rocque, a big shot diplomat of some kind. Melodrama ensues. Joan Crawford finds herself mixed up in two love triangles and, heroine that she is, must make noble decisions.

There's an interesting scene where Douglas Fairbanks Jr. does celebrity impressions at a party. His character impersonates silent-screen actors John Barrymore, John Gilbert, and then -- in the role of "Robin Hood" -- his own father Douglas Fairbanks Sr. It's a nice little treat for astute film buffs.

Starring together in a feature for the first and only time, Crawford and Fairbanks were married that same year in real life.

6.5/10

Released a few months before the stock market crashed and Joan Crawford's final silent, this film definitely has the feel of the roaring 20's, and in the sexual freedom of its female characters, some pre-Code elements as well. Anita Page is dreamy, Joan Crawford is full of life, and Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. And Rod La Rocque hold up their ends as the guys in the middle of love triangles. The film has a mix of playfulness, liberation, scandal, and melodrama, the combination of which was entertaining.

It opens with a group of raucous college kids driving along the road side by side in two cars, nearly colliding with another coming in the other direction. They talk gaily for a bit and then one says "Come on...let's dance!" and they pile out and do just that. When they're on a train later, the porter says "Lunch is poured," and they all clamor for a drink. The women have a healthy interest in the opposite sex. One asks, "All together, children...what are our thoughts on leaving school?" and the response is "Men! Men! Men! Men!! MEN!!" When pondering the future one asks "Love! Beautiful love! Will it sweep me away in a cloud of glory or steal upon me...gently?" and the answer is "If you think there's anything gentle about love...you've never been necked by a Freshman!" Later we see Crawford frenetically playing drums at a lavish party, Page on the ukulele, and Fairbanks, Jr. At the piano, hey, my kind of band.

There are so many cute little moments here: Crawford dancing around in a bare midriff outfit courtesy Adrian, Fairbanks, Jr. Imitating John Barrymore, John Gilbert, and his father, and Crawford making him take a bow while he pretends he's a ventriloquist's dummy. The art deco adorned house has a wild curved staircase and ridged entryways stretching up to a very high ceiling, and the zoom out and in shots from afar that director Jack Conway feel modern, as does the first person point of view shot that comes later down the wedding aisle.

Things get considerably heavier when Fairbanks, Jr. Cheats on his fiancée (Crawford) with her friend (Page), and it's clear that they've had sex. "Don't be unhappy Gil...I'm not," says Page the next day when he feels guilty. Meanwhile, Crawford is using her charms with a guy with influence in political spheres (La Rocque) to get Fairbanks, Jr. A post in Paris, though it gets awkward when he responds by falling for her, and dangerous when he's angered upon discovering she's actually engaged. After getting to his house and out of a storm, her dress is soaking wet. She changes into a dry robe in the next room, but he enters menacingly, and with one thing on his mind. As it continues to pour outside (reminding me of Crawford's 'Rain' from a few years later), he snarls "What's the matter? I thought you were a 'modern'." Crawford's distress looks real and when he then flings her head back by the hair and looks down into her face, it's a shocking and powerful moment.

Crawford gives a great performance has several other great scenes, such as when she looks dolefully out at his house in the distance at night. Page is fine too, showing real grief over how her entanglement plays out, shock when she's discovered crying over it, and shame over being pregnant. Yes, pregnant, and I believe considering an abortion. The film shows the perils of being 'modern' but it doesn't come down on these two women in a heavy-handed way at all, and it's fantastic that Crawford holds her head up high and has complete freedom over her fate, something I loved. This one is lots of fun, a great vehicle for its cast, and a nice, uncensored window into the Jazz Age.

This was one of those films caught during the transition to sound and issued in a silent and sound version. Unfortunately, MGM didn't make separate continuity versions - they simply added a soundtrack (music and sound effects) to the silent version. But the silent film could be run at the proper speed - anywhere from 16 to 22 frames a second at the discretion of the projectionist - whereas the sound version had to be shown at 24 frames a second, the fixed speed to have the sound come out right. So you see the action faster than you are supposed to, making some of it seem rushed, quite noticeable and often annoying.

