Male and Female
About Male and Female
Lady Mary Lasenby treats the butler William Crichton as furniture. A wreck strands Lord Loam's party, Mary, the maid Tweeny, and Crichton on an island, and only Crichton can feed them. He becomes the leader. Mary and Crichton are about to marry on the beach when a ship appears; he lights the signal. Back in England he will not marry her. He proposes to Tweeny instead, and the two leave for the United States. Mary stays with her own class and Lord Brockelhurst.
Cast & crew
More about Male and Female
Jeanie Macpherson adapted J. M. Barrie's play The Admirable Crichton and added a Babylon story that is not in the play. Cecil B. DeMille directed for Jesse L. Lasky. Wilfred Buckland was art director, Anne Bauchens edited, and Paul Iribe, Clare West, and Mitchell Leisen designed costumes. In Britain the film was also called The Admirable Crichton. A British film of the play had already been released in 1918.
Themes
Making
On the island, Crichton tells Mary a story of a king of Babylon and a Christian slave. DeMille stages that story with Swanson walking toward a live lion.
Look
Alvin Wyckoff photographed the bath sequence and the Babylon pit, including Swanson beside the lion Slats.
Preservation
A 35mm print is at the George Eastman Museum. Other copies are held by the Museum of Modern Art, the Library of Congress, the UCLA Film and Television Archive, the Academy Film Archive, the Cinémathèque royale de Belgique, the Cineteca Nazionale in Rome, and Filmoteka Narodowa in Warsaw.
Notes
- Kenneth Macgowan wrote that Paramount dropped Barrie's title because audiences might read "admirable" as "admiral" and skip what they thought was a sea picture.
- Theodore Roberts plays Lord Loam. Lila Lee plays Tweeny. Robert Cain plays Lord Brockelhurst. Bebe Daniels appears in the Babylon sequence as the king's favorite.
- The lion in the fantasy is Slats. Swanson is posed after Gabriel von Max's painting The Lion's Bride.
- An early scene shows Swanson in a sunken bath, with two maids, rosewater, and a silk gown.
- Alpha Video issued a DVD-R on January 28, 2014.
Scenes
- Gloria Swanson bathes while two maids pour rosewater and hold a silk gown.
- On the island the household takes orders from Crichton.
- In the Babylon story Swanson advances toward the lion Slats.
- A sail appears during the island wedding, and Crichton lights the signal fire.
Influenced by
- J. M. Barrie's play The Admirable Crichton (1902)
Also available
- Alpha Video DVD-R (January 28, 2014)
- George Eastman Museum (35mm)
