THIS WOMAN
click title to view picture(s) of this feature!
Directed by: Phil Rosen. Screenplay: Hope Loring, Louis Duryea Lighton. Photographed by: Lyman Broening.
Cast: Irene Rich (Carol Drayton), Ricardo Cortez (Whitney Duane), Louise Fazenda (Rose), Frank Elliott (Gordon Duane), Greighton Hale (Bobby Bleeker), Marc MacDermott (Stratinit), Helen Dunbar (Mrs. Sturdevant), Clara Bow (Aline Sturdevant), Otto Hoffman (Judson).
DRAMA: Source: Howard Rockey, "This Woman" (New York, 1924) (All information from "The American Film Institute Catalogue of Feature Films".)
Rosen, directing, has blended the sequence together to make an interesting story besides holding the players from becoming too assertive and overacting. McDermott's performance reveals a tendency to stretch a point here and there, but the total impression is sufficiently meritorious to offset that leaning.
The script tells of Carol Drayton, a vocal student, interrupted in an attempt upon her own life by gas through a fire starting in the next room. Extinguishing the flames leads to the other feminine boarder discovering the financial and moral condition of the songstress. That leads to both and to a cheap cabaret, which is raided.
A well-to-do transient is at the table with the girls at the time of the uniform avalanche, whereupon he lies himself clear, but his tale sends Carol (Miss Rich) up for 30 days. Released and wandering, the girl walks into a crying stew serenading his sweetheart with an organ grinder. In dire need of money, she offers to sing accompanied by the organ. On the inside of the house is the master music teacher. One earful and Carol is welcomed, with all arrangements made for her to seriously take up her work.
The usual love affair with a socialite follows, who is too inquisitive when the kickback of the prison term eventually becomes known, so it's 'air' for him, and the girl turns to her music teacher as her future husband.
Productionally the picture has been tastefully staged as to settings while the photography is an enhancement. However, it is the work of Miss Rich and Rosen's ability to keep the continuity at a sustained pitch that makes this feature well able to step out and remain upright by itself.
Louise Fazenda drifts in and out but not before turning in a serviceable contribution early in the footage. Clara Bow is given little to do, while Frank Elliott, as the half villainous villain, breezed through without leaving a mark. The one blemish in the cast is Ricardo Cortez, who projected as being both colorless and meaningless despite a sizeable assignment before the lens.
