Don Juan
About Don Juan
Don Juan de Marana takes his lesson from his father, Don Jose: women bring life, disillusionment, and death. In Rome the Borgias rule, Caesar, Lucrezia, and Count Donati. Juan moves through the women who chase him and stops at the one he cannot have, Adriana. He ignores Lucrezia and kills Donati in a duel. The Borgias condemn Juan and Adriana to death in the prison on the river.
Cast & crew
More about Don Juan
Alan Crosland directed. Bess Meredyth wrote the script, from Byron's 1821 poem. Maude Fulton and Walter Anthony wrote titles. Byron Haskin photographed it. Harold McCord edited. William Axt, David Mendoza, and Major Bowes are credited with the music. It was shot from late October 1925 to early January 1926. Warner Bros. opened it on August 6, 1926, at the Warner Theatre in New York, after a night of Vitaphone shorts. AFI also notes a preview on August 5 and a Los Angeles opening on August 20. It is 10 reels, 10,018 feet. Wikipedia gives 112 minutes. John Barrymore plays Don Juan and Don Jose. Mary Astor plays Adriana. There is a synchronized score and effects, and no spoken dialogue.
Themes
Making
Warners synchronized the finished picture on disc so the score and the effects would stay with the reels.
Look
Byron Haskin photographed the Rome sets and the duel with Donati.
Technique
First feature to go out with a Vitaphone disc of music and effects locked to the picture.
Music
William Axt, David Mendoza, and Major Bowes wrote the Vitaphone score. The picture has no spoken dialogue.
Preservation
A copy is on Wikimedia Commons.
Notes
- It is the first feature released with a Vitaphone sound-on-disc score and effects.
- Variety reported $10 tickets for the August 6 opening.
- Warner Oland, Estelle Taylor, Montagu Love, Jane Winton, and Myrna Loy, as the lady-in-waiting Mai, are in the cast.
- A copy is on Wikimedia Commons.
- The program that night opened with Vitaphone shorts, including His Pastimes.
Scenes
- Juan kills Count Donati in the duel.
- He and Adriana are condemned in the prison on the river.
Influenced by
- Lord Byron's Don Juan (1821)
