Circé

Circe the Enchantress (1924) was one of Mae Murray's biggest hits and it's easy to see why, thanks to the film's streaming from Pordenone.

Originally 74 minutes or so, only 54 minutes survive but it's enough to get the major points of the story. Directed by Robert Z. Leonard, Murray stars as Cecilie Brunner, a convent girl who goes to New York after the death of her mother and becomes a vamp (we can only guess how this happens). As the Circe in Greek mythology turned men into swine, the vampy Cecilie does the same at lavish parties where the jazz is hot and the champagne is as ice cold as she is. She has a cluster of men around her (including William Haines in a very straight role), but it's the sedate Dr. Van Martyn (James Kirkwood) she secretly pines for. He won't have anything to do with her; he seems to be mourning his saintly wife.

Anyway, one wild night she gambles away her fortune in a crooked game of dice and in a moment of drunken bravura badly cuts her hand on a broken glass. The doctor comes to stitch her up but again tells her she's trash. She steals away in the night and disappears. Later she's run over by a car when she saves a little girl from getting hit and told she'll probably never walk again....

Murray's wild party dance sequence is just sensational. Sensational. Great music score by Donald Sosin.