Robes of Sin

Participated in a Kickstarter campaign put on by Ed Lorusso to get "Robes of Sin" (1924) fairly restored and show-able again. Finally received a copy yesterday and watched it last night. A potboiler's potboiler starring Sylvia Breamer, Jack Mower, Lassie Lou Ahern, Bruce Gordon, Gertrude Astor, Helene Sullivan, and, finally, William Buckley, this is really like watching a TV soap opera at 11:00 in the morning. The title is wholly exploitative, although the film is the same theme-wise. Breamer's married to a cop (Mower) who's been put on a strenuous time-consuming project that hopes to catch a bootlegging rum-runner (Gordon) and put him away. Since Mower has no time for taking his wife to dances - or even being at home as a normal house-husband for 1924 - Breamer is bored and, frankly, frustrated. They do have the baby, though, Lassie Lou Ahern. Across the hall from where Breamer and Mower live in an apartment, Gertrude Astor moves in. She's the current girl friend of bootlegger Gordon, though he's beginning to be bored by her. As a viewer, you can see there's nothing good going to come of all this. Gordon eventually meets Breamer through Astor, of course, and potential evil occurrences lurk...loom...begin to happen...

Actually, a fun film to watch, though the coincidences of plot are cheap and obvious, and they must have been even in 1924. This is simply a secondary programmer, but it's a good one, well acted and well put together. The fact that we still have it and can see what typical entertainment was in 1924 - much like our mindless TV of today - is an okay thing. In the vein of Fitzgerald and the Jazz Age and post-Victorian everything that seemed to become ubiquitous by the middle twenties, this film is definitely worth the simple one hour it takes to watch. Just don't expect a masterpiece. It's barely a cog in the works, but it's one that definitely helps turn the wheel...

I must admit that there was one thing that drove me bananas! Lassie Lou Ahern, playing the 'baby' of the couple, Mower and Breamer, was left in bed by Breamer at 8:00 PM - ALONE - in the apartment while she traipsed off with Gordon to a dance spot for the evening - this, while her husband was at work with the police force. In another scene, both husband AND wife have left the child alone in the apartment at night while they are about doing their things... This wouldn't sit well at all today. Wonder how well it sat in 1924? In real life, Ahern was only 3, possibly 4, when this film was made. She's playing someone about that age. By the way, she's fine in the part, very natural.

ROBES OF SIN stars the Australian actress, Sylvia Breamer, who had been in American films since 1917. Here she plays a bored housewife married to a cop (Jack Mower) who is working in an undercover unit. When a gangster's moll (Gertrude Astor) moves in across the hall, the bored Breamer falls in with her and her boyfriend, played by Bruce Gordon. At first, Astor is amused by the housewife, but when Gordon starts to shower her with gifts and dates to a night club, Astor changes her mind and seeks revenge.

Breamer pretty much retired soon after this film (to get married) and appeared in only four more silents that were released through 1926. A 1924 review in Film Daily said that Breamer was "suitable as the wife" but gave higher marks to Jack Mower as the policeman husband and Astor as the "gilded lily."

Here's where it gets weird. An article in Exhibitor's Herald on March 201, 1926 boasted that Herman F. Jans had just completed a film titled THE ROARING FORTIES. This refers to a couple of blocks in New York's theater district. Jans went on to say that "no district in the world can compare" and that it "caters to every sort of individual and where characters of every sort reside." The writer claimed, "It was for this reason that he had a story of this section of New York prepared and made into a motion picture."

It never bothered to explain that Jans has bought ROBES OF SIN and simply retitled it and was releasing it as a new picture. Variety noted in its June 23, 1926 review that "it must have been made some time ago, for the skirts of the female players are down to the ankles, or maybe the producers are modest.' It then states that "Miss Breamer has been idle for over a year. This picture was probably made before that."

Robes of Sin is a good example of the emerging changes in America's lifestyle in the Jazz Age and the restlessness of modern housewives. The night club scenes feature some snappy dancers (although they are unbilled). The film also features William Buckley as the Banjo Kid and Lassie Lou Ahern as the baby. Ahern was one of the last surviving silent players; she died in 2018.

Sylvia Breamer is married to Police a detective Jack Mower. They have a daughter, Lassie Lou Ahern, live somewhere near Times Square, and they love each other very much. Yet a housewife, even in Manhattan, has a busy day stuck in the apartment. Mower is working at curbing the bootleg gang run by Bruce Gordon, so he doesn't come home most evenings. When he does, he's exhausted. So she is bored. Things start to perk up when Gertrude Astor moves into the apartment across the hall. She's taken it to be near where her boyfriend, William Buckley works. He's a bootlegger who works for Gordon. When Gordon visits, he's much taken by Miss Breamer and makes a play for her.

That's not going to turn out well, is it? It's a cheaply made picture, full of goofs - there are no palm trees on the streets of New York City's suburbs - and stiffly written dialogue for Gordon's title cards. Although the performers are skilled professionals (I'm very fond of Miss Astor, especially in comedies), this movie was never intended as a major production, and it shows it, both in its length and in the simplicity of its design. Nonetheless, at one hour, it's certainly a competent example of the sort of movie that made up the majority of film programs in the era.

This programmer was recently released on DVD by Ed Lorusso as one of his Kickstarter-funded projects. There's a fine score by Donald Drazin, and the print is in remarkably good shape. There are currently no plans to release it to a wider audience, but earlier examples of Ed's restorations have appeared on TCM and from some of the smaller home video companies.