this is the best film Olive Thomas ever did IMHO. Easily!, Im won over now on her persona. It's directed by one of the best directors of the silent era Alan Crosland. This is a wonderfully preserved homage to both Thomas as an actress & Crosland as director. The original & wonderfully drawn Selznick intertitles are intact in this wonderful story by Frances Marion. The film is so well preserved and crystal clear with almost no nitrate deterioration whatsoever. Early scenes are shot in Florida & we se Olive in an expressive traveling shot proceeding up a canal in a motor launch. Olive Thomas is a cross between both Mary Pickford & Marguerite Clark in girlishness. What a pity that Thomas died not long after wrapping this movie. Without giving any plot away, Thomas is sent to a girls school in snow country in the mountains. A boys school is nearby. Shenanigans continue with the beautiful mountain scenery as a back drop. Alan Crosland was as much a pictorilist as Rex Ingram or Ernst Lubitsch. A previous film of Crosland's thats on home video is "The Unbeliever" from 1918 made at the Edison Studios. Both films exhibit his visual style soon to be famous in films like "Don Juan", "The Beloved Rogue" & "The Jazz Singer". Norma Shearer, later a famous MGM star, is visible in this film and is only 17 years old. This movie has nothing to do with Flappers as personified later in the 20s. No bathtub gin or any of that. Frances Marion who wrote this story seems to have chosen a random word for the title of the story.
Review of The Flapper
