Flaming Youth

Beginning her career in 1917 opposite popular young D.W. Griffith actor Robert Harron, brunette beauty Colleen Moore was an immediate movie star. But her relatively modest fame became super-stardom in 1923, with the release of "Flaming Youth" accompanying her appearance as a "Top Ten" favorite; she peaked at #1 in 1926's "Quigley Poll" of box office stars, and remained popular until talking pictures changed audience tastes in the early 1930s. A sanitized version of Warner Fabian's then sexy and scandalous contemporary novel, "Flaming Youth" has been considered Ms. Moore's first defining role...

Unfortunately, only a portion of "Flaming Youth" survives. Fortunately, it contains some pivotal moments. The reel has been released on "Fragments: Surviving Pieces of Lost Films" (2011) and is sometimes shown on Turner Classic Movies (TCM). In it, débutante Moore (as Patricia "Pat" Fentriss) meets one of her deceased mother's loves, Milton Sills (as Cary Scott). She begins a romance with the older man and they attend a swimming pool party. The pool-side fun contains much of the film's notoriously naughty footage; photographed in silhouette, the reel ends with party guests dancing around in their wet underwear.

***** Flaming Youth (11/12/23) John Francis Dillon ~ Colleen Moore, Milton Sills, Myrtle Stedman, Gino Corrado

I'm so glad Turner Classic Movies is playing this fragment and I hope more is found soon.

Here's some more about what is still missing... This picture practically defined the Roaring Twenties and shot Colleen Moore to superstardom. Because she is neglected by her husband (Phillips Smalley), Mona Fentriss (Myrtle Steadman) begins living a frivolous, jazzy lifestyle. Two of her daughters, Connie (Betty Francisco) and Dee (Sylvia Breamer), follow in her footsteps and make unhappy marriages, but Mona tries to instill some sort of old-fashioned values in her youngest daughter, Pat (Moore). Heart trouble leads Mona to an early death, but before she dies, she reveals to her friend, Doctor Bobs (Elliott Dexter), that her one true love was Cary Scott (Milton Sills). Pat grows up to be a jazz baby, but Scott returns and becomes her one stabilizing influence. Although they fall in love, Scott must get a divorce from his estranged wife before they can wed. Pat is hesitant to marry at all because of all the unhappy matches around her. She becomes involved with a violinist who traps her on a yacht and she is forced to jump into the sea to save herself. She becomes gravely ill and Doctor Bobs and Scott do what they can to bring her back from the brink. It's the spirit of her mother, however, which really saves Pat so that she can recover and marry Scott.