An enigmatic young woman becomes the talk of Jazz Age Manhattan when it appears she's the same socialite who left New York for Europe decades before. They actually are one and the same thanks to x-ray treatments that reverse the ageing process but will her new beau care once he finds out? Like ARE PARENTS PEOPLE? made the following year, the movie's trying to say something about age-ism but I'm not sure if the point was made because it's missing the last reel. Still, I enjoyed what I saw thanks to its star, the extravagantly beautiful Corrine Griffith, and it's impossible to look away whenever Clara Bow's flirtatious flapper appears on screen.
8 Reviews
Fountain of Youth
Hitchcoc21 May 2015
Once again a curiosity of the silent era. Unfortunately, this is another incomplete film. We don't know what the result of all this interest in youth revitalizing surgery will lead to. The main character, Mary, became old at a time when her continued work was critical to the return of Austria to power after the war. While she was hospitalized, a treatment was performed which left her forever young. Now she has come to the attention of those who knew her years before. A man falls in love with her and things get pretty complicated because she is nearly a hundred years old. Soon all the old women in the film, some friends of hers, begin to want to do the same treatment. The problem is that just as we are about to find out what happens, we run out of film. I understand this was based on a popular piece of fiction. Still, it is an interesting idea. Barely science fiction, really. Are all mythical medical discoveries in movies science fiction? Perhaps.
The Jazz Age Personified By Clara Bow's First Major Role
springfieldrental26 December 2021
Writer F. Scott Fitzgerald, in an essay titled 'Echoes of the Jazz Age,' cited three movies that defined the spirit of that unique time. They are 1921 'The Sheik,' the mostly lost 1923 'Flaming Youth' and 1923 "Black Oxen." The last movie, based on the 1923 Gertrude Atherton best-selling novel of the same name, concerns an Austrian countess (Corinne Griffith) who hasn't aged in years and is spotted by an old boyfriend (Tom Ricketts). Stunned, he informs his young friend Lee (Conway Tearle) of his remarkable observation.
As a quasi-science fiction movie, December 1923's "Black Oxen" tackles the problem-or grace-of aging. It turns out the countess earlier had received a rejuvenating glandular treatment and a type of modern day facelift, X-Ray surgery. Janet (Clara Bow) epitomizes the youthful flapper who's attracted to Lee, since they both share the same age and interests. But Lee's attracted to the more mature-acting countess, much older than he realizes.
Corinne Griffith, nicknamed 'The Orchid Lady of the Screen,' was considered one of the most beautiful actresses in silent movies. According to her biographer, Anthony Slide, the phrase "the camera loves her" was attributed to Griffith. At 22, after winning a beauty contest in Southern California, Griffith signed a $15 a week contract in 1916 with Vitagraph. Rising in popularity because of her sheer attractiveness, she signed with First National in 1923 with "The Black Oxen," under Frank Lloyd's direction, as her first film with the studio.
After her movie acting career ended in the early 1930's, she married Washington Redskins football owner and businessman George Preston Marshal. Griffith wrote the lyrics to the team's song, 'Hail to the Redskins,' one of professional football's most famous post-touchdown songs, until the name was dropped.
For actress Clara Bow, "Black Oxen" was her largest role in her budding career. One of many actresses who drew the attention of movie scouts by winning beauty contests, Bow, living in Brooklyn, N. Y., entered a publication's annual awards at 16. She earned the 1921 second place silver trophy, along with some bit parts in New York movies. With resume in hand, she journeyed to Hollywood a year later.
After one film there, Bow dropped in on director Frank Lloyd, who was frustrated over trying to find the right actress to play the vivacious Janet for "The Black Oxen." Bow recalls, "When I came into his office a big smile came over his face and he looked just tickled to death." Once filming was completed, the director told reporters, "Bow is the personification of the ideal aristocratic flapper, mischievous, pretty, aggressive, quick-tempered and deeply sentimental."
Bigger parts awaited Bow as she matured into one of later silent movie's biggest star.
