L'admirable Crichton

Very solid Cecil B. DeMille production of JM Barrie's play, "The Admirable Crichton" with a few DeMille flourishes.

Crichton (Thomas Meighan) is a very proper butler in a staid British home. Of course he has a distant crush on Lady Mary (Gloria Swanson), a very pampered and spoiled young lady. Tweeny the household maid (Lila Lee) has a crush on Crichton.

The family, headed by a silly old man (Theodore Roberts) decides to take a sailing trip to the South Seas and gathers up a party of family and friends. Of course they run the yacht into a rock and are washed ashore on a deserted island. The rich are all nitwits and haven't a clue how to do anything for themselves. They assume Meighan and Lee will continue to wait on them. Wrong.

Slowly it occurs to everyone that there is a new order on the island. The crafty and self-sufficient Meighan sets out to build a shelter, a fire, harvest food, etc. while the rich sit and watch. Their attempts to copy him are sadly disastrous. Eventually they "join" the former butler's group with Meighan as a sort of king.

Among the items that have washed ashore after the wreck is a book of poems that talks about a Babylonian king. In a typical DeMille moment, Swanson daydreams about her life in a Babylonian court. The sequence that follows ranks among the most famous in silent film history as Meighan becomes the Babylonian king who sentences the reluctant maiden (Swanson) to the lions' den as his jealous courtesan (Bebe Daniels) gleefully watches. The scene is much shorter than I remembered as the fabulously gowned Swanson walks in among the lions. The famous scene of the bare-backed Swanson with the roaring lion atop her was very real (no double).

And so the merry band of islanders, under King Crichton, goes on for a few years until, just before the marriage of Swanson and Meighan), they are "rescued" and returned to their former lives (and stations).

Meighan and Swanson are terrific. Roberts is funny as the old man. The supporting cast includes Julia Faye (as a maid), Robert Cain (as Swanson's boring suitor), Edmund Burns (as the vicar), Raymond Hatton (as the silly ass Ernie), Mildred Reardon (as Lady Agatha), and Rhy Darby (as the pitiful Lady Duncraigie who marries her chauffeur).

Logic aside, this is a stylish and solid film and features a ravishing 20-year-old Gloria Swanson in one of her first big hits for DeMille. Another famous scene is early in the film as Swanson prepares to taker her morning bath, a ritual that includes several maids, gallons of rose water, and another of DeMille's groundbreaking interior designs.

A must see for fans of silent films.

Thomas Meighan (as the admirable Crichton) is head butler for an aristocratic British family; he is obviously quite taken with luscious Gloria Swanson (as Lady Mary Lasenby), but unable to cross class barriers. The household's scullery maid Lila Lee (as Tweeny) is in love with Crichton. The threesome, and some others, go out yachting; when cross currents hit, the ensemble is shipwrecked! Turns out, the servant class has far more advanced survival skills. Who knew?

Ms. Swanson is the film's main attraction; her bathing and showering scenes, near the beginning of the film, helped clean-up at the box office. Note that whenever there is nakedness afoot, DeMille has an object cover-up Swanson's figure, however. Though not as famed, Swanson's later wet spot, when she is nearly drowned in the bowel of the sideswiped yacht, is far superior. Swanson and Ms. Lee perform well, actually, with the material given. Loved the "upper crust" lady complaining about limp toast!

Mr. Meighan delivers the movie's finest performance; the other players have moments, but Meighan is outstanding in the pivotal role of Butler Crichton. From the moment he checks the mansion for dust, he is delightful; the actor makes the movie even more interesting when the suppressed desire for Swanson begins registering on his face. A couple of smaller roles are noteworthy: Wesley Barry is great as the peeping Buttons, indicating what Cecil B. DeMille's "Male and Female" is really all about (more or less). You should also keep an eye on Bebe Daniels during the "King of Babylon" imaginary sequence; she is terrific as Meighan's right-hand lady. Silent film veterans Guy Oliver and Clarence Burton inexplicably disappear, after the shipwreck. Theodore Roberts and Raymond Hatton are around much longer, thankfully.

