(Cecil B. DeMille, US 1920, 101 min. at 19 frames per sec., 35mm nitrate, silent, tinted)
Print source: George Eastman Museum, Rochester, NY
By the time she appeared in Why Change Your Wife?, Gloria Swanson was one of the biggest stars in the world, thanks largely to the three films she and director Cecil B. DeMille previously made together: Don’t Change Your Husband; For Better, For Worse; and the jaw-dropping Male and Female. All four were released in 1919–1920 and are central to the cycle of sophisticated “marriage films” DeMille directed for Famous Players-Lasky.
Originally from Chicago, where early on she appeared behind Chaplin in the Essanay short His First Job (1915), Swanson followed the industry west to California. For Mack Sennett at Keystone, she appeared on a beach in a bathing suit (but later furiously denied ever being a Sennett Bathing Beauty). She then starred alongside Bobby Vernon in a series of comedy shorts before attempting dramatic roles at Triangle. But it was the perfect storm of Famous Players-Lasky’s budget, DeMille’s ego, and Swanson’s talent that would launch her into superstardom.
The on-screen makeover Swanson’s character undergoes as she transforms from dowdy bluestocking to freewheeling divorcée, costumed in the latest fashions (courtesy of an uncredited Natacha Rambova, the soon-to-be Mrs. Valentino), is more than an exquisitely pleasurable fantasy. DeMille’s marriage films—or, more accurately, “divorce films”—offered a modern vision of American womanhood that was by no means limited to her wardrobe. But pleasurable it is: in keeping with DeMille’s “more is more” ethos, the path to reconciliation with Swanson’s ex (Thomas Meighan) includes near-death by banana peel and a thrillingly staged catfight to end all catfights.
Ironically for Swanson, the lavish wardrobes that made her an icon became a brocade trap; she soon felt being a “fashion plate” detracted from how good an actor she had become. Swanson would make more movies for Famous Players-Lasky—but only two with DeMille—before striking out as an independent producer of her own films.
This tinted print came to the George Eastman Museum from Cecil B. DeMille’s personal collection. It was struck for the director in 1925. Its shrinkage reaches 1.8%, the highest ever projected at NPS. However, the stock is supple and flexible, perforations are mostly intact, and the majority of splices are original (they indicate a change of tints rather than missing footage).
– Ken Fox
This screening is free for passholders of the sold-out 10th Nitrate Picture Show. A limited number of single-screening tickets may be available for purchase in person at the Dryden Theatre box office on a rush-line basis. Rush tickets will be sold only if seats remain after the film’s spoken introduction has begun.