As a quasi-science fiction movie, December 1923's "Black Oxen" tackles the problem-or grace-of aging. It turns out the countess earlier had received a rejuvenating glandular treatment and a type of modern day facelift, X-Ray surgery. Janet (Clara Bow) epitomizes the youthful flapper who's attracted to Lee, since they both share the same age and interests. But Lee's attracted to the more mature-acting countess, much older than he realizes.
Corinne Griffith, nicknamed 'The Orchid Lady of the Screen,' was considered one of the most beautiful actresses in silent movies. According to her biographer, Anthony Slide, the phrase "the camera loves her" was attributed to Griffith. At 22, after winning a beauty contest in Southern California, Griffith signed a $15 a week contract in 1916 with Vitagraph. Rising in popularity because of her sheer attractiveness, she signed with First National in 1923 with "The Black Oxen," under Frank Lloyd's direction, as her first film with the studio.
After her movie acting career ended in the early 1930's, she married Washington Redskins football owner and businessman George Preston Marshal. Griffith wrote the lyrics to the team's song, 'Hail to the Redskins,' one of professional football's most famous post-touchdown songs, until the name was dropped.
For actress Clara Bow, "Black Oxen" was her largest role in her budding career. One of many actresses who drew the attention of movie scouts by winning beauty contests, Bow, living in Brooklyn, N. Y., entered a publication's annual awards at 16. She earned the 1921 second place silver trophy, along with some bit parts in New York movies. With resume in hand, she journeyed to Hollywood a year later.
After one film there, Bow dropped in on director Frank Lloyd, who was frustrated over trying to find the right actress to play the vivacious Janet for "The Black Oxen." Bow recalls, "When I came into his office a big smile came over his face and he looked just tickled to death." Once filming was completed, the director told reporters, "Bow is the personification of the ideal aristocratic flapper, mischievous, pretty, aggressive, quick-tempered and deeply sentimental."
Bigger parts awaited Bow as she matured into one of later silent movie's biggest star.
Subtle science-fiction silent
F Gwynplaine MacIntyre8 May 2002
"Black Oxen" by Gertrude Atherton was the #1 best-selling novel of 1923, going through 14 printings in a single year. The novel gained a racy reputation, due to its (for the time) frank discussion of women's sexual organs, and because of some innovative language. (This novel featured the first use of the word "sophisticate" as a noun.) The film version was rushed into production almost immediately, but is well-made and not a quickie.
"Black Oxen" (the 1923 novel) is science fiction, although few of its readers realised that fact. The 1924 film "Black Oxen" is a science-fiction movie, but is not immediately recognisable as such because the film emphasises ideas rather than sci-fi gadgetry. The film takes its title from a verse by Yeats: "The years like great Black Oxen tread the world". A much later science-fiction novel, also cried 'Black Oxen' (by New Zealand author Elizabeth Knox, published in 2001), takes its title from this same source.
Lee Clavering (played by Conway Tearle) is a handsome playboy in jazz-era Manhattan. (In the novel, Clavering was a playwright: in this movie, he allegedly writes a newspaper column, but seems to spend all his time carousing.) In a nightclub, he meets a mysterious Austrian beauty named Madame Zatianny (Corinne Griffith) and he's instantly attracted to her. Clavering's older friends Mr and Mrs Oglethorpe are also intrigued by Mme Zatianny, because she is an exact double for Mary Ogden, a socialite of the 1890s who disappeared in Europe many years ago. But Mary Ogden would now be 58 years old, whilst Mme Zatianny is a young woman. Can she perhaps be Mary Ogden's daughter?
SPOILER COMING: As a romance develops between Clavering and Zatianny, he discovers the bizarre truth. Years ago, Mary Ogden went to Vienna and volunteered for a medical experiment, in which her ovaries were irradiated with radium treatments. This rejuvenated the fiftyish Mary, restoring her to the sexual vitality and physical youth of her early twenties. She re-invented herself as the European beauty Zatianny, and has now returned to her old haunts. For reasons never properly explained, the radium treatment works only on women, not men.
