When a Man Loves

(Alan Crosland, US 1927, 111 min., 35mm)

Vitaphone at 90. John Barrymore stars with Dolores Costello, who would become his third wife the following year. This was the seventh screen adaption of Abbe Prevost’s 1731 novel Manon Lescaut and the third film to be released with a pre-recorded Vitaphone musical score and effects soundtrack. According to Mordaunt Hall’s review in the New York Times, the Vitaphone score was reproduced so well “that there were many in the audience who forgot until the last moment that there were no musicians in the pit.” When a Man Loves will be preceded by the three Vitaphone short subjects that accompanied it during its premiere engagement at the Selwyn Theatre in New York City. When a Man Loves was a joint restoration effort of the George Eastman Museum and the UCLA Film and Television Archive.