The Unchastened Woman

Name: The Unchastened Woman
Director: James Young
Genre: Drama
Released: 1925
Duration: 52 min
Cast: Theda Bara, Wyndham Standing, Dale Fuller, John Miljan, Eileen Percy

1925 Drama 52 minutes Directed by James Young

About The Unchastened Woman

Caroline Knollys (Theda Bara) is about to tell her husband Hubert (Wyndham Standing) that she is pregnant when she finds him with his secretary Emily Madden (Eileen Percy), and she leaves without telling him. In Europe she has the baby and becomes the most talked-about woman on the Continent, then comes home sponsoring architect Lawrence Sanbury (John Miljan). Hubert, tired of Emily, visits hoping to gather divorce evidence. She shows him their son, and they reconcile.

Cast & crew

More about The Unchastened Woman

James Young directed Douglas Z. Doty's scenario of Louis K. Anspacher's play, which opened in New York on October 9, 1915, with Emily Stevens. Chadwick Pictures copyrighted the states-rights release on November 16, 1925, as LP22004, at 7 reels and 6,800 feet. AFI lists a Fitchburg opening on October 7, 1925, and a November 15 release, while Wikipedia dates the release November 16.

Themes

A pregnancy she will not announce
A secretary in the husband's arms
A return from Europe with an architect
A son instead of a divorce
Caroline Knollys
Hubert Knollys
Emily Madden
Lawrence Sanbury
Theda Bara

Look

L. William O'Connell photographed Bara's last feature. The copyrighted negative is 7 reels, 6,800 feet. Wikipedia times the circulating film at 52 minutes.

Music

Silent, with English intertitles.

Preservation

The film survives. It is one of the few Theda Bara features that do.

Notes

It is Theda Bara's last feature and one of the few of her films that survive. IMDb also names The Stain (1914), A Fool There Was (1915), East Lynne (1916), and two Hal Roach shorts from the mid-1920s.
James Young had been married to Clara Kimball Young.
Dale Fuller is Hildegarde Sanbury. Harry Northrup is Michael Krellin. Mayme Kelso is Susan Ambie.
L. William O'Connell photographed it. Sam Zimbalist edited.
A title card quotes a proverb about two bears a married couple must keep: Bear and Forbear.
Grace Valentine filmed the play in 1918.

Scenes

Caroline walks in on Hubert and Emily just as she was going to tell him she is pregnant.
Hubert comes looking for divorce evidence and is shown his son.

Influenced by

Louis K. Anspacher's 1915 play The Unchastened Woman

Also available

Wikimedia Commons (The Unchastened Woman (1925).webm)