This is a strange film, but an interesting one. In flashbacks, we see Mary Ogden as she looked in her fifties: the make-up on Corinne Griffith is not very convincing, and she looks as if she's in her seventies, not her fifties. Also, the movie implies that a woman in her fifties is hopelessly old, beyond any hope of emotional happiness. If this is true, it's down to social prejudice rather than biological fact.
Clara Bow is good in a small role as the Oglethorpes' socialite daughter, and more subdued than usual. "Black Oxen" is a good example of how silent films sometimes had narrative advantages over talking films. Corinne Griffith has to play an American and a (supposed) European. In a sound film, she would have to speak her lines in two different accents. The European accent would probably have been a fairly ludicrous one, dispelling the credibility of her character. Because "Black Oxen" is a silent film, the accent problem is avoided.
"Black Oxen" (the 1923 novel) is science fiction, although few of its readers realised that fact. The 1924 film "Black Oxen" is a science-fiction movie, but is not immediately recognisable as such because the film emphasises ideas rather than sci-fi gadgetry. The film takes its title from a verse by Yeats: "The years like great Black Oxen tread the world". A much later science-fiction novel, also cried 'Black Oxen' (by New Zealand author Elizabeth Knox, published in 2001), takes its title from this same source.
Lee Clavering (played by Conway Tearle) is a handsome playboy in jazz-era Manhattan. (In the novel, Clavering was a playwright: in this movie, he allegedly writes a newspaper column, but seems to spend all his time carousing.) In a nightclub, he meets a mysterious Austrian beauty named Madame Zatianny (Corinne Griffith) and he's instantly attracted to her. Clavering's older friends Mr and Mrs Oglethorpe are also intrigued by Mme Zatianny, because she is an exact double for Mary Ogden, a socialite of the 1890s who disappeared in Europe many years ago. But Mary Ogden would now be 58 years old, whilst Mme Zatianny is a young woman. Can she perhaps be Mary Ogden's daughter?
SPOILER COMING: As a romance develops between Clavering and Zatianny, he discovers the bizarre truth. Years ago, Mary Ogden went to Vienna and volunteered for a medical experiment, in which her ovaries were irradiated with radium treatments. This rejuvenated the fiftyish Mary, restoring her to the sexual vitality and physical youth of her early twenties. She re-invented herself as the European beauty Zatianny, and has now returned to her old haunts. For reasons never properly explained, the radium treatment works only on women, not men.
This is a strange film, but an interesting one. In flashbacks, we see Mary Ogden as she looked in her fifties: the make-up on Corinne Griffith is not very convincing, and she looks as if she's in her seventies, not her fifties. Also, the movie implies that a woman in her fifties is hopelessly old, beyond any hope of emotional happiness. If this is true, it's down to social prejudice rather than biological fact.
Clara Bow is good in a small role as the Oglethorpes' socialite daughter, and more subdued than usual. "Black Oxen" is a good example of how silent films sometimes had narrative advantages over talking films. Corinne Griffith has to play an American and a (supposed) European. In a sound film, she would have to speak her lines in two different accents. The European accent would probably have been a fairly ludicrous one, dispelling the credibility of her character. Because "Black Oxen" is a silent film, the accent problem is avoided.
Imitation of Life
wes-connors30 April 2008
Warning: Spoilers
At the opening of "The Undesired", a New York play, the audience is stunned by the incredible beauty of Corinne Griffith, who simply stands up from her seat. Brilliant theater critic, and budding playwright, Conway Tearle (as Lee Clavering) is among those smitten by the ravishing Ms. Griffith. Mr. Tearle insists he must meet her. Elderly gossip Tom Ricketts (as Charles Dinwiddie) is more shocked than enthralled, because the mysterious young woman looks exactly like a lady he dated 30 years ago; Mr. Ricketts explains the woman was "Mary Ogden", who should be old and feeble, presently. Griffith claims to be her lookalike's niece. But, old friend Kate Lester (as Jane Ogelthorpe) says "Mary Ogden" had no siblings.
