The Lady
About The Lady
Polly Pearl, a singer in a second-rate English music hall, marries Leonard St. Aubyns. His father disinherits him. Leonard gambles away what remains at Monte Carlo and dies, and Polly sings in a Marseilles waterfront cafe to support their son. When the elder St. Aubyns tries to take the child, she gives the boy to an English acquaintance who sails home with him. Polly searches London and cannot find them. Years later, owner of a cafe in Le Havre, she sees a young English soldier, Leonard Cairns, accidentally kill a comrade in a brawl. His identification tag tells her he is her son. She offers to take the blame. He refuses, and he leaves for America.
Cast & crew
More about The Lady
Frances Marion adapted Martin Brown's play The Lady, produced by A. H. Woods at the Empire Theatre from December 4, 1923, into February 1924. Norma Talmadge and Joseph M. Schenck produced; First National distributed. New York opened it on January 25, 1925, and the general U.S. release was February 8. The negative was 8 reels, 7,357 feet. Tony Gaudio photographed it. MoMA ran the later restoration at 85 minutes.
Themes
Making
Polly's work around the French cafe is limited to singing. The brothel trade beside her is not staged.
Reviews
Sumner Smith's notice in The Moving Picture World of February 14, 1925, carried the headline "The Lady; Norma Talmadge in First National Picture Rich in Emotional Appeal."
Preservation
The Library of Congress nitrate was missing reel 2 and had started to decompose. The Library and the Cohen Collection later made a digital restoration, screened at MoMA in 2023. In 2025 the film entered the National Film Registry.
Notes
- Mary Nash played Polly on Broadway. Elizabeth Risdon played Fanny Le Clare; Doris Lloyd plays that part in the film.
- Wallace MacDonald is Leonard St. Aubyns, Brandon Hurst is his father, and George Hackathorne is the grown son, Leonard Cairns. Margaret Seddon plays Mrs. Cairns.
- On August 3, 2023, MoMA showed the restoration in Titus Theater 2, with Makia Matsumura at the piano.
- The AFI bibliography lists Film Daily (February 1, 1925), Variety (January 28, 1925), and the New York Times (June 27, 1925).
Scenes
- Leonard loses the last of the money at Monte Carlo.
- Polly hands the child to the woman who will take him to England.
- In the Le Havre cafe she reads her son's name on an identification tag.
Influenced by
- Martin Brown's play The Lady (1923)
Also available
- Internet Archive (silent-the-lady)
