| The Flapper | |
|---|---|
| Directed by | Alan Crosland |
| Produced by | Myron Selznick |
| Written by | Frances Marion |
| Starring | Olive Thomas Warren Cook |
| Cinematography | John W. Brown |
| Distributed by | Selznick Pictures Corporation |
| Release date(s) | May 10, 1920 |
| Running time | 88 mins. |
| Country | United States |
| Language | Silent English intertitles |
The Flapper is a 1920 American silent comedy film starring Olive Thomas. It was the first movie in the United States to portray the "flapper" lifestyle which would soon become a 1920's fad.
Contents |
16-year-old Genevieve 'Ginger' King (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 (Marcia Harris).
Despite the strictness, the girls have fun getting into flapper lifestyle trouble including flirting. Richard Channing (William P. Carleton), an older man, 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 (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.
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-American actors prominently in the film, however, they appear only as musicians and waiters with no dialogue.
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, a device later used in Citizen Kane (1941).
The Flapper was released on Region 1 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.
|
||||||||