Smouldering Fires (film)

Smouldering Fires is a 1925 Universal silent drama film directed by Clarence Brown and starring Pauline Frederick and Laura La Plante. The movie's plot is similar to the 1933 talking picture Female, starring Ruth Chatterton.[1][2]

Smouldering Fires
Film poster
Directed byClarence Brown
Charles Dorian (2nd unit)
Produced byCarl Laemmle
Written byMelville W. Brown
Screenplay bySada Cowan
Howard Higgin
Story bySada Cowan
Margaret Deland
Howard Higgin
Intertitles:
Dwinelle Benthall
StarringLaura La Plante
Malcolm McGregor
Tully Marshall
Wanda Hawley
Pauline Frederick
CinematographyJackson Rose
Edited byEdward Schroeder
Production
company
Release date
  • January 18, 1925 (1925-01-18) (Theatrical)
Running time
80 minutes
7,356 feet on 8 reels
CountryUnited States
LanguageSilent
English intertitles

Copies of this film are archived by UCLA and George Eastman House. In 1953, the film entered the public domain in the United States because the claimants did not renew its copyright registration in the 28th year after publication.[3] It is available on video, and numerous prints exist in private collections.[4]

Plot

At 40, businesswoman Jane Vale falls in love with a much younger Robert Elliott, an employee from her factory. She promotes him to the position of her private secretary, and out of gratitude and to defend her reputation from rumors, he asks her to marry him. However, before the marriage can take place, Jane's younger sister Dorothy returns home from college and Robert and Dorothy fall in love. Lacking the courage to confess to Jane of his love for her sister, Robert marries Jane. Robert finds that the difference in ages between him and Jane are creating complications. When Jane realizes that Robert, though diligently attentive as a husband, is actually in love with her sister, she pretends that she has fallen out of love with him and seeks a divorce.

Reception

Reviewer Hal Erickson wrote that the film "is a first-rate silent 'soap opera', immaculately performed by its superb cast and brilliantly directed." While praising the American release version, he made note that the "slightly longer European version is even better, with some remarkably mature (albeit non-lurid) setpieces".[5]

In The First Female Stars: Women of the Silent Era, author David W. Menefee writes that the film "presented Pauline (Frederick) in a memorable light, successfully carrying off the role of a woman business executive."[6]

In Movies and American Society, author Steven J. Ross wrote that Smouldering Fires was "a cautionary tale of what happens when businesswomen become too successful."[7]

Cast

Members of "The Committee:"

References
  1. Donald W. McCaffrey, Christopher P. Jacobs (1999). Donald W. McCaffrey, Christopher P. Jacobs (ed.). Guide to the silent years of American cinema (illustrated, annotated ed.). Greenwood Publishing Group. pp. 246 247. ISBN 9780313303456. Smouldering Fires, 1925.
  2. Hall, Mordaunt (March 31, 1925). "Smouldering Fires (1925)". The New York Times. Retrieved November 25, 2010.
  3. Pierce, David (June 2007). "Forgotten Faces: Why Some of Our Cinema Heritage Is Part of the Public Domain". Film History: An International Journal. 19 (2): 125–43. doi:10.2979/FIL.2007.19.2.125. ISSN 0892-2160. JSTOR 25165419. OCLC 15122313. S2CID 191633078.
  4. "Pauline Frederick - Smouldering Fires (1925)". Stanford University. Retrieved November 25, 2010.
  5. Erickson, Hal. "review: Smouldering Fires". Allmovie. Retrieved November 25, 2010.
  6. Menefee, David W. (2004). The first female stars: women of the silent era (illustrated ed.). Greenwood Publishing Group. p. 69. ISBN 9780275982591.
  7. Steven J. Ross, ed. (2002). Movies and American society. Volume 10 of Blackwell readers in American social and cultural history (6, reprint ed.). Wiley-Blackwell. p. 69. ISBN 9780631219606.


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