The Sporting Venus
About The Sporting Venus
Lady Gwendolyn, a Scottish heiress, loves the medical student Donald MacAllan. Her father will not allow the match. After a misunderstanding she takes up with Prince Carlos, who pretends to be rich and is not, and she tries to forget Donald at resorts. She learns what Carlos is and goes back to Donald.
Cast & crew
More about The Sporting Venus
Marshall Neilan directed. Thomas J. Geraghty wrote the screenplay from a story by Gerald Beaumont. David Kesson photographed it and Blanche Sewell edited it. Metro-Goldwyn released it on April 13, 1925. It runs six reels, 5,938 feet. It was Neilan's second film for the company, and it stars his wife, Blanche Sweet. It is the first of two 1925 features that pair Sweet with Ronald Colman. The other, His Supreme Moment, opened in May.
Themes
Making
Neilan was directing his wife in a Highland romance shot for a new studio that had just absorbed Metro, Goldwyn, and Louis B. Mayer's company. The prince is a fake fortune, which is the whole of Cody's part.
Reviews
Life magazine wrote that The Sporting Venus was "typical of Neilan at his worst and at his best," "foolish, inconsequential and spineless, and yet it is entertaining," and that anyone looking for rhyme or reason in it would look in vain.
Look
David Kesson photographed the Highland meetings between Gwendolyn and Donald and the later resort scenes with Carlos.
Music
Silent, with English intertitles.
Preservation
A complete print survives in the MGM archive.
Notes
- Blanche Sweet plays Lady Gwendolyn. Ronald Colman plays Donald MacAllan. Lew Cody plays Prince Carlos. George Fawcett plays her father.
- Josephine Crowell is the Countess Van Alstyne, Edward Martindel is Sir Alfred Grayle, Kate Price is the housekeeper, Hank Mann is Carlos's valet, and Arthur Hoyt is a detective.
- A trade joke of the year said Sweet wore the lowest waistline of 1925.
- A complete print survives in the MGM archive.
Scenes
- Gwendolyn and Donald hunt in the Highlands while her father refuses the match.
- She travels with Prince Carlos, then finds out the wealth was pretended, and goes back to Donald.
Influenced by
- Gerald Beaumont's story
