Human Wreckage

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For the 1938 exploitation film also released under this title, see Sex Madness.
Human Wreckage

1923 lobby poster
Directed by John Griffith Wray
Produced by Mrs. Wallace Reid
Thomas Ince
Written by C. Gardner Sullivan
Dorothy Davenport (uncredited)
Story by Will Lambert
Starring Mrs. Wallace Reid
Bessie Love
James Kirkwood, Sr.
Cinematography Henry Sharp
Distributed by Film Booking Office of America
Release dates
  • June 17, 1923 (1923-06-17) (United States)
Running time 80 min.
Country United States
Language Silent
English intertitles

Human Wreckage was a 1923 American independent silent drama film that starred Dorothy Davenport. The film was produced by Davenport and Thomas H. Ince. Davenport was the widow of actor Wallace Reid, who died on January 18, 1923 from complications of morphine addiction. No print of this film is known to exist today, and it is considered a lost film.[1]

Production background

The film, featuring James Kirkwood, Sr., Bessie Love and Lucille Ricksen, portrayed the dangers of drug addiction, and was shown across the country by Davenport herself, billed as Mrs. Wallace Reid, in an early example of what would later be called a roadshow engagement. The film was co-produced with Thomas Ince and distributed by Film Booking Offices of America.

Four days before Wallace Reid's death, the movie studios appointed Will H. Hays as president of the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America. Although it took some years for the Hays Code to be finalized, the Code did set certain standards for movies early on, including a ban on any reference to drug use. Despite this, Davenport received a dispensation from Hays allowing her to produce Human Wreckage because of its anti-drug message.[2]

According to the website SilentEra, the film was banned by the British Board of Film Censors in 1924.

In 1924, again billed as "Mrs. Wallace Reid", Davenport produced, starred in and toured with a film about excessive mother-love called Broken Laws. The following year's The Red Kimona dealt with white slavery, a film over which Davenport was successfully sued.

Cast

See also

References

Publicity still with Dorothy Davenport on the set of a later film.
  1. ↑ Human Wreckage at silentera.com database
  2. ↑ Mahar, Karen Ward (2006). Women Filmmakers in Early Hollywood. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. p. 150. ISBN 0-8018-8436-5. 

External links

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