The Scarlet Letter
About The Scarlet Letter
In Puritan Massachusetts, Hester Prynne bears a child and refuses to name the father, a respected minister. She is sentenced to wear a scarlet A for adultery. Her husband, missing and thought lost at sea, returns as Roger Chillingworth, finds her with another man's child, and sets out to punish her and Arthur Dimmesdale. Dimmesdale at last shows an A carved into his chest and dies.
Cast & crew
More about The Scarlet Letter
Robert G. Vignola directed Leonard Fields and David Silverstein's script from Nathaniel Hawthorne's 1850 novel. Larry Darmour produced it for Majestic Pictures, which released it on September 18, 1934. James S. Brown Jr. photographed it, Abe Meyer wrote the music, and Charles Harris edited it. Scenes were shot in Sherman Oaks.
Themes
Background
The Production Code had just been reimposed. A Hawthorne adaptation could be sold as a caution about adultery rather than as a defense of the woman wearing the letter.
Making
Majestic was a Poverty Row company. Darmour shot Hawthorne's novel in 69 minutes in Sherman Oaks, with a cast that mixed Moore, a former star of bigger pictures, and Walthall, already associated with the story.
Reviews
The National Board of Review disliked the script and what it called Vignola's static, uninspired direction, and wrote that Moore's performance was the only good thing in the picture.
Look
James S. Brown Jr. photographed the Sherman Oaks sets, including the scaffold where Hester is sentenced to wear the letter.
Music
Abe Meyer composed the score.
Preservation
Preserved by the UCLA Film & Television Archive.
Notes
- Colleen Moore plays Hester, Hardie Albright plays Dimmesdale, Henry B. Walthall plays Chillingworth, and Cora Sue Collins plays Pearl.
- Alan Hale is Bartholomew Hockings, William Farnum is Governor Bellingham, and Betty Blythe plays an innkeeper.
- Henry B. Walthall had played a different role in the 1926 Victor Sjöström version with Lillian Gish.
- Under the Production Code, the film leans on the guilt of Hester and Dimmesdale rather than on the romance of the 1926 film.
- Flora Finch plays the gossip Faith Bartle. Iron Eyes Cody appears uncredited as a Native American.
Scenes
- Hester stands for sentence and will not give Dimmesdale's name.
- Chillingworth, home from the sea, sees Pearl and begins his private punishment of the minister.
- Dimmesdale bares the A cut into his chest and dies.
Influenced by
- Nathaniel Hawthorne's novel The Scarlet Letter (1850)
Also available
- Internet Archive (MajesticPicturesPublicDomainTheScarletLetter)
