The Collection:
Nearly a decade before Clara Bow would be immortalized in film as the
girl with "it", Olive Thomas had "it" in spades. A vivacious and
outgoing character, Olive was one of Hollywood's brightest stars, though
she only made a relatively small number of films before her tragic death
in 1920 at the age of 25. Unfortunately, most of her films have been
lost, and for years the only one of her films in circulation was a copy
of Love's Prisoner (1919) that was missing the last reel.
That is no longer the case. Milestone has released The Flapper
(1920), Olive Thomas' most famous film, along with a documentary about
the young star and some very nice bonus material in The Olive Thomas
Collection.
Olive Thomas: Everybody's Sweetheart (57
minutes):
This documentary gives a nice overview of the screen star's life.
Olive Thomas' story was the classic rags to riches tale that every young
starlet dreams about. Born into a working class family in the coal
mining town of Charleroi Pennsylvania, Olive was married at 16 and worked
behind the counter at a local department store. Then, at the age
of 18 she decided to change her life. She divorced her, by some accounts
abusive, husband, something that was fairly rare in those days, and moved
to New York City.
There she found herself behind another department store counter, but
she wouldn't stay there for long. A local paper was running a contest
to find the most beautiful girl in New York. Olive called in sick
to work and went to the contest. She won, and was suddenly the toast
of the town. She started modeling full time, and was a favorite among
the top illustrators of the day. It wasn't long before the famous
producer Florenz Ziegfeld put her in his follies where the ravishing beauty
was a big hit. Florenz, who was having an affair with his new starlet,
commissioned Alberto Vargas to paint a nude of Olive, which she posed for.
Afterwards Vargas painted her again, from memory, and kept that painting
in his private collection until he died. (Reproduced below.)
Olive was the toast of the town, and she was courted by several eligible
bachelors. In 1916 she ended up marring Jack Pickford, and actor
and younger brother of the superstar Mary Pickford. This is when she
made the jump to movies where she would become one of the biggest actresses
in Hollywood.
Over the next three and a half years, Olive would make 21 movies.
Working constantly, and rarely seeing her husband with whom she had a stormy
relationship, she and Jack took a second honeymoon and went to Paris after
production of Everybody's Sweetheart wrapped up. There they
got along well by all accounts, staying up until all hours drinking and
carousing. One evening after a long night, Olive couldn't sleep.
According to Jack, she got up to take some sleeping powder, but grabbed
a bottle of Mercury Bichloride and accidently consumed that instead.
She screamed as the poison burned her throat, but it was too late.
She died five painful days later in a Hospital in France.
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Olive Thomas (left) wtih her
husband Jack Pickford, and his mother.
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This documentary gives a very good account of the actresses life.
Even though it is less than an hour in length, it is fairly complete.
Olive lived such a short life, and was only in the spotlight for a few
years that there really isn't a lot to say.
Told through interviews with scholars and some of Olive's living relatives
along with clips from her films and publicity photos, this documentary
paints a vivid picture of the actress. It neither whitewashes over
her flaws nor emphasizes them. They mention that she had affairs
with married men, and was extravagant in her lifestyle, but they also showed
how hard she worked at her craft. A nicely balanced view of a star
who was cut down in her prime.
The Flapper:
In this film Olive plays Ginger King, the 16 year old daughter of a
Senator from Florida. He sends her off to a finishing school in New
York state, and gets more than he bargained for. While she's there,
she falls for a much older man, Richard Channing (William Carleton) who
rides past the school every day and is admired by all the girls.
After taking a fall on the road one winter day, Ginger manages to get a
ride home from Channing. Turning on her charm and telling him that
she's 20, Ginger gets Channing to invite her to a dance that evening.
Sneaking out after cerfew, Ginger arrives at the dance all decked out.
Another student at the school though, Hortense, lets the head mistress,
Miss Paddle, know what Ginger is up to. Miss Paddle takes off in
a rush, and finds Ginger at the dance. She thoroughly embarrasses
the girl by pulling her out of the hall, and gives Channing a good tongue
lashing for being out with someone so young. Before she goes,
Ginger over hears Channing talking to his friends: "That's what you
get for being nice to a kid of that sap-headed pin-feathered age." (Does
this mean that he knew she was under-age?) This comment cuts Ginger
to the core.
It turns out that Hortense had a reason for ratting on Ginger.
While Miss Paddle is gone the young girl opens the school safe and steals
all of the money and the student's jewelry that was being held there.
Then she and her accomplice take off for New York City.
Once in New York, Hortense and her beau are living it up, but they become
paranoid that the police are closing in on them. So they come up
with a plan. They wire Ginger anonymously and ask her to come to
their hotel before she goes home on vacation. When she shows up,
they give her suitcases with the stolen loot and threaten her life if she
doesn't take them with her. They plan on meeting her in Florida and
retrieving the goods when the heat dies down.
