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Lucretia Lombard

Film Information:
Production: Not Available;
Premiere: November 18, 1923;
Released: December 8, 1923;
Production/Distribution Companies: Warner Brothers;
Director: Jack Conway;
Based on the novel by Kathleen Norris;
Scenario: Bertram Millhauser; Sada Owen;
Film editor: unknown;
Running time: unknown;
Not available on VHS or DVD;
Exists in private film collections.

Cast: Irene Rich as Lucretia Lombard; Monte Blue as Stephen Winship; Marc MacDermott as Sir Allen Lombard; Norma Shearer as Mimi; Alec B. Francis as Judge Winship; John Roche as Fred Winship; Lucy Beaumont as Mrs. Winship; Otto Hoffman as Sandy, Lombard's servant;

Reviews:

Mordaunt Hall in the New York Times, December 17, 1923: "This picture is poorly cut and although it has certain interesting sequences it is not an overwhelming success as an entertainment. Mr. MacDermott and Miss Rich are capable of their respective parts and Monte Blue as Stephen is fairly good."

Variety, December 20, 1923: "The find of the cast is Norma Shearer. She plays a flapper type and then developes a dramatic strain that is above the ordinary. The girl is there in the looks as well and screens in an attractive manner."

Photoplay, March 1924: "For some reason, the gentle charm of Kathleen Norris' writing does not translate itself to the screen. Where the book was a success, the celluliod version is flat, which may be blamed, perhaps, upon the inadequate direction. Irene Rich is charming, but Monte Blue fails to register- he and the direction belong together. There is a forest fire, however, that lifts the picture above mediocrity. It is one of the best film fires to date."

(out of five stars).

Well, for those who don’t think Norma Shearer could have played Scarlett O’Hara in 1939’s Gone With the Wind need look no further than Lucretia Lombard (1923) for proof she indeed could be spoiled. But don’t be entirely fooled, one cannot even begin to compare the excellent qualities of Gone With the Wind to the slightly frustrating and archaic Lucretia Lombard. There are a few strikes against the movie:

A. The rough editing made me feel like certain scenes might be missing. Also, there are weird “End of Part (1, 2, 3, and 4)” titles that flash up after certain moments, making me wonder if this might have been a series. Since the film had an alternating title, Flaming Passion, it is more than likely that Lucretia Lombard might have been the short series that Flaming Passion cut down into episodes and released to theatres.

B. The acting is ridiculous and histrionic, especially on the part of Irene Rich, who gets annoying within the first few minutes of the movie and remains so. Not her fault entirely, the blame is on her lifeless character but also her bland acting (she also had a role in Norma’s 1931 movie, Strangers May Kiss). Norma also gives a histrionic performance.

C. There’s no musical score for the film, and the bad quality makes it a rough sit-through. One really has to be a Norma fan to like the film, as I mostly did.

The film opens with Irene Rich, Lucretia Lombard, and her husband, Sir Allen Lombard, played by Marc McDermott. Sir Allen Lombard is a dying, but tyrannical man whose life is in more danger because of his addiction to medication than the actual disease he has. He is an obvious drug addict, and I found Jack Conway’s direction of implying that interesting, considering this is a movie from 1923. Sir Allen demands medication from his wife, and sneaks a few pills in when his wife [Irene Rich] leaves the room. I like McDermott’s performance, and one can tell he enjoyed playing such a character, perhaps a little too much.

It is on the night of a big party, only five minutes into the movie, when we are introduced to Norma Shearer’s character, Mimi Winship, getting ready for the night’s event. The Winship’s, who live across the street from the Lombard’s, are all preparing for a family outing to a high society party. Norma plays the spoiled daughter of Judge Winship, played by Alec B. Francis, and Mrs. Winship, played by Lucy Beaumont. At the party, when Irene Rich makes an entrance with men catching her attention, Norma grabs hold of two suitors and says, “Mrs. Lombard is charming, but I’m also here.” They turn back to Mimi because what she wants, she gets.

Norma looks slightly awkward in her costumes, even a little bit heavy in some scenes. But the scene in which she flirts with her fiancé, there is one close up which I’ll say is the worst photographing of Norma I’ve ever scene, but she still doesn’t look as bad as most critics would exaggerate. When it comes to her performance, however, Norma doesn’t really miss a beat. She tells her father that Monte Blue proposed marriage when he really didn’t, trapping him into a life with her. As for Rich, her acting in the scene where her husband dies (from an overdose) is really bad –I’ll leave it at that. When Monte Blue and Rich meet in the film, and eventually fall in love, they do have strong chemistry, which makes watching both a little easier, and Norma plays the jealous witch of a fiancé convincingly when she realizes her boyfriend loves another woman. She puts her hand over her mouth and stands there, helpless.

Now Conway’s direction really shows off how well he was promoting Norma Shearer. She is billed fifth in the opening credits, but has just as much camera time as Irene Rich. Conway also cuts to Norma frequently, allowing the audience to get inside of her mind, especially in the moments when she realizes that her fiancé is losing interest in her. When the three relocate to a cabin in the woods, the action really begins, and Conway allows Norma to upstage Rich and Blue all the way. In fact, she even appears quite beautiful in a few of those scenes.

One moment which had me laughing hysterically, because of the way it was filmed, not because I’m a sadistic person, is when Norma points a shotgun at her father (Alec B. Francis, who plays Judge Winship) pretending to shoot him for fun, only she really does. He dies in bed a few minutes later, but the whole scene is so campy and ridiculous, one can’t imagine having any other reaction.

While that might be on the comic side, the forest fire certainly isn’t. In fact, it’s almost a bit eerie to think how they achieved the effect; there’s flames everywhere, almost making one wonder if they really burned part of a forest for the movie. With the horrifying flames everywhere, Norma and Irene Rich realize that they must get out together, or else they’ll die in the flames. While both get terrified, Norma’s character proves too weak to survive, and dies of exhaustion. She does so convincingly, letting her head gently fall into Blue’s chest as he holds her. Irene Rich is saved by Monte Blue, and it is implied that they will go on to marry.

Now I really liked this movie, but I have to be realistic. I’m giving it two out of five stars for its rarity* but mostly the film itself. I find it interesting to watch Norma, in her third earliest movie known to exist, showing us the Shearer charm had always been present on screen. And Jack Conway certainly got his wish, Norma indeed steals the picture, and it is no wonder why many think of this as only a Shearer movie.

*This movie is a Warner Brothers silent. Any movie buff knows that most of Warner Brothers’ silents no longer exist because of a vault fire in the 1940s which destroyed many of the studio’s earliest films.