The film is recommended, and DeMille obviously expert - but it's one of the more ludicrously-themed silent era classics preserved for modern scrutiny. Apparently, in adapting "The Admirable Crichton" for DeMilledom, the director substituted sex for satire. AND, he gets his titillating re-title "Male and Female" from no less than God Himself! quoting, "So God created Man in His own image, in the image of God created He him: Male and Female created He them." There is also a oddly placed bow to the good ol' U.S.A. With all its oddities, it's still a fun film.

******** Male and Female (11/23/19) Cecil B. DeMille ~ Thomas Meighan, Gloria Swanson, Lila Lee

In the beginning we are introduced to a genuine old British aristocratic family: the spoiled, lazy Lady Mary, her quirky father and her younger sister. And, of course, Lady Mary is engaged to another aristocratic parasite, Lord Brockelhurst. And, on the 'other side of the fence', are the servants: butler Crichton, who is secretly in love with Lady Mary (although this is of course 'impossible': you can't break out of your 'caste'...), and maid Tweeny who in turn is in love with Crichton. A typical picture of old aristocratic England...

... Until one day, when the blue-blooded clan starts out on a South Sea cruise - and are stranded there on a lonely island; without luxury, without lodgings, even without food. And NOW it shows WHO is able to survive when being put to the test: Crichton with his energy and inventive spirit soon becomes the leader of the 'Swiss Family Robinson', while Lady Mary, completely helpless on her own, must admit that now HE's the strong man, HE's the 'King' (he even dreams of being the King of Babylon and she his Christian slave...) - and falls in love with him, while Tweeny jealously has to stand by and watch... BUT if they'll ever be rescued and return to England, will everything be as it was before??

This early work of Cecil B. De Mille already shows pretty clearly his vivid fantasy and love for ancient settings and costumes, as well as his belief in old-fashioned morales and institutions. The best part is, of course, when Crichton becomes the 'King', wild and strong, far away at last from his stiff butler image (Thomas Meighan, with his cocksure and almost a little menacing expression, somehow seems to look here like a kind of Rudolph Valentino 10 years older...), and Lady Mary alias Gloria Swanson, in the new surroundings of the wilderness, at last becomes a REAL woman. But - will it last??

For someone who has seen Bing Crosby and Carole Lombard in We're Not Dressing you will get a nice musical and comedy treat as Bing sings some nice songs and comedy is nicely handled by Burns&Allen and Leon Errol. But while the broad comedy aspects of The Admirable Crichton are handled well there, the broad range of James M. Barrie's story is done in the Cecil B. DeMille silent film Male And Female. Starring of course DeMille's latest discovery Gloria Swanson.

Elliott Dexter a DeMille silent regular was unavailable so Thomas Meighan takes the title role as the butler on Theodore Roberts estate. He has two daughters and a silly sot of a nephew in Raymond Hatton. The daughters are Gloria Swanson and Lila Lee.

We have class distinctions in America, but they're not as rigid as they are in the United Kingdom. It's those aspects that are dealt with in Male And Female not the Americanized We're Not Dressing. Meighan has it bad for Swanson, but the rigid class structure makes that union impossible.

But when they're shipwrecked on a tropical island while on a cruise the social order is reversed. Theodore Roberts by dint of his title tries to assert his authority. But Meighan as the man with the most knowledge on how to survive upsets that in a hurry. Unlike the Crosby/Lombard film, these folks are here for a few years and thinking even with the social order reversed, it's not like Robinson Crusoe with no one to converse with for years.

