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Movie Detail
Name Occurs Before Title Offscreen Credit Print Viewed By AFI Stub Record
Male and Female
Director: Cecil B. DeMille (Dir)
Release Date:   23 Nov 1919
Duration (in reels):   9
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Cast:   Thomas Meighan (Crichton, a butler)  
    Theodore Roberts (Lord Loam)  
    Raymond Hatton (Hon. Ernest Wolley)  
    Robert Cain (Lord Brockelhurst)  
    Gloria Swanson (Lady Mary Lasenby)  
    Lila Lee (Tweeny )  
    Bebe Daniels (The king's favorite)  
    Julia Faye (Susan)  
    Rhy Darby (Lady Eileen Dun Craigie)  
    Mildred Reardon (Agatha Lasenby)  
    Maym Kelso (Lady Brockelhurst)  
    Edward Burns (Treherne)  
    Henry Woodward (McGuire)  
    Sydney Dean (Thomas)  
    Wesley Barry ("Buttons")  
    Edna Mae Cooper (Fisher)  
    Lillian Leighton (Mrs. Perkins)  
    Guy Oliver (Pilot of Lord Loam's yacht)  
    Clarence Burton (Captain of yacht)  
Summary: Crichton, an educated man who is the butler to Lord Loam, secretly loves the lord's daughter, Lady Mary Lasenby, while the pleasant scullery maid Tweeny loves Crichton. After Lord Loam's yacht wrecks, his family and servants become stranded on a South Sea island. The lord attempts to lead the others, but Crichton takes over when he fails. After Crichton saves Lady Mary from a leopard attack, she falls in love with him. He tells her a Babylonian legend in which a Christian slave girl dies in a lion's den rather than abandon her religion to become the concubine of the king. Just as Lady Mary is about to marry Crichton, they are rescued. In England, Lady Mary's love for Crichton remains strong, but when Crichton sees that Lady Eileen Dun Craigie is made a social outcast when she marries a chauffeur, he announces that he will marry Tweeny. Afterward they go to America where birth does not always determine social position. 
Production Company: Famous Players-Lasky Corp.  
Distribution Company: Famous Players-Lasky Corp.; Paramount-Artcraft Pictures  
Director: Cecil B. DeMille (Dir)
Producer: Jesse L. Lasky (Pres)
Writer: Jeanie MacPherson (Scen)
Photography: Alvin Wyckoff (Cam)
Art Direction: Wilfred Buckland (Art dir)
Costumes: Mitchell Leisen (Cost)
Country: United States
Language: English
Music:
Songs:
Source Text: Based on the play The Admirable Crichton by James M. Barrie (London, 4 Nov 1902).
Authors: James M. Barrie
Copyright Claimant Copyright Date Copyright Number
Famous Players-Lasky Corp. 8/10/1919 dd/mm/yyyy LP14289
Physical Properties: b&w:
  Si:
 
Genre: Drama
Sub-Genre: Society
 
Subjects (Major): Butlers
  Class distinction
  England
  Heroism
  Nobility
  South Sea islands
 
Subjects (Minor): Babylon
  Chauffeurs
  Christianity
  Leopards
  Lions
  Maids
  Martyrs
  Legends
  Rescues
  Shipwrecks
  Slaves
  Yachts and yachting
Note: Elliott Dexter was originally slated to play Crichton, but he suffered a nervous breakdown and did not take the role. Some scenes were shot on the Santa Cruz Islands, CA. According to ETR , the film's length is 8,709 feet, while Wid's reports it as 8,860 feet. Major Ian Hay Beith worked with DeMille and Macpherson to help make the atmosphere correctly British. According to modern sources, the film editor was Anne Bauchens. According to an interview with Mitchell Leisen, he designed costumes for only the Babylonian sequence. According to an interview with James Wong Howe, he was the third assistant cameraman on this film.
       Many versions of this story have been made, including Shipwrecked , a three reel 1913 Kalem film starring Anna Q. Nilsson and Guy Coombs, The Admirable Crichton , a 1918 British production directed by G. B. Samuelson and starring Basil Gill, We're Not Dressing , a 1934 Paramount musical directed by Norman Taurog and starring Bing Crosby and Ethel Merman (see AFI Catalog of Feature Films, 1931-40 ) and Paradise Lagoon (U.S. title), a 1957 British-American co-production directed by Lewis Gilbert and featuring Kenneth More as Crichton. 
Bibliographic Sources:   Date   Page
ETR   22 Nov 19   p. 2135.
MPN   6 Dec 19   p. 4142.
MPW   6 Dec 19   p. 681, 690.
New York Morning Telegraph   4 Oct 19   pp. 160-1.
New York Times   24 Nov 19   p. 13.
Photoplay   1 Dec 19   pp. 72-73.
Variety   28 Nov 19   p. 58.
Wid's   30 Nov 19   p. 3.
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