The American Venus (1926)

User Rating:

7.3/10   

Director:

Frank Tuttle

Writers:

Townsend Martin (story)
Frederick Stowers (writer)

Release Date:

31 January 1926 (USA)

Genre:

Comedy

Plot Keywords:

Lost Film | Two Strip Technicolor | Beauty

Cast

Esther Ralston	...	Mary Gray
Lawrence Gray	...	Chip Armstrong
Ford Sterling	...	Hugo Niles
Fay Lanphier	...	Miss Alabama
Louise Brooks	...	Miss Bayport
Edna May Oliver	...	Mrs. Niles
Kenneth MacKenna	...	Horace Niles
William B. Mack	...	John Gray
George De Carlton	...	Sam Lorber
W.T. Benda	...	Artist
Ernest Torrence	...	King Neptune
Douglas Fairbanks Jr.	...	Triton

Runtime:

USA:80 min

Country:

USA

Color:

Black and White | Color (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.33 : 1

Sound Mix:

Silent

Filming Locations:

Greenwich, Connecticut, USA

Company:

Famous Players-Lasky Corporation

Trivia:

Two trailers and some Technicolor footage survive in the Library of Congress.

Movie Connections:

Featured in The Love Goddesses (1965)

Two trailers, complete with color footage, are more than worth a peak.

I saw two trailers for this film, both of them fascinating documents, restored to near-mint condition by the Library of Congress (their present home). The first was black and white, with a lot of attention payed to Fay Lanphier, the hazel-eyed, honey-blond beauty who had just be crowned Miss America 1925. A close-up of her is followed by a shot of Esther Ralston, but I initially thought it was another shot of her (they look so much alike). Briefly seen is a comedic bit where Louise Brooks is showing a man some undesired romantic interest.

The second trailer starts with giving the measurements of Venus di Milo, and asking the female half of the audience if they measure up. This trailer is tinted violet and contains some technicolor footage, two shots exactly, which apparently show the staging of 'tableaux vivants' (I should mention that W.T. Benda's only screen role appears to have made it down through the ages in one of these shots). There is a shot of a teary-eyed Lanphier, a repeated shot of Ralston flexing her arms in a bathing suit, and what appears to be the second half of the scene between Brooks and the man (it has to be Lawrence Gray). In this shot, he is trying to keep Brooks' presence in the room a secret from Edna Mae Oliver.

The presence of seventy-five beautiful women AND the latest fashions from Paris are highly stressed in both advertisements. Interestingly, nobody remembers Fay Lanphier today, but once Brooks flashes across the screen, the entire theater sounded with applause. One thing that struck me about Lanphier: not only is she beautiful (and photogenic) she seems to have been a decent actress as well. What went wrong? Unless the rest of the film surfaces, we are likely never to know.

Production values are great. Always happy to see some two-strip Technicolor, and the set- ups they exposed it too in 1926 were great. Maybe one day we'll see the whole thing, the way it was meant to be seen.