The Roberto Pallme Collection

Broadway love

	English
	Italiano

BROADWAY LOVE (Bluebird Photoplays, Inc., US 1918)

Regia/dir., scen: Ida May Park; f./ph: King D. Gray; cast: Dorothy Phillips (Midge O’Hara), Juanita Hansen (Cherry Blow), William Stowell

(Henry Rockwell), Harry Von Meter (Jack Chalvey), Lon Chaney (Elmer Watkins), Gladys Tennyson (Mrs. Watkins), Eve Southern(Drina);
data uscita/released: 21.1.1918; 35mm, 4325 ft., 75’ (18 fps), imbibizione originale ricreata con il metodo Desmet / Desmet colour duplicating original tinting, George Eastman House, Rochester, NY.
Preserved in 2000 from a tinted 35mm nitrate print with Italian intertitles in the Roberto Pallme Collection. Restored in 2004 with English intertitles. Funded by the American Film Institute and The Film Foundation.

Didascalie in inglese / English intertitles.

Broadway in the Roaring Twenties was a magnet for pretty young girls looking for fun, fortune, and excitement. Louise Brooks, Olive Thomas, and

Billie Burke all started their careers on the stage and achieved fame with their work in the Ziegfeld Follies. Brooks and Thomas were Ziegfeld Girls,

who were always surrounded by ubiquitous stage-door Johnnies: Brooks recounted backstage visits and endless partying with Herman Mankiewicz,

Walter Wanger, and Joseph Schenck during her time with the Follies. Burke married her boss, Flo Ziegfeld, and another young performer, 16-year-old Millicent Willson, caught the eye of the biggest stage-door Johnny of them all, 34-year-old bachelor William Randolph Hearst. So the trials and

tribulations of the characters Midge O’Hara and Cherry Blow in Broadway Love have a distinct ring of truth, due in no small part to the sympathetic writing and direction of Ida May Park.

Born in Los Angeles in 1879, Park is credited with writing more than 50 scenarios between 1914 and 1930, and with directing another 14, mostly under the Bluebird banner for Universal. She and her husband Joseph De Grasse formed a writing/directing team at Bluebird, producing films that most often featured Dorothy Phillips. Lon Chaney, who was building his own career, also appeared as a supporting player in five of Park’s films. Park took over the director’s megaphone when Lois Weber, one of the principal Bluebird artists, moved on to produce her own films. Park’s directing career began in 1917 with The Flashlight for Bluebird, and ended only 3 years later with Bonnie May, for which she shared directing credit with De Grasse. Despite the fact that Moving Picture World acknowledged her in 1916 for having “…all the facility and disregard for obstructions that any man might demonstrate,” Park lapsed into obscurity, and of the 14 films she directed only two are still extant, Broadway Love and Bread (1918). De Grasse’s brief obituary in Variety (May 1940) concludes with the mention that his wife and son survived him. Ida May Park’s passing in June 1954 was not noted in Variety at all. – CAROLINE YEAGER.

BROADWAY LOVE (Bluebird Photoplays, Inc., US 1918)

Regia/dir., scen: Ida May Park; f./ph: King D. Gray; cast: Dorothy Phillips (Midge O’Hara), Juanita Hansen (Cherry Blow), William Stowell

(Henry Rockwell), Harry Von Meter (Jack Chalvey), Lon Chaney (Elmer Watkins), Gladys Tennyson (Mrs. Watkins), Eve Southern(Drina);
data uscita/released: 21.1.1918; 35mm, 4325 ft., 75’ (18 fps), imbibizione originale ricreata con il metodo Desmet / Desmet colour duplicating original tinting, George Eastman House, Rochester, NY.
Preserved in 2000 from a tinted 35mm nitrate print with Italian intertitles in the Roberto Pallme Collection. Restored in 2004 with English intertitles. Funded by the American Film Institute and The Film Foundation.

Didascalie in inglese / English intertitles.

Broadway nei ruggenti anni ’20 era una calamita per le belle ragazze in cerca di divertimento, successo ed emozioni. Louise Brooks, Olive

Thomas e Billie Burke cominciarono tutte la loro carriera sul palcoscenico e trovarono la fama nelle Ziegfeld Follies. La Brooks e la

Thomas furono Ziegfeld Girls, circondate da onnipresenti ammiratori sempre in attesa davanti all’ingresso degli artisti: la Brooks raccontava

di visite dietro le quinte e feste infinite con Herman Mankiewicz, Walter Wanger e Joseph Schenck. La Burke sposò il suo boss, Flo

Ziegfeld, e per la sedicenne Millicent Willson stette in coda davanti al camerino, lo scapolo trentaquattrenne William Randolph Hearst. Così,

le sofferenze e le tribolazioni dei personaggi di Midge O’Hara e Cherry Blow in Broadway Love hanno un netto accento di sincerità, di

certo anche grazie alla partecipata scrittura e regia di Ida May Park.

Nata a Los Angeles nel 1879, alla Park sono attribuite di più di 50 sceneggiature tra il 1914 ed il 1930, e la regia di altri 14 film, perlopiù

sotto lo stendardo della Bluebird, per conto della Universal. Con il marito Joseph De Grasse formò alla Bluebird un team di autori e

registi, realizzando film in cui spesso appariva Dorothy Phillips. Lon Chaney, che si stava anch’egli facendo un nome, apparve come non

protagonista in cinque film della Park, che prese in mano il megafono da regista quando Lois Weber, una dei maggiori artisti in forze alla

Bluebird, decise di prodursi da sé i film. La carriera registica della Park iniziò nel 1917 con The Flashlight, per la Bluebird, e si concluse solo 3

anni più tardi con Bonnie May, diretto in tandem con De Grasse. Benché Moving Picture World ne avesse lodato nel 1916 “…tutta l’abilità e la noncuranza per gli ostacoli,” la Park sprofondò nell’oblio, e dei 14 film da lei diretti se ne sono conservati due, Broadway Love e Bread (1918). Il breve necrologio su De Grasse pubblicato in Variety (maggio 1940) si chiude ricordando che gli sopravvivevano moglie e figlio. La scomparsa di Ida May Park, nel giugno del 1954, non fu nemmeno riportata su Variety. – CAROLINE YEAGER 

(Sorce/Fonte: http://www.cinetecadelfriuli.org/gcm/ed_precedenti/edizione2006/GCM06catalog.pdf; Programme notes by: Caroline Yeager, George Eastman House)