A Certain Young Man

A Certain Young Man
Directed by Hobart Henley
Edmund Goulding (uncredited)
Written by Donna Barrell
Bela Sekely
Based on Bellamy the Magnificent 
by Roy Horniman
Starring Ramon Novarro
Marceline Day
Renée Adorée
Carmel Myers
Bert Roach
Distributed by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Release dates
  • May 19, 1928
Running time
 58 minutes
Country United States
Language Silent
English intertitles

A Certain Young Man is a 1928 comedy film directed by Hobart Henley. The film stars Ramon Novarro, Marceline Day, Renée Adorée, Carmel Myers and Bert Roach. The film is considered lost.[1][2]

A trailer for the film is preserved at the Library of Congress.

Synopsis

An English Lord is over-fond of married women.

Cast

Production

The film was shot in 1926, but was not released until 1928. Sally O'Neil was originally cast as Phyllis, but was replaced by Marceline Day.[3] Joan Crawford, still an ingenue at the time, was considered for that same role, but she was deemed 'unsuitable.'[4] Cast member Willard Louis died a few months after filming wrapped, and his name was removed from the credits.[5]

Release

A Certain Young Man opened to reviews that were lukewarm at best, and was a financial failure at the box office. Some screenings were preceded by the Technicolor short The Czarina's Secret featuring Sally Rand and Olga Baclanova.[6] The film's release followed on the heels of A Gentleman of Paris with Adolph Menjou, which was based on the same source material and was considered a better adaptation. Novarro's performance was unfavorably compared with that of Menjou by several critics,[7] including Mordaunt Hall of the New York Times, who found the overall film "only mildly amusing and very shallow," though he found Myers "charming" and work by supporting actors Huntley Gordon and Bert Roach "favorable."[8]

Personally, Novarro hated the film and his performance. In an interview in the April 1931 issue of Modern Screen, he said "In acting, in directing, in everything - I want to be 'definite'. Even when I am later proven wrong - it will at least have been so definite that I myself know it. I am responsible for the worst performance that has ever been given on the screen. It was in A Certain Young Man and it was terrible. I am mortally ashamed of it - yet I'd rather have been bad than just fair."[9]

References

  1. ↑ A Certain Young Man at silentera.com database
  2. ↑ Listing of incomplete MGM films at Nitrateville
  3. ↑ http://207.155.248.75/dramabookshop.org/novarro/source/certainYoungMan.html
  4. ↑ http://www.legendaryjoancrawford.com/castaphrocies.html
  5. ↑ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0018754/trivia
  6. ↑ http://movies.nytimes.com/movie/review?res=9E01E3DB143CE73ABC4952DFB0668383639EDE
  7. ↑ Soares, André; Beyond Paradise: The Life of Ramon Novarro; St. Martin's Press, New York, 2002; p. 132-133
  8. ↑ http://movies.nytimes.com/movie/review?res=9E01E3DB143CE73ABC4952DFB0668383639EDE
  9. ↑ Soares, André, Beyond Paradise: The Life of Ramon Novarro (New York: St. Martin's Press, 2002) p. 133

External links