Griffith and Tearle fall in love. As things turn out, the originally hinted at science fiction angle is dispensed with. Before the film's "flashback", Griffith reveals she is "an old woman of sixty, whose youth has been restored to her by a modern miracle of science." This follows the explanation offered in writer Gertrude Atherton's autobiographical "Black Oxen" (1923). Ms. Atherton wrote about her own "youthful" restoration. The process, or "Steinach treatment", rejuvenated a woman's youth and vitality by X-raying her ovaries.
Interestingly, in real life, actress Griffith employed a different (and, likely, more effective) "youth restoration" technique - she claimed to be her own much younger sister. On film, she looks lovely, but there isn't much depth in Griffith's characterization; she and Tearle essay a common romance. During the flashback, Griffith looks more tired than old; and, before the process, she doesn't look at all old enough to be a "woman of sixty".
Griffith's reason for contemplating youth is not as interesting or realistic as supporting character Claire McDowell (as Agnes Trevor). Ms. McDowell's motivation would have made a more interesting film. A real "flaming youth", Clara Bow (as Janet Oglethorpe), plays a delightful young "flapper" who has a crush older man Tearle. The last quarter of "Black Oxen" is missing, but it's not too difficult to determine how it all ends.
**** Black Oxen (12/29/23) Frank Lloyd ~ Corinne Griffith, Conway Tearle, Clara Bow
Griffith and Tearle fall in love. As things turn out, the originally hinted at science fiction angle is dispensed with. Before the film's "flashback", Griffith reveals she is "an old woman of sixty, whose youth has been restored to her by a modern miracle of science." This follows the explanation offered in writer Gertrude Atherton's autobiographical "Black Oxen" (1923). Ms. Atherton wrote about her own "youthful" restoration. The process, or "Steinach treatment", rejuvenated a woman's youth and vitality by X-raying her ovaries.
Interestingly, in real life, actress Griffith employed a different (and, likely, more effective) "youth restoration" technique - she claimed to be her own much younger sister. On film, she looks lovely, but there isn't much depth in Griffith's characterization; she and Tearle essay a common romance. During the flashback, Griffith looks more tired than old; and, before the process, she doesn't look at all old enough to be a "woman of sixty".
Griffith's reason for contemplating youth is not as interesting or realistic as supporting character Claire McDowell (as Agnes Trevor). Ms. McDowell's motivation would have made a more interesting film. A real "flaming youth", Clara Bow (as Janet Oglethorpe), plays a delightful young "flapper" who has a crush older man Tearle. The last quarter of "Black Oxen" is missing, but it's not too difficult to determine how it all ends.
**** Black Oxen (12/29/23) Frank Lloyd ~ Corinne Griffith, Conway Tearle, Clara Bow
Interesting Film despite missing reels
jerfilm6 October 2007
Sadly, I would like to know how this film ends. The DVD that is available of course is short the missing reels - the film ends at a dinner party. It's not a great transfer but worth watching. Clara Bow is an obnoxious little flapper who is in love with Conway Tearle - a small complication throughout. I agree with the previous comment that Corrine Griffith who is supposed to be around 60, when made up looks much older. She seems infirmed with a cane but there is no explanation about this.
It would be wonderful if the missing reels would turn up in Russian or the Czech Republic or the Netherlands or anywhere. This film was long on my want list so when I saw it advertised on DVD I took a chance and ordered it.
It would be wonderful if the missing reels would turn up in Russian or the Czech Republic or the Netherlands or anywhere. This film was long on my want list so when I saw it advertised on DVD I took a chance and ordered it.
