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Enter Madame
(1922) United States of America
B&W : Seven reels / 6500 feet
Directed by Wallace Worsley
Cast: Clara Kimball Young [Prima Donna Lisa Della Robia, also known as Mrs. Gerald Fitzgerald], Elliott Dexter [Gerald Fitzgerald], Louise Dresser [Mrs. Flora Preston], Lionel Belmore [Archimede], Wedgewood Nowell [the doctor], Rosita Marstini [Bice], Ora Devereaux [Miss Smith], Arthur Rankin [John Fitzgerald], Mary Jane Sanderson [Aline Chalmers], George Kuwa [Tomamoto]
Samuel Zierler Photoplay Corporation production; distributed by Metro Pictures Corporation. / Produced by Harry Garson. Scenario by Frank Beresford, from the adaptation by Gilda Varesi and Dolly Byrne of the play Enter Madame by Gilda Varesi and Dolly Byrne. Cinematography by L. William O’Connell. / © 5 December 1922 by Samuel Zierler Photoplay Corporation [LP18471]. Released 13 November 1922. / Standard 35mm spherical 1.33:1 format.
Comedy-Drama.
Reviews: [Variety, 22 December 1922, page ?] Enter Clara Kimball Young, actress! In this picture, Miss Young is giving a performance better than most she has done in the past two or three years. The reason for it is pretty much the tempo at which she was forced along at, there being speed instead of the usual slow, draggy performance that she has been giving, and the result is surprising. / Surrounding is a capable cast and the story itself has been well done under the direction of Wallace Worsley, with the result that “Enter Madame” is a feature that will stand up with the best of the better program productions. There may be some question or not the audiences in the small theaters will get the finer points of the picture, but they will be entertained whether they do or not. The audience on the American Roof (Loew’s) in New York got a lot of laughs out of the picture that a Broadway audience would not get and muffed a number that would be sure fire with a high-class audience. / The feature is best described to the exhibitor as a society comedy. The plot deals with a grand opera prima donna who practically deserts her husband to follow her career, even though she loves her better half. While the pampered pet of a suite of servants and receiving the homage of operatic mad foreigners, she believes he is sitting at home in Boston immersed in his work. Instead he has fallen for a designing widow and has about decided to divorce his songbird wife. When the latter comes to a realization of this she hurries back to the husband’s native land and immediately begins to exert her emotional wiles to win him back, but he does not react as she expects. In the end, however, she emerges victorious. / The story is well screened, and Miss Young takes the role of the emotional and temperamental prima donna to her heart as though she had been doing that sort of thing all her life. It is a distinct triumph for her. Elliott Dexter plays the husband, and the third angle to the triangle is furnished by Louise Dresser, whose blond beauty proves and excellent foil for the brunet C.K.Y. / The youthful love interest in the hands of Arthur Rankin and Mary Jane Saunderson is capably handled and a bit of character work that is rendered by both Lionel Belmore and Rosita Marstini is perfect. / In sets and atmosphere the production is all that could be asked for, and Wallace Worsley has turned out a picture in which the star is really handled as she should be. / — Fred.
Survival status: Prints exist in the Cinematheque de Toulouse film archive [35mm positive (French intertitles)]; and in the Cinematheque Royale film archive [35mm positive (French and Dutch intertitles)].
Current rights holder: Public domain [USA].
Listing updated: 17 March 2012.
References: Sherwood-Best p. 163 : Website-AFI; Website-YoungCK.
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