Nice effects though.

A brilliant film that helped define a genre

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

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.

This is one of several silent movies that are still interesting to watch. "Male and Female" is an early effort by Cecil B. DeMille, and it stars Gloria Swanson, who was about 20 when it was made. Her co-star is Thomas Meighan, who was 20 years her senior and the bigger star in 1919 when "Male and Female" was made. But adorable Lila Lee steals the show as the scullery maid, Tweeny.Silent movies were very different from talkies. The beginning of the movie introduces the viewers to the cast of characters and tells who plays each role. The introduction is unnecessary and very leisurely, reminding us that audiences in 1919 were very unsophisticated. The title role is Crichton, the family butler to the family of Lord Loam. DeMille has Meighan introduce his character very elegantly, making Crichton admirable from our first view of him (the movie is based on a play called "The Admirable Crichton"). All characterization is done in mime, of course, so the camera lingers on Meighan's face as Crichton's emotions flicker across. Meighan was quite a good actor, effortless and devoid of the mugging we often associate with silent films (most of our experience is with clips from the Keystone Kops, it seems to me). Lila Lee is equally good here, playing a maid who is in love with Crichton, but who can see his secret crush on Lady Mary Lasenby (played by Swanson), a love which must never speak its name because it crashes against the boundary of class.The family sails to the South Pacific with Crichton and Tweeny in tow, and they apparently run aground on Santa Catalina which substitutes for a tropical paradise. It is here that roles reverse completely, as Crichton somehow knows all the skills not only to survive, but to live in royal comfort: after two years on the island, they have a forge (and appear to have made their pots and pans so well they can be used as mirrors), a potter's wheel, a lovely home, more food than they can eat, and Crichton is treated as the king, with Tweeny and Lady Mary having a cat fight to see who gets to serve his dinner to him.The lack of sophistication in early movies is either charming or damning depending on your point of view. They use bows which are barely able to launch the arrows out of the frame of the film; parts of the island are clearly a movie set with palm trees and brush, but outside views really do look like they were shot on Santa Catalina, a mountainous island without trees; there's no indication of how these people were able to get iron, but we have a large smelting operation with bellows and kiln made of apparently fireproof bricks. We let those objections pass.Since this is a C.B. DeMille movie, we have a fantasy scene from Babylon which is more interesting than the movie, foreshadowing DeMille's rise as the master of spectacle with a cast of thousands and sets to match. In the fantasy, Crichton plays a Babylonian king, Tweeny his would-be queen, and Lady Mary the Christian slave captured but refusing to kneel. Crichton tells her to accept his advances willingly or go to the lions; Lady Mary of course chooses death before debauchery. These scenes show DeMille already advanced in setting up tableaux and scenery which are beautifully composed and shot.*Our hero and his charges are rescued and returned to England where the roles are unreversed, and Crichton returns to being a servant, unable to marry Lady Mary, who has learned to love him. Instead, Crichton accepts Tweeny as his wife, they emigrate to America, and live happily ever after as farmers. At the end, we see Lady Mary accepting the offer of marriage from a suitor who acknowledges that her love will always be with the absent Crichton, and the last shot of her fades with Swanson showing an empty sadness. We then dissolve into Crichton and Tweeny on their farm, and the movie ends with their embrace, both obviously in love. I'm sorry to have missed what I think would have been some excellent character development in seeing how Tweeny made Crichton's love bloom, apparently making him forget Lady Mary. To Lee's credit, I think she could have pulled it off. And I miss Lady Mary's remorse in choosing not to marry Crichton for love, choosing instead to maintain her peerage and her money. This is an interesting movie in spite of its shortcomings. We see Gloria Swanson at the start of her career; many of us remember her better for her role in "Sunset Boulevard" (released in 1950**) where she played the aging actress with the constant refrain, "I'm ready for my close up, Mr. DeMille." In 1919, Thomas Meighan was at his peak, a manly man with a soft streak for beautiful women. And Lila Lee had not yet suffered her several failures of luck, work, and health. We also see that DeMille was not at his best with naturalistic scripts and that his segue into epic movies was a good career move.*Silent movies can be truly beautiful, as the directors, lighting directors, and cinematographers worked together to create shots as compelling as still photograph. The silent camera can linger on an empty shot, then have a character enter and pose, beautifully lighted in luscious black and white while we admire the tableau. For some reason, none of this works in color. Black and white film made better photographers of its directors. DeMille showed his genius for sets and spectacle in the Babylon fantasy, while letting the main story fall to mere competence.**"Sunset Boulevard," of course, is a remarkable movie in its own right. The cast included not only Gloria Swanson but Cecil B. DeMille himself, Eric von Stroheim, Buster Keaton, Hedda Hopper, and other well-known actors.

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.

"Male and Female" is another of Producer/Director Cecil B. De Mille's comedy/dramas. This one is about role reversal and makes one think of "Gilligan's Island" the farcical TV series that was popular in the 60s.The Loam family is a group of spoiled upper crust British nobles which include Lord Loam (Theodore Roberts), his daughters Lady Jane Lasenby (Gloria Swanson) and Agatha Lasenby (Mildred Reardon) along with Agatha's husband or suitor (I'm not sure which) The Honorable Ernest Wolley (Raymond Hatton). They are served by the butler Crichton (Thomas Meighan) and maid Tweeney (lila Lee). Crichton is secretly in love with Lady Jane but despises her spoiled antics ("The toast is too soft, Crichton"). Tweeney is in love with Crichton and so it goes.Lady Jane becomes engaged to marry the stuffy Lord Brockelhurst (Robert Cain) much to the dismay of Crichton. The family plans a south seas cruise and brings along Crichton, Tweeney and a young minister named Treherne (Edmund Burns). The party is ship wrecked on a remote island. Being of the spoiled upper class, the family is unable to cope with living in the wilderness. Crichton steps up and gradually takes command of the situation.The family at first rejects the idea of taking orders from their servant, but soon hunger and the need for shelter prevail. The family members gradually pitch in and learn to live off the land. Crichton seems to enjoy the role reversal where Lady Jane and Agatha are now forced to serve him. Two years pass.After Crichton rescues Lady Jane from a leopard, we are transported in Crichton and Lady Jane's imagination to ancient Babylon where Crichton is the King and Lady Jane a Christian. The King has a favorite (Bebe Daniels) who languishes at his feet in a web like head dress. When the Christian refuses to be a slave to the king, she walks into the lion's den and is eaten.Cut back to the present where Crichton and Lady Jane plan to be marries by Treherne. Just as the ceremony is being performed, Tweeney spots a passing ship and the party is rescued. They return to England where..............................................................Its hard to imagine that no hanky panky went on during the party's two year odyssey but that's what we're supposed to believe. The flashback sequence though lavishly staged is really unnecessary.The performances are generally good. Gloria Swanson was born to play the spoiled rich girl and looks lovely doing so. Lila Lee is equally beautiful as the love lorn Tweeney. Theodore Roberts and Raymond Hatton are mere cartoon characters. But it is Thomas Meighan who stands out. Being head and shoulders taller than the diminutive Ms. Swanson, he exudes leadership, authority and male virility as Crichton.It's not a bad movie but I challenge you not to think of "Gilligan's Island" when watching it.