When Ginger sees the jewelery and Hortense's clothes in the cases, she
decides to use them to her advantage: she'll dress up as a high society
flapper, and convince Richard Channing, and everyone else, that she's no
'sap-headed' kid!
I enjoyed seeing Olive Thomas in this movie, although it wasn't a great
film. Thomas is certainly pretty, but that's not enough to carry
the movie. The plot drags at the beginning, with not much happening
for the first half. Even the dance scene is rather anticlimactic,
with Ginger dancing, drinking some punch and then leaving. The movie
really shifts into high gear in the last half hour though, when the young
girl decides to become a flapper. This is where most of the laughs
are, and the way they dress Olive up for the role is great. The ending
makes up the the slow start.
While Olive wasn't a great actress, she did make a convincing teenager.
She played a giddy young school girl well. It was quite interesting
seeing her (at the age of 25) play a 16 year old girl who was trying to
act like someone in their 20's.
The direction was fairly standard for the time, mostly medium and long
shots with very little camera movement. Director Alan Crosland (who
is best know for directing The Jazz Singer in 1927) did include
some interesting touches though. In one scene he films a pair of
people talking to Olive, with the star only being visible in a mirror on
a dresser. In another he places the camera at the top of a ski ramp
and pans down to track the skiers as they make a run.
The biggest problem with the film is that Crosland didn't have a good
sense of comedy timing, and it hampers the movie. In one of the funniest
scenes in the movie, Ginger, despondent over the fact that Channing thinks
of her as a mere child, decides to hang herself. She gets a cord
from a curtain and ties an inexpert knot around her neck. She then
has trouble tying the other end around a light fixture. The scene
is comical in itself, but mainly because the viewer knows that the suicide
attempt will fail. The punch line to the scene, when she jumps off
the bed and finds the rope is much too long, didn't work because it was
rushed, and you didn't see Ginger's reaction to the failed attempt. Crosland
also cross cut the end of the scene with one of Hortense getting ready
to flee with the loot, which broke the comic mood.
Even with the films flaws, this isn't a bad movie. It has a lot
of charm and some memorable moments. While some of the plot elements
were a little silly and the beginning is a tad slow, but the end is worth
it. It is also interesting to see the depiction of New York night
life in 1920. After hearing of Olive Thomas for years, it was a treat
to finally see her in a movie.
The DVD:
Audio:
This film is accompanied by a piano score preformed by Robert Isreal.
It is a good score, scene specific, and fits the tone of the movie well.
The audio quality is very good, with the music coming through clean and
clear. There are no sound effects added.
Video:
The print from the Eastman House Collection looks splendid. There
is a good amount of contrast, and the picture is sharp for a film of this
age. Digital defects were nonexistent, though there were some minor
defects in the print. A few scratches and instances of dirt were
present, but these were less frequent than I anticipated. This is
a very nice looking film.
The film is tinted, but the tinting is a contemporary manufacture, and
the scheme was not copied from the Eastman print which presumably isn't
tinted. While the purist in me dislikes having a tint scheme that
wasn't authentic, I have to admit that the producers of this DVD did a
good job. The movie was almost assuredly meant to be tinted.
There are a couple of places in the film where actions take place that
the tinting emphasizes; when Ginger turns out the lights in her room when
she hears Hortense in the hall for example. The quick action wouldn't
make much sense in a non-tinted print, since the lighting doesn't change
at all. In the end I decided that the tinting benefitted the movie.
After all, if someone objects to it, they can always turn down the color.
Extras:
Milestone has included a couple of fun extras on this disc. First
are a pair of reenactments of stories about Olive, with Olive being played
by her grand niece who does bear some resemblance. The first didn't
come off that well, but the second was pretty funny.
There is also an "illustrated interview" with Bernard King Thomas, Olive's
first husband. In this piece a newspaper interview from 1931 is read
while pictures of Olive are shown. It was very interesting to hear
her husband's take on their marriage and her fame. I'm very glad
they were able to dig this up.
There were a lot of songs written about Olive Thomas when she was a
film star. Two of them are presented on this disc, Glorious Lady
and The More I See of Somebody Else, the More I Think of You.
The disc is rounded out by a minute and a half reel of stills.
Final Thoughts:
The package that Milestone has put together for this release is spectacular.
In addition to an excellent print for The Flapper, there is a very
complete and even handed documentary, reproduction of an interview with
Olive's first husband, songs written about the actress, and a pair of anecdotes
concerning Olive that are reenacted. While the feature itself is
not outstanding, it is a good film that shows Olive's beauty and acting
ablility. A very nice collection and well worth checking out.
A high Recommendation.
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