Le fruit défendu

Cecil B. DeMille is in good form in this drama centering on a poor seamstress (Agnes Ayres) who gets caught up in a web of deceit and murder when she accepts an invitation by a social climber (Kathlyn Williams) to fill out her dinner table by posing as Natalie Webb. The scheme is to fill the table with pretty young women to stall a potential business partner (Forrest Stanley) from leaving town before he can invest in the husband's (Theodore Roberts) oil venture.

But Ayres is married to a shiftless lout (Clarence Burton) and is therefore "forbidden fruit," as she tells Stanley when he becomes infatuated with her. In a subplot, the butler (Theodore Kosloff) has hidden is jail record and is planning to rob the family jewels.

After a domestic squabble, Ayres decides to accept an invitation for the weekend to see Stanley. Meanwhile, Kosloff and Burton team up to rob the jewels, but they get caught in the act and Ayres is exposed as a fraud.

Good story and all the actors are good. But the sets and costumes almost overwhelm the actors, especially with the beautiful gold tint. DeMille was famous for his attention to interior design and fashion, and here is an eye-popping example. Not only do we see the little seamstress transformed into a gowned and bejeweled beauty, but we also see her in a few "Cinderella" fantasies that are even more over the top in fashion design.

Ayres is quite good as the seamstress but she lacks the hauteur Gloria Swanson brought to these DeMille heroines. All the other actors are solid. Co-stars include Julia Faye and Lillian Leighton as house maids and Margaret Loomis and Conrad Nagel as the actors in the play called "Forbidden Fruit."

"Forbidden Fruit" is a silent movie from Cecil B. DeMille which has a huge handicap at the onset...the IMDB summary pretty much reveals the entire plot! Hopefully, you'll see the movie without reading the summary! And, if you want to see it, check it out on YouTube.

When the story began, I noticed how gorgeous the opeing credits were. They were hand-painted and in lovely color...as are the intertitle cards throughout the film. The print also is in extremely good shape, as are quite a few of DeMille's silents which are on YouTube.

The Mallory family has a problem. Mr. Mallory is trying to wrap up a big business deal but the man with which he wants to do business with is planning on taking a trip out west. So, to convince him to stay, they promise him a lavish dinner party...complete with the perfect date for the evening. But they have a devil of a time finding anyone to fit this bill. Eventually, in desperation they get Mary Maddock, a married woman and seamstress, to be the date and pretend to be single and in society. But when Mary and the man fall for each other, this creates a problem. Mary has a husband at home...a very bad and lazy one at that who will never allow her to leave.

The story, while engaging, is very difficult to believe and the intertitles a big moralizing. But these sorts of things were not that unusual for 1921. On the psotive side, the production values are amazing for the time...well acted, directed and looking very nice. Overall, while it's not a film to change your life, it is pleasant and well worth seeing...especially if you love silents.

Mary Maddock is a poor seamstress who works for the wealthy Mrs. Mallory. Mr. Mallory attempts to make a business deal with Nelson Rogers. To entice the young man, Mrs. Mallory invites him to a dinner party, promising him that his partner will be the prettiest girl in town. But when his partner us unable to attend, Mrs. Mallory enlists Mary in the role. Mrs. Mallory and her servants transform Mary into a desirable woman. Rogers falls for her, unaware that Mary is married to a louse. Mary's husband conspires with Giuseppe, the Mallory's butler, to steal some jewels from the Mallory home. During the theft, Mary's husband discovers Mary sleeping at the Mallory's home and assumes she is selling herself. Can Mary extricate herself from this mess?

This is an odd film. I'm sure DeMille was going for melodrama (the title cards are rife with morality). There are some references to Adam and Eve ("forbidden fruit" ... get it? Get it?), but also scenes with Cinderella fantasies (which were pretty bad). But several scenes are comic and the movie borders on farce. Theodore Roberts, as Mr. Mallory, plays his usual cigar-chomping character, and provides some of the comic relief. Rogers makes a pleasant leading man, although his outfit in the Cinderella scenes is way too much.

Ayres is quite beautiful, even before she is "transformed." In what might be an "in" joke, one scene involves the Mallorys, along with Mary and Rogers, watching a play in a theater. The actors onstage are Conrad Nagel and Margaret Loomis, and the play is entitled "Forbidden Fruit."

With the exception of artsier fare like THE CHEAT and THE WHISPERING CHORUS, DeMille's silent output tends to be overlooked. A real shame, since his so-called high society films are a delight. FORBIDDEN FRUIT is my favorite to date: it's briskly paced and graced with jaw-dropping art deco aesthetics. The story is a simple Cinderella retelling, but a very effective one, inserting a bit of crime drama into the mix. For once, I was actually enamored with Agnes Ayres, an actress often dismissed by silent movie geeks as underwhelming and matronly. Here, she's the perfect fairy tale heroine.

May not have Gloria Swanson, but still not a movie to be missed.

Forrest Stanley is in a hurry to get out west, but Theodore Roberts wants him to stick around to make a deal, so wife Kathlyn Williams promises him "the prettiest girl in New York" as his dinner companion. When the guest begs off, she substitutes seamstress Agnes Ayres, and they fall in love. Miss Ayres, however, has a failure of a husband who hears about a girl at the Roberts' house with some fabulous jewels he can steal....

FORBIDDEN FRUIT is a remake of DeMille's stunning THE GOLDEN CHANCE, with a lot of the absolute degradation of the original version missing -- while in the earlier period, DeMille was occasionally interested in showing the audience the dirt and despair of poverty, here it is attributed to greed and laziness on the part of Agnes Ayres' husband, Clarence Burton, and Theodore Kosloff's butler, who had served many of the best families in New York and two years in Sing-Sing.

Yet there is a careless greed among the wealthy: Theodore Roberts, who is only interested in keeping Forrest Stanley around so he can make a business deal, regardless of the truth, and Kathlyn Williams, who really doesn't care a fig for anyone or anything except that Miss Ayres doesn't leave with her jewels. Only Mr. Stanley and Miss Ayres seem touched by any emotion but greed, and this makes this, in many ways, a fairy tale. The sequences in which we see Miss Ayres as Cinderella and Mr. Stanley as Prince Charming seem not to be commentaries on the main body of the movie. If anything, the reverse is true, and the movie seems more an exegesis of the fairy tale for the modern (1921) audience.

The print on Youtube was in glorious condition, with many sections not only tinted, but toned, lending a sumptuous visual element quite alien to the modern view of silent movies. DeMille's movies were Famous Players-Lasky's (later Paramount) prestige movies, and they spared no expense in their presentation. DeMille made an effort to save his early films, and this is a very good one from this period.