Follow us on Facebook Follow us on Twitter Watch us on Youtube Join the Archive Mailing List Read our Blog

The Red Kimona  /  Old Ironsides

The Red Kimona  (1925)
August 30, 2015 - 7:00 pm
In-person: 
Allison Anders.

Live musical accompaniment will be provided by Cliff Retallick.

From the collection of George Eastman House.

The Red Kimona  (1925)


Dorothy Arzner's screenplay adaptation of Adela Rogers St. John's sensational story emphasizes women's extreme and often impossible dilemmas.  Young Gabrielle Darley has been lured into prostitution by a man who trifled with her emotions…and whom she ultimately murders.  Becoming the ward of a self-aggrandizing socialite, Gabrielle sees another dead end and only wishes to better herself, but she faces many trials in transcending her status as a symbol.

Mrs. Wallace Reid Productions.  Producer: Dorothy Davenport.  Director: Walter Lang.  Screenwriter: Dorothy Arzner.  Based on a story by Adela Rogers St. John.  With: Priscilla Bonner, Thodore von Eltz, Tyrone Power, Carl Miller, Emily Fitzroy.  35mm, b/w, silent, 77 min.

Old Ironsides  (1926)


Dorothy Arzner's early association with director James Cruze led to opportunities that partly facilitated her extraordinary rise to director status.  Here, she co-wrote, was script supervisor of, and edited a rollicking 18th-century sea adventure of naval confrontations with pirates, featuring a shipboard romance of such ardor it literally rocks the boat.

Paramount Famous-Lasky Corp.  Producer: B.P. Schulberg.  Director: James Cruze.  Screenwriter: Dorothy Arzner, Walter Woods, Harry Carr.  Cinematographer: Alfred Gilks.  With: Esther Ralston, Wallace Beery, Charles Farrell, George Bancroft, Johnny Walker.  35mm, b/w, silent, 111 min.