The Love of Sunya
About The Love of Sunya
A mystic gives Sunya Ashling occasional glimpses of her future with different men. Gloria Swanson plays Sunya; John Boles plays Paul Judson. She has to choose among the lives the visions show her.
Cast & crew
More about The Love of Sunya
Gloria Swanson's first independent production, and her first film as producer. She hired Albert Parker, who had directed the 1919 Eyes of Youth with Clara Kimball Young, hoping his familiarity would speed the work. Shooting began in September 1926 at William Randolph Hearst's Cosmopolitan Studios in New York. United Artists distributed it. Running time on Wikidata is 78 minutes.
Themes
Making
Swanson later called the production an agonizing ordeal. It ran over budget, and the crew had trouble finding a cameraman who could handle the double exposures until Barnes was brought in.
Reviews
Reviews were decent, and Swanson wrote that the Roxy opening audience gave a standing ovation. She later said the film was terrible.
Audiences
It did poorly at the box office and barely recouped its budget.
Look
Robert Martin is credited. George Barnes, uncredited, handled the double-exposure vision scenes.
Preservation
A copy survives in the Paul Killiam collection. A file is on Wikimedia Commons.
Notes
- Also released as The Loves of Sunya.
- Adapted from the play Eyes of Youth by Max Marcin and Charles Guernon, previously filmed in 1919.
- Cosmo Hamilton is credited as writer on Wikidata.
- Premiere was the opening of the Roxy Theatre in New York on 11 March 1927.
- George Barnes shot the double exposures and received no screen credit; Robert Martin is the credited cinematographer on Wikidata.
- William P. Perry is listed as composer for a 1970s reissue, not the 1927 release.
- After the film failed to do more than recoup its cost, Joseph M. Schenck pressed Swanson to return to Hollywood. She made Sadie Thompson (1928) instead.
Scenes
- A mystic shows Sunya what her life would be with different men.
Influenced by
- The play Eyes of Youth (Max Marcin and Charles Guernon), and the 1919 film of it
Also available
- Wikimedia Commons (The Love of Sunya (1927).webm)
