The Red Lily
About The Red Lily
Outside Vivonne, cobbler's daughter Marise La Noue (Enid Bennett) and the mayor's son Jean Leonnec (Ramon Novarro) run off to Paris after her father dies and the mayor finds them together. Money is gone from the town safe, Jean is arrested as the thief, and when he returns to Paris she has vanished. Pickpocket Bo-Bo (Wallace Beery) teaches him to steal while Marise, out of work, becomes a prostitute. They meet again, he is wounded, she hides him, and police gunfire in a bar hits her. Two years later she is a seamstress, he leaves prison, and they return to Vivonne with Bo-Bo.
Cast & crew
More about The Red Lily
Fred Niblo directed, produced, and, with Bess Meredyth, wrote it, the only American feature he scripted. Metro-Goldwyn shot it in April and May 1924, opened it in Los Angeles in the week of August 31, and released it on September 8, 1924. AFI records 7 reels and 6,975 feet, and the Kansas Board of Review ordered cuts.
Themes
Look
Victor Milner photographed it.
Music
Silent, with English intertitles. The Library of Congress print carries German titles.
Preservation
The Library of Congress holds a print with German intertitles. The American Silent Feature Film Survival Database lists the film as extant.
Notes
- Frank Currier is Mayor Hugo Leonnec. Rosemary Theby is Nana. Mitchell Lewis is D'Agut. Emily Fitzroy and George Periolat are Mama and Papa Bouchard.
- Lloyd Nosler edited. Ben Carré was art director.
- Prostitution was not on the 1916 industry list of barred subjects unless it was forced, and the film still shows Marise working as a prostitute.
- The Library of Congress has a print with German intertitles.
Scenes
- The mayor finds Jean and Marise in an abandoned cottage and they leave for Paris.
- Jean strikes Marise when he sees how the years have changed her, then she hides his bleeding body from the police.
- Police shooting into the bar hit Marise, and Jean is arrested at the hospital before he learns she lives.