The plot is your basic love quadrangle with Crawford in love with and getting secretly engaged to Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., while Page is in love with him. It's secret so Crawford can play up to influential Rod La Rocque, who can get Fairbanks a diplomatic job. She cruelly lies to La Rocque, who falls in love with her, saying Fairbanks is a friend, only a boy. While Crawford is getting to La Rocque, Fairbanks and Page have an affair, which he regrets, finally telling her of his engagement. Page simply says she will never tell Crawford, her best friend. After La Rocque gets Fairbanks the job, the engagement is announced, enraging La Rocque to the point he almost rapes Crawford. I was really surprised when they were alone in his cabin and he grabs Crawford, that he yanks her hair back violently so he could kiss her passionately. He finally leaves in disgust, after telling her he stopped not because of decency, but because he didn't want her. Crawford marries Fairbanks, but all four are in for some big surprises.

The love scenes are punctuated with a lot of jazz age fun. We see Crawford doing a nice interpretive dance at a party, and Fairbanks imitate John Barrymore doing his facial changes made in Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1920), and then imitate John Gilbert passionately kissing a woman. Those two are mentioned by name, but then someone yells "Do Robin Hood," an amusing "in" joke because it referred to his real life father, Douglas Fairbanks, Sr. in Robin Hood (1922). And he does it very well, leaping and posturing just as his father did, a reason why he was able to make some swashbuckling films himself later on.

Billie Brown (Joan Crawford) and "her crowd" have just graduated from college. She and her long-time - as in since childhood - boyfriend, Gil Jordan (Douglas Fairbanks Jr.) want to get married. But first, Billie insists that Gil get a post with the American embassy in Paris. Only the best will do for Billie!

When the recent college grads are partying on a train, Glenn Abbott (Rod La Rocque) comes on board, sees Billie, and is instantly smitten. She gives him the cold shoulder until she reads in the paper about him being a hot shot among the foreign service crowd - the kind of hot shot that could get her boyfriend a position with the American embassy in Paris. So she decides to flirt with Glenn in hopes of getting what she wants while making him think that Gil is just a friend whom she'd like to see start out in life with a good job. Meanwhile, Gil knows what is going on and is feeling jealous, while the rather naive Kentucky (Anita Page) has a huge crush on Gil that she thinks is love. Complications ensue.

This thing is an art deco lover's dream with the Brown mansion and all of its bold geometric forms and stairways. It's a beautiful look at the furs and fashions, architecture, cars, and carefree ways of life in the jazz age, especially among the rich, just before the 20s stopped roaring and the stock market crashed.

Anita Page played a much more likeable character in this second film of the "flapper trilogy" than she did in the first - "Our Dancing Daughters". Who exactly is this "Kentucky" character anyways? And why is she living in the Brown mansion if she's not a relative? But I digress.

Rounding out the cast is corpulent Albert Gran as B. Bickering Brown, Billie's father and future director Edward Nugent as one of Billie's crowd. In this one entry of the flapper trilogy, Dorothy Sebastian is not present. It appears her place has been taken by Josephine Dunn who is playing a girl who is jealous of Billie's attention and success with men to the extent that she behaves so catty that I'm surprised milkmen are not being attracted from miles away.

And lest you think our titular maidens have gotten too modern, note that when the recent college graduate girls are asked "What do we think about education, girls?" their answer is"MEN! MEN! MEN!"

This gem is one of my favorite silent movies. No, it would never be considered a "classic", yet there's something about the characters, the actors, and the atmosphere that holds such appeal for me that I have watched this film several times without ever tiring of it.

What's there to love? For starters, how about a young Joan Crawford and Douglas Fairbanks Jr. in their only on-screen appearance together (they were a couple in real life at the time this picture was produced and were married the same year it was released). Crawford's vivid pantomime is over-the-top at times, but you must see Doug Jr.'s impersonations of his father. Then there are the second-string leads: Anita Page delivers sweet naiveté, while Rod La Rocque's suave intensity is pitch-perfect. And I must also mention the third-string leads--Eddie Nugent and Josephine Dunn--both of whom are scene stealers extraordinaire.

Fast cars, jazz parties, a love quadrangle, great art deco sets--this little film provides a glimpse of the roaring 1920s just on the eve of its collapse.