"She ran away with it"!!!
kidboots26 December 2014
Warning: Spoilers
That's what one of Clara Bow's friends said about her performance in "Black Oxen" - the first time she experienced working with a top studio, big budget and a famous star. Schulberg recommended her to director Frank Lloyd and once he saw her knew she would be so right for the flapper role. Clara had her hew own take on the meeting - "he didn't make me feel like he was doin' me a favour lettin' me work in his picture". This was the movie that really got Clara noticed by the other studios. First National was so impressed with her performance that they requested her for "Painted People" another "biggie" with Colleen Moore but that turned out to be a fiasco. Clara's instinctive knowledge of what was right for her made her realise that the part was all wrong - "and she was right" Colleen Moore said. Still "Black Oxen" raised her standing and had her Preferred Studio bosses quadruple her salary to a princely $200 a week.
This film is fascinating for what's not included. The film I saw was 60 minutes but it is supposed to be 80 minutes and because it flowed pretty smoothly I have to assume that the missing reels are at the end. And also for the fact that Claire MacDowall has a prominent supporting role as Agnes Trevor, an embittered spinster - in the film I saw she has a very small scene where she renounces Mary (Corinne Griffith) as a "Hypocrite"!!!
When attractive "mystery woman" (Griffith) stands up at a Broadway first night, Lee Clavering's (Conway Tearle) elderly companion does a double take - she looks the mirror image of a girl, Mary Ogden, he was infatuated with in his youth but the last time he saw her she was old and feeble. Lee is determined to find out who she is - so they visit Jane Oglethorpe, a society "Grand Dame" who is feared for her frankness. Clara Bow is introduced as Janet Oglethorpe "going to Hell as fast as she can foxtrot - the wretched little flapper"!!! And from her first entrance she owns the movie - Lee exclaims "when you were little I gave you a spanking, I may be forced to do so again" - her reply "Can I depend on that"!!! Naughty Clara!! He also says when he has to escort her home and put up with her outrageous flirting "Girls of your age bore me to death and you're the silliest of them all"!!!
Meanwhile Lee becomes involved with mystery woman Mary who finally reveals to him the secret of her youthful appearance. The victim of an early unhappy marriage that took her to Vienna, she finally found a reason for living through helping her adoptive country until age caught up with her. It is here that the make-up artists really have a chance to "go to town" on Miss Griffith but I agree with the other reviewers, she is made to seem old and decrepit and almost on her last legs at 60!! Offered a rejuvenating X-Ray anti aging treatment, she took it - not for vanity but because her feebleness was an impediment to her good works.
She then announces it at Mrs. Oglethorpe's afternoon tea and later on Agnes Trevor speaks for them all when she wonders if she could regain her youth so she could find a husband. When Mary claims her ideals were higher than that Agnes denounces her - and Mary believes deep down that she is right!! Ian vehemently proclaims he would love her however old she looked but he is distinctly uncomfortable when some of the younger women "rib" her around the dinner table.
The film finishes there but was definitely heading "somewhere" and it is fascinating to wonder what the ending would be like. I don't think in 1924 there was a mainstream Hollywood film that would take a chance to end on a controversial note. Since Mary proclaimed her secret she is very thoughtful about how she would be treated if she wasn't so young and beautiful. Meanwhile Janet has been reading "Flaming Youth"(another Colleen Moore film!!) and wondering how to get her man!! The flapper segments give the film a much needed zest - the love story between Griffith and Tearle being just a tad boring. Corinne Griffith may have been best known as the "Orchid Lady" but she had only her beauty - she didn't have a huge personality or a lot of acting talent, though the last few minutes saw her giving her role a bit more colour and shade. Maybe the missing reels see her put Lee's loyalty to the test by, maybe, foregoing her treatment to see if he would stand by her if her looks were gone. An interesting theory.
Highly Recommended.
This film is fascinating for what's not included. The film I saw was 60 minutes but it is supposed to be 80 minutes and because it flowed pretty smoothly I have to assume that the missing reels are at the end. And also for the fact that Claire MacDowall has a prominent supporting role as Agnes Trevor, an embittered spinster - in the film I saw she has a very small scene where she renounces Mary (Corinne Griffith) as a "Hypocrite"!!!
