Volume II: Filmography

FROU FROU

January 1, 1914 (Thursday)

Length: 4 reels

Character: Drama; Thanhouser Big Production

Director: W. Eugene Moore, Jr.

Scenario: Lloyd F. Lonergan from Augustin Daly's copyrighted version of the play of the same name, taken in turn from an earlier French play

Music: Orchestration (piano score) by the members of the Tams Music Library, New York City.

Cast: Maude Fealy (Frou Frou, Gilberte); Harry Benham (Henri de Sartorys, Frou Frou's husband), Phyllis Bostwick (Louise), James Cruze (Comte Paul de Valreas, Henri's false friend), Helen Badgley (Frou Frou's little son, Georges), Lila Chester

Notes: 1. This film was released through the Mutual Program and was not on the regular Thanhouser weekly schedule. At the time, Maude Fealy was featured heavily in Thanhouser and Mutual advertising. 2. Thanhouser did not use a hyphen in the title of the film, but the same story in play form was usually given elsewhere as Frou-Frou.

BACKGROUND OF THE SCENARIO: The Thanhouser scenario was adopted from a play adopted from the French play, Froufrou, by John Augustin Daly (1838-1899), an American playwright who wrote or adapted approximately 90 different plays over the years, many of which were translated and extensively altered from original French and German works. Daly personally wrote numerous melodramas featuring dramatic climaxes - heroes tied across railroad tracks in the face of oncoming trains, tied to logs going closer to sawblades, and other exciting escapades and narrow escapes. Versatile, Daly produced many of his own adaptations ranging from comedies and melodramas to Shakespeare, in a New York theatre bearing his name. The earlier French version was by Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy and premiered in Paris on October 30, 1869. The story was also published in book form in France.

ARTICLE, The Photoplay Magazine, June 1914:

The following is excerpted from an article about Harry Benham in which a conversation between Harry and his child-actor son Leland is reprinted : "'When we were taking the pictures for Frou-Frou,' he said, 'the story called for a pistol duel between the two leading characters. I was playing against James Cruze. We had rehearsed often with the old-fashioned flintlock dueling pistols empty. This day the property man loaded each of them with powder and a paper wad, then the cameraman started to take the picture.'

"'Did you have a gun, papa?' Leland inquired. 'I did,' said Harry. 'We took our places back to back, walked the given paces apart, turned around and fired.'

"'Did you fire, papa?' 'My gun didn't go off. We had to make the scene over again. We tried it three times.'

"'Didn't your gun go off, papa?' 'It didn't. We wasted hundreds of feet of film, but that pistol wouldn't fire. The property man finally came over to examine it. He took out the load he'd put in, then he yelled.'

"'What did he say, papa?' Pause. 'What did he say, papa?'

"'I couldn't repeat it, my child. The Gerry Society could catch me if I said it in your hearing. But he unloaded that gun. There had been two old-fashioned round-load bullets in it. How many years they had been there we could only guess. But what if that pistol had gone off? Jim Cruze would have been a dead man.'"

ARTICLE-SYNOPSIS, Reel Life, January 10, 1914:

"A little over thirty years ago - in 1882, to be exact - the French novel, Frou Frou - by H. Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy - was published by C. Levy, in Paris. As a book, the novel does not seem to have attracted much attention on this side of the Atlantic, for we find no trace of an English translation now in print - and English authorities appear to be so foggy about it that the Century Dictionary gives the date of the comedy as 1869, while Who's Who puts it at 1892. In France, however, the play won enough popular favor to be produced upon the stage of the Comedie Française - long before Halévy aspired to the directorship. And in a short time it was produced both in England and the United States - scoring very satisfactory runs in both countries.