Barrie both satirizes and deals with the subject class seriously. As for DeMille he gets to do one of his spectacle type sequences in a flashback when the cast imagines they're in ancient Babylon with Meighan as king. In that flashback is a young Bebe Daniels who was getting started and she would shortly being starring in DeMille silent films. DeMille in his autobiography pays compliments to a new member of his team Mitchell Leisen who did the costumes. He would be a DeMille regular until he went out on his own as a director.

I liked the film and I'll let you others decide whether there is more Barrie or more DeMille in this film.

The silent films of Cecil B DeMille, scripted by his long-time collaborator (and mistress) Jeanie MacPherson were often bizarre, overwrought and sometimes just plain silly. Once in a while however they hit the nail right on the head. Male and Female, heavily adapted from JM Barrie's play The Admirable Crichton, is a powerful drama with some strong performances, DeMille's direction at its most lyrical, and MacPherson's storyline only occasionally veering off the rails.

The majority of DeMille films from this part of his career begin with a lengthy title card with some kind of moral or motto. However, Male and Female opens with images – the crashing sea, a sunset – before getting onto the intertitles. The typical DeMille silent would then follow this up by introducing us to each of the main characters with a title followed by a shot of them. Male and Female is no exception, but it works these introductions into the film's world and draws the audience in by making them point-of-view shots of a young servant peeping through the keyholes into his masters' and mistresses' bedrooms.

The acting style that DeMille had encouraged and developed in his silent pictures since the mid-1910s was largely naturalistic, but with the occasional broad theatrical gesture to highlight a dramatic moment. It was a style that reduced the need for intertitles, without resorting to ridiculous pantomiming. The two leads, Gloria Swanson and Thomas Meighan are both perfectly suited to this style. Meighan was probably the finest male actor DeMille had worked with since Sessue Hayakawa (in 1915's The Cheat), and his performance here is mesmerising. Swanson is also great as usual, although I have to say that although it was her run of pictures with DeMille that made her name, she didn't do her best work with him. Her talent was put to far better use in later features such as Queen Kelly and Sadie Thompson.

Aside from the performances, it's the dramatic story and its presentation that makes Male and Female so memorable. Only the basic plot of Barrie's play remains, and this is a typical DeMille/MacPherson story of the reversal of fortune and forbidden love – probably the strongest of this kind that they did before the slant in DeMille's films became increasingly moralist (and, of course, religious). Although DeMille loved these tales of class and inequality (he was at that point a socialist as well as a Christian), it is the impossible love between the two leads that is at the heart of this story. The real tragedy of Male and Female has nothing to do with the selfish pomposity of the aristocrats – it is the fact that the love between the rich woman and the poor man can only exist in this fantasy world of the remote island. This is set up from the beginning with the subplot of Swanson's friend who marries her chauffeur and becomes a social outcast. The final scenes in which the various love triangles are resolved are incredibly moving.

The only significant wrong note in Male and Female is a brief and rather pointless flashback to ancient Babylon. These historical inserts had been en vogue since Griffith's Intolerance (a more influential film than some would have us believe), but this one is rather lacklustre and it's hard to see exactly how it fits the main story. It appears more of an excuse for DeMille to work in some epic grandeur (from 1918 to 1922 he only made contemporary dramas and comedies) and MacPherson to explore her interest in reincarnation. The story does need a dramatic highpoint at the stage where the flashback comes in, but they could have done better than the Babylon sequence. Overall however Male and Female is free of much of the preachiness, questionable morality and plot holes that mar many of Jeanie MacPherson's screenplays.

Male and Female was Paramount's highest grossing film of 1919, which is no surprise. DeMille's steady flow of captivating images and his emphasis on acting performances are at their best here. In certain aspects it may appear dated, but as with many of DeMille's films we have to suspend our dependence on realism and plausibility. Of course, the island where the action takes place, with its convenient abundance of edible wildlife, sailing distance from England yet remote enough to be shipwrecked for two years, could never really exist – but it's an unreal place created to serve the story. Taken as the silent melodrama that it is, this is a stunning motion picture.