The Red Kimona
“Does white slavery really exist?”
About The Red Kimona
Gabrielle Darley shoots Howard Blaine as he buys a wedding ring, then tells the court how he took her to New Orleans and lived on her earnings as a prostitute. An all-male jury acquits her. Society woman Beverly Fontaine houses her for the publicity, shows her off at parties, and then drops her. Recognized and turned out of a hospital and a maid's job, Gabrielle wires a New Orleans brothel for train fare. Chauffeur Terrance O'Day follows, finds her after a car hits her, and proposes before he ships out as an ambulance driver. She asks him to wait until she feels worthy of the marriage.
Cast & crew
More about The Red Kimona
Dorothy Davenport, billed as Mrs. Wallace Reid, produced the film and appears unbilled in a prologue, reading the story out of a newspaper file. Walter Lang is the credited director; Davenport also directed, without credit. Adela Rogers St. Johns wrote the story, Dorothy Arzner the adaptation, and Malcolm Stuart Boylan the titles. Vital Exchanges released it.
Themes
Background
The picture uses the real name of Gabrielle Darley, who had been acquitted of murder, left prostitution, and married. She sued.
In film history
In Melvin v. Reid (1931), the California Court of Appeal reversed a dismissal and held that Gabrielle Darley Melvin could sue over the use of her maiden name in a film advertised as the true story of her past. The opinion is still cited in arguments about a right to be forgotten.
Making
Priscilla Bonner plays Gabrielle. Carl Miller is Howard Blaine, Virginia Pearson is Beverly Fontaine, Theodore von Eltz is the chauffeur, and Tyrone Power Sr. plays Gabrielle's father. Nellie Bly Baker, Mary Carr, Sheldon Lewis, and Emily Fitzroy are also in the cast.
Look
James Diamond photographed the film, including the mirror shot that changes Gabrielle from a bride's clothes into the red dress.
Music
Silent, with English intertitles.
Preservation
A print is held by the Library of Congress.
Notes
- The opening titles spell the name The Red Kimona; reviews and ads also used The Red Kimono.
- St. Johns's source was her Smart Set story "Gabrielle of the Red Kimono" (November 1924), drawn from a 1917 New Orleans case.
- The red dress is the film's stand-in for the old phrase "scarlet woman.
- It was Walter Lang's first film as director.
- Davenport's two previous social-problem releases were Human Wreckage (1923), about drug addiction, and Broken Laws (1924).
- The British Board of Film Censors refused the film a certificate in 1926, and Chicago banned it.
- Cliff Broughton managed the production. James Diamond photographed it.
Scenes
- Gabrielle shoots Blaine at the jeweler's and speaks to his body while she waits to be arrested.
- In a mirror she sees herself change from bridal clothes into the red dress.
- Scrubbing a hospital floor during the influenza pandemic, she meets Terrance again in an ambulance driver's uniform.
Influenced by
- Adela Rogers St. Johns's reporting on the Gabrielle Darley case