"Just why the play should have been classed as a comedy is not clear - for, in our interpretation of the word, it is at least drama, if not actual tragedy. There is scarcely a comedy line in it. And, accustomed as we now are to the dramatization of any argument under the sun, no matter how plain or pointed, on our American stage, we can easily see why the question worked out in Frou Frou seemed a bit risqué to our more sedate and conservative theatre-goers of the 'eighties.' For the play is French in its whole viewpoint and construction. Not that we object to that sort of thing in the least - far from it. There are 'Frou Frous' by the hundred in our New York society of today - and with our more up-to-date point of view, they see no obligation in the way of an early demise upon their part. But let us sketch the story, as Meilhac and Halévy wrote it.

"Gilberte is the young, happy and rather frivolous wife of Henri de Sartorys, a rising diplomat in the service of France - and both are very much attached to their young son, Georges, a child of four - though his mother sees little of him owing to her many social engagements. Comte Paul de Valreas is a wealthy young Parisian with a taste for gambling, private theatricals, and intrigue with attractive women. Louise is Gilberte's sister - living in the country. Other characters are Brigard - Baron and Baronne de Cambri - Pitou - Zanetto - Pauline and La Gouvernante - who fill in the background and assist in sustaining the action. But the play revolves around Henri, Gilberte, Louise and the count.

"Among her favorite distractions of balls, masques, etc., it is easy for Comte Paul to interest Gilberte in private theatricals. Rehearsals are soon in full blast at Sartorys' home. He happens in upon one of them at a moment when le Comte is kissing his wife and is naturally about to make things unpleasant when the book is shown him and others of the party assure him that the action is in the play. He is not over-pleased, but makes no further comment and leaves the room. From this incident on, Comte Paul brings to bear all his powers of fascination in alienating the affections of Gilberte - who at first resists him. About this time, Louise comes to pay her a visit in Paris - and the boy, Georges, takes a great fancy to her. Gilberte persuades Sartorys to have Louise make her home with them, permanently - and Louise somewhat reluctantly consents. Sartorys and the boy, seeing more of her each day about the house than Gilberte, soon become very fond of Louise. When the wife sees this, she tries, in a casual, haphazard way, to be more than usually affectionate with both her husband and her boy - but tries at inopportune moments, and feels herself repulsed. Her vivid imagination magnifies the situation far more than the actual facts warrant, and Comte Paul finds her listening more readily to his pleading.

"Finally - one crucial night - she packs her hand luggage and starts to leave the house for him when her sister surprises her in the act of leaving and remonstrates with her. Gilberte then accuses Louise of alienating her husband and boy. Louise is too horrified at the charge to detain her - and Gilberte goes to the Comte. Sartorys traces them to Venice - has a stormy interview with both, in which he strikes the Comte and repulses Gilberte. A duel follows at sunrise next morning - in which Comte Paul is killed. Eventually, the sisters come together again. Gilberte is now failing rapidly in health. They live in Venice. Louise writes Sartorys that Gilberte is dying and begs his forgiveness in one last interview. He comes to her with little Georges - and poor Gilberte dies in his arms on the Venetian balcony, looking out across the lagoon. This death scene is exceedingly beautiful - as, in fact, are many of the others. Although not a word is spoken and the situations are French rather than American, no audience can fail to catch the meaning or point of every scene or bit of acting. The story tells itself upon the screen - and the production is an exceptionally good one. It is not comedy - but it is life - the sort of life that human beings live - with the fool mistakes which actually do result in tragedies today as frequently as they ever did.

"A pretty sister-in-law is always an experimental element when mixed in a family of two or three. There have been cases, undoubtedly, where the husband stood the wear and tear on his powers of resistance in such a way that the wife had nothing to feed her imagination - but as a rule, the sister-in-law gets her full share of the family affection, and then some. But no wife is playing the game fairly when she acknowledges defeat from a situation of her own creating instead of trying to make herself more attractive than her rival. Those interested in such problems should by all means see this play. Was Gilberte justified? Was she weak and foolish? You won't be able to decide the point at once."