When attractive "mystery woman" (Griffith) stands up at a Broadway first night, Lee Clavering's (Conway Tearle) elderly companion does a double take - she looks the mirror image of a girl, Mary Ogden, he was infatuated with in his youth but the last time he saw her she was old and feeble. Lee is determined to find out who she is - so they visit Jane Oglethorpe, a society "Grand Dame" who is feared for her frankness. Clara Bow is introduced as Janet Oglethorpe "going to Hell as fast as she can foxtrot - the wretched little flapper"!!! And from her first entrance she owns the movie - Lee exclaims "when you were little I gave you a spanking, I may be forced to do so again" - her reply "Can I depend on that"!!! Naughty Clara!! He also says when he has to escort her home and put up with her outrageous flirting "Girls of your age bore me to death and you're the silliest of them all"!!!
Meanwhile Lee becomes involved with mystery woman Mary who finally reveals to him the secret of her youthful appearance. The victim of an early unhappy marriage that took her to Vienna, she finally found a reason for living through helping her adoptive country until age caught up with her. It is here that the make-up artists really have a chance to "go to town" on Miss Griffith but I agree with the other reviewers, she is made to seem old and decrepit and almost on her last legs at 60!! Offered a rejuvenating X-Ray anti aging treatment, she took it - not for vanity but because her feebleness was an impediment to her good works.
She then announces it at Mrs. Oglethorpe's afternoon tea and later on Agnes Trevor speaks for them all when she wonders if she could regain her youth so she could find a husband. When Mary claims her ideals were higher than that Agnes denounces her - and Mary believes deep down that she is right!! Ian vehemently proclaims he would love her however old she looked but he is distinctly uncomfortable when some of the younger women "rib" her around the dinner table.
The film finishes there but was definitely heading "somewhere" and it is fascinating to wonder what the ending would be like. I don't think in 1924 there was a mainstream Hollywood film that would take a chance to end on a controversial note. Since Mary proclaimed her secret she is very thoughtful about how she would be treated if she wasn't so young and beautiful. Meanwhile Janet has been reading "Flaming Youth"(another Colleen Moore film!!) and wondering how to get her man!! The flapper segments give the film a much needed zest - the love story between Griffith and Tearle being just a tad boring. Corinne Griffith may have been best known as the "Orchid Lady" but she had only her beauty - she didn't have a huge personality or a lot of acting talent, though the last few minutes saw her giving her role a bit more colour and shade. Maybe the missing reels see her put Lee's loyalty to the test by, maybe, foregoing her treatment to see if he would stand by her if her looks were gone. An interesting theory.
Highly Recommended.
When they aren't thinking of "that", men are thinking of "it"
kekseksa14 August 2017
Black Oxen is a remarkable film largely because it is based on a remarkable book, by Gertrude Atherton, and is (as far at any rate as the part that survives is concerned) quite a faithful representation of the novel.
"Rejuvenation" in its general usage during the period was something of a euphemism and was extremely male-oriented (in effect the "viagra" of its day). The interest in the potential effects of what would eventually be identified as testosterone goes back in some ways way into folklore but its "scientific" application began with a very eccentric French physiologist called Charles-Édouard Brown-Séquard who claimed in 1899 to have regained his youth after injecting himself with filtered extracts from the crushed testicles of young dogs and guinea pigs. In the 1920s and 1930s, Russo-French surgeon Serge Voronoff developed a technique for grafting monkey testicle tissue onto the testicles of men for a similar purpose, but is was the very distinguished endocrinologist Eugen Steinach whose work created the most interest.
Steinach believed that what he called the "Steinach vasoligature" for men (a partial vasechtomy) would effect a rejuventaion and, although the emphasis still remained largely on men and on sexual potency; poet W. B. Yeats, from one of whose verse-plays the title of the book and film comes, was the best-known celebrity to have been "steinached" and to have claimed a rejuvenation and a re-energisation as a result. Steinach did however extend his theory to women, the equivalent being an irradiation of the ovaries (which also rendered the woman infertile) and Atherton was herself one of those who had undergone the treatment and she too claimed to have benefited significantly from it and it was the inspiration for the novel.
