The Flapper

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The Flapper
Directed by	Alan Crosland
Produced by	Alan Crosland
Written by	Frances Marion
Starring	Olive Thomas, Warren Cook
Release date(s)	10 May 1920
Country	United States
Language	Silent film English intertitles
IMDb profile

The Flapper is a 1920 silent film starring Olive Thomas. It was the first movie in the United States to portray the flapper lifestyle which would soon became a 20's fad.

1 Plot
2 Background
3 Release
4 Cast
5 References
6 External links

[edit] Plot

16-year-old Genevieve 'Ginger' King (played by Olive Thomas), is growing up in the boring town of Orange Springs, Florida where having a soda with a boy is scandalous. Because of her behavior and yearning for a thrilling life her father decides to send her to a boarding school, which is run by strict disciplinarian Mrs. Paddles (played by Marcia Harris).

Depite the strictness, the girls have fun getting into flapper lifestyle trouble including flirting. An older man Richard Channing (played by William P. Carleton) rides past the seminary every day, prompting romantic fantasies among the school girls. When 16-year-old Ginger connives a sleigh ride with Channing, she tells him she's 'almost twenty'. She ends up falling for him.

Ginger gets in trouble with the headmistress when she sneaks out to the local country club where Channing is having a party. One of her schoolmates named Hortense (played by Katherine Johnston) tells on her, but her motive is to get the headmistress out of the way so she can rob the school's safe and sneak away with her crooked boyfriend Thomas Morran (played by Arthur Housman). Thanks to a vague note Ginger goes to a hotel in New York on her way home from school where Hortense and her boyfriend are. They force her to take the suitcases back with her. The suitcases end up containing the valuables, which include fancy clothes and jewels.

Knowing that Channing has gone to Orange Springs on a yachting trip, Ginger decides to use the clothes and jewels and pretend to be a woman of the world when she goes home. The plan backfires, and her father believes she is lying when she says its a joke. Detectives show up wanting to know why she has stolen loot, and both her young admirer, Bill, and Channing think she has really become a wicked woman.

[edit] Background

Frances Marion wrote the screenplay which was responsible for bringing the term 'flapper' into popular use in the US. Thomas would go on to portray the 'flapper' role in her remaining films (she died later that year).

The Flapper used African-Americans prominently in the film, however only as musicians and waiters with no dialogue.

The direction was ahead of its time; styled as a romantic comedy. The events in the lives of Ginger King and another character are presented as incidents in a (non-fiction) newsreel at the end of the movie. This same device was later used in Citizen Kane.

[edit] Release

The Flapper was released on DVD in 2005 as part of The Olive Thomas Collection. Unlike most silent films, The Flapper has survived the years largely unscathed and fully complete. All but a few small intro cards have survived and even the original color tinting remains. Minus the missing intro card the rest of the original title cards are intact.