REVIEW by Hanford C. Judson, The Moving Picture World, January 17, 1914:

"A most charming picturization of Lloyd F. Lonergan's dramatic story has been made by the Thanhouser company using Augustin Daly's theatre version as the basis for the scenario. To say that it is wholly successful would not be quite the truth; for the third reel, filled as it undeniably is with the character of the unusually attractive heroine, is not dramatic. It attempts to carry the story forward and does so in a way; but lacks a convincing truth and the inexorable logic of the two parts that precede it. The fourth reel again gets hold of the story and makes it real to us; but even at the best this part would have been mere denouement which, in a drama, is just the accounting for the different threads of suspense. There is still a good measure of suspense left; but the big interest, the fate of Frou Frou's petty pretty heaven of selfishness, is settled. The summer time of a pretty butterfly life is over and done and what is to happen to her delicate wings is of less importance. Yet, Mr. Exhibitor, here is a delightful picture. It deals with no petty or insignificant fates; it has been made by charming artists and is full of things that will appeal strongly, just as it is. It is an offering to quicken the imagination. That is all the best dramas are intended to do.

"Miss Maude Fealy, who takes the leading role, makes a lovely Frou Frou. The character of this morally unsubstantial hot-house flower bit of humanity has been drawn with great skill. Our getting thoroughly acquainted with her, as she is portrayed by Miss Fealy, is decidedly pleasant. Every step she takes, every gesture, is as feminine as Eve; yet there is a fairy-like touch of inhumanity, which is not inhumanity, about her, and if she doesn't take up the duties and obligations of human life, well, she is charming and that means a great deal. At the end of the second reel we find her in a situation in which her absolute emptiness has been filled with a sense that the ground is slipping away from under her feet. She has been of no help to her husband, she has refused to be a mother to her child, she understood her self-sacrificing sister just well enough to impose on her. Now she has been wakened to a realization that her sister is of use in the household and that she is a nonentity. Her boy loves his aunt more than his mother. She makes a weak attempt to regain her position and fails. Her husband won't take her seriously. All of this is shown in the third reel and much space is given to showing it with very little effectiveness. The economy of attention would be gained by cutting away all of those opening dance scenes. They add very little to the story and it has all been shown in the second reel. We already realize that she is not without temptation; but there has been little danger from it up to now. You could tempt a rose with as much hope of success. Now the empty sheath of the woman has been filled with the knife of discontent. She is likely to cut through her troubles and fly to some other kind of summer weather merely because this that she owns is becoming chilled. Her husband fails to realize this, and the weakness of the third reel is most in that this important fact isn't pictured clearly. The sister saw it a bit sooner than he, and if she had tried to make the man see it, it would have given more dramatic struggle and even more progress through the reel.

"The sister's unaccountable futility when Frou Frou has determined to run away with the dissolute count is weak; for it is distinctly out of line with these two characters. The sister seems to make no real struggle at all. The weakness is in the business not in the acting. The role of Louise is taken by Phyllis Bostwick, whose work is strong support to the picture. Harry Benham, who plays Frou Frou's husband, also does commendable work. James Cruze, his false friend, plays with the passion necessary. Her flight to him when the chill winds begin to blow was quite understandable. Both these men are thoroughly at home in their business in those scenes in the last reel immediately following the discovery of Frou Frou by her outraged husband who has followed her flight to Venice, and they are scene also in the duel.

"The picture has widely made much of its nursery scenes; they have the greatest importance in this particular story. The little son of Frou Frou is played by The Kidlet and surely the youngster has a charm that is remarkable. These scenes are as full as poetry - the nursery itself and all the action around the boy are tremendously effective for good on the picture's impression. The photography and staging of the whole offering are meritorious. There are slight shortcomings. Mr. Cruze wore the same suit of clothes through, it seems, the whole story, even in the duel he had the same cut-away suit that he wore at the rehearsal of the play for the poor, held two years before at the home of Frou Frou. Then that outdoor scene in Venice was quite plainly an American wooden piazza. Yet, although there are certain things that it was necessary to criticize, it remains true that most of the picture is wholly successful and that its beauties and good qualities overbalance its defects. It is truthfully a most charming offering, and this reviewer counts himself lucky in having had the chance to see it. It is above the average as entertainment for such as can appreciate the art of acting and staging."

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