This was the time when cosmetic surgery was also coming of age - many people know that actress Sarah Bernhardt had to have her leg amputated but fewer know that she had had had a face-life shortly before that. This was also the time when the generation-gap was beginning to be talked about and seemed in the era of "flapper" 9represented of course by Clara Bow in the film) to create a particularly harsh divide where women were concerned. Atherton believed that Steinach rejuvenations were a form of female empowerment (many women would claim the same today for cosmetic surgery) and she uses the idea of rejuvenation in her novel to review a whole range of related subjects - the situation of the old, the generation gap, the sexuality of women.
In the first part of the film (the part that survives) this is fairly well represented by Lloyd but if the ending of the film is (as some reviewers claim) predictable, it should not be because it is not at all the same as the ending of the book. Lloyd plumps in fact for a much more conventional view that has the heroine agreeing to "act her age" (and in effect "know her place")while the hero goes off with the flapper. Corinne Griffith gives I think a very impressive and subtle performance as a woman with a mature mind but a young body (the ideal as Atherton perceived it) but, in life, as in the film, it was the young Clara Bow (whose performance is nothing remarkable) who proved the eventual beneficiary.
It is thought that the film in its entirety is not beyond the possibilities of being Steinached but given the disappointing ending, it is perhaps better the way it is.
"Rejuvenation" in its general usage during the period was something of a euphemism and was extremely male-oriented (in effect the "viagra" of its day). The interest in the potential effects of what would eventually be identified as testosterone goes back in some ways way into folklore but its "scientific" application began with a very eccentric French physiologist called Charles-Édouard Brown-Séquard who claimed in 1899 to have regained his youth after injecting himself with filtered extracts from the crushed testicles of young dogs and guinea pigs. In the 1920s and 1930s, Russo-French surgeon Serge Voronoff developed a technique for grafting monkey testicle tissue onto the testicles of men for a similar purpose, but is was the very distinguished endocrinologist Eugen Steinach whose work created the most interest.
Steinach believed that what he called the "Steinach vasoligature" for men (a partial vasechtomy) would effect a rejuventaion and, although the emphasis still remained largely on men and on sexual potency; poet W. B. Yeats, from one of whose verse-plays the title of the book and film comes, was the best-known celebrity to have been "steinached" and to have claimed a rejuvenation and a re-energisation as a result. Steinach did however extend his theory to women, the equivalent being an irradiation of the ovaries (which also rendered the woman infertile) and Atherton was herself one of those who had undergone the treatment and she too claimed to have benefited significantly from it and it was the inspiration for the novel.
This was the time when cosmetic surgery was also coming of age - many people know that actress Sarah Bernhardt had to have her leg amputated but fewer know that she had had had a face-life shortly before that. This was also the time when the generation-gap was beginning to be talked about and seemed in the era of "flapper" 9represented of course by Clara Bow in the film) to create a particularly harsh divide where women were concerned. Atherton believed that Steinach rejuvenations were a form of female empowerment (many women would claim the same today for cosmetic surgery) and she uses the idea of rejuvenation in her novel to review a whole range of related subjects - the situation of the old, the generation gap, the sexuality of women.
In the first part of the film (the part that survives) this is fairly well represented by Lloyd but if the ending of the film is (as some reviewers claim) predictable, it should not be because it is not at all the same as the ending of the book. Lloyd plumps in fact for a much more conventional view that has the heroine agreeing to "act her age" (and in effect "know her place")while the hero goes off with the flapper. Corinne Griffith gives I think a very impressive and subtle performance as a woman with a mature mind but a young body (the ideal as Atherton perceived it) but, in life, as in the film, it was the young Clara Bow (whose performance is nothing remarkable) who proved the eventual beneficiary.
It is thought that the film in its entirety is not beyond the possibilities of being Steinached but given the disappointing ending, it is perhaps better the way it is.
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