It
About It
Shopgirl Betty Lou Spence wants Cyrus Waltham Jr., the heir now running the store, and uses his friend Monty to get a Coney Island date. When welfare workers come for her roommate Molly's baby, Betty says the child is hers; Monty tells Cyrus, who offers her everything except marriage. She boards his yacht as Miss Van Cortland and refuses him. After he learns the truth, Monty rams a fishing boat, and Betty pulls Adela out of the water. They make it up on the anchor, with the letters I and T of the ship's name, Itola, between them.
Cast & crew
More about It
Clarence G. Badger directed for Famous Players-Lasky and Paramount, and Josef von Sternberg shares the director credit. Hope Loring, Louis D. Lighton, and Frederica Sagor Maas wrote the screenplay, George Marion Jr. wrote the intertitles, and Elinor Glyn, paid $50,000, appears as herself with a story credit. The Los Angeles premiere was January 14, 1927, and general release followed on February 19, 1927.
Themes
In film history
The title word, defined on screen as a magnetic personal quality, stuck to Clara Bow as the It girl.
Making
The opening title defines "It" as the quality possessed by some which draws all others with its magnetic force. Glyn speaks that idea in the picture, playing herself for Waltham.
Preservation
Treated as lost for years. A nitrate copy was found in Prague in the 1960s. It has been on the National Film Registry since 2001 and in the public domain in the United States since January 1, 2023.
Notes
- A New York showing followed the Los Angeles premiere, on February 5, 1927.
- Glyn's Cosmopolitan serial gave the magnetic personality to a man. The film makes her a working-class shopgirl. Carl Sandburg wrote that the magazine story was "not at all like the film, not like it in any respect.
- Gary Cooper appears as a newspaper reporter. Dorothy Tree's first screen part is an uncredited bit.
- Cosmopolitan magazine is on screen in the scene where Monty reads Glyn's story.
- The copyright was renewed in 1954. The film entered the public domain in the United States on January 1, 2023.
- The Library of Congress added it to the National Film Registry in 2001.
- E. Lloyd Sheldon edited.
Scenes
- Cyrus eats hot dogs and rides the roller coaster at Coney Island, then tries to kiss her. She slaps him.
- Betty tells the welfare workers that Molly's baby is hers.
- Monty steers the yacht into a fishing boat. Betty hits Adela to stop her pulling them both under.
- Betty and Cyrus stand on the anchor, the letters IT between them.
Also available
- Wikimedia Commons (It (1927).webm)
Quotes
That quality possessed by some which draws all others with its magnetic force.
