''Peg o' My Heart'' is a 1922 American silent

drama film In film and television, drama is a category or genre of narrative fiction (or semi-fiction) intended to be more serious than humorous in tone. Drama of this kind is usually qualified with additional terms that specify its particular super ...

directed by

King Vidor King Wallis Vidor (; February 8, 1894 – November 1, 1982) was an American film director, film producer, and screenwriter whose 67-year film-making career successfully spanned the silent and sound eras. His works are distinguished by a vivid, ...

and starring Laurette Taylor. It is based on the 1912 play written by Taylor's husband J. Hartley Manners. The play starred Laurette Taylor and famously ran a record number of performances on Broadway. Six reels of the original eight reels survive at the

Library of Congress The Library of Congress (LOC) is the research library that officially serves the United States Congress and is the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It is the oldest federal cultural institution in the country. The library ...

Proposed Paramount film

In 1919

Famous Players-Lasky Famous Players-Lasky Corporation was an American motion picture and distribution company formed on June 28, 1916, from the merger of Adolph Zukor's Famous Players Film Company—originally formed by Zukor as Famous Players in Famous Plays—and ...

filmed a version of the play and it starred newcomer

Wanda Hawley Wanda Hawley (born Selma Wanda Pittack; July 30, 1895 – March 18, 1963) was an American actress during the silent film era. She entered the theatrical profession with an amateur group in Seattle, and later toured the United States and Can ...

. However, because of legal issues with Laurette Taylor and her husband J. Hartley Manners—ultimately decided in the

United States Supreme Court The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that involve a point o ...

case '' Manners v. Morosco''—the film was never released.

Plot

As described in a film publication, Margaret "Peg" O'Connell (Taylor), according to her uncle's will, is to be educated in England under the supervision of her aunt, Mrs. Chichester (Lewis). Upon her arrival from Ireland, she is looked down upon by the Chichester household for her lack of culture, and she vows never to become a lady. She meets Jerry, a young man from a neighboring estate, who becomes her friend. Then she discovers that he is Sir Gerald Adair (Hamilton) and rebels at the deception he has been conducting. She also finds out that the only reason her aunt is keeping her is because of compensation from the will. Peg leaves to return home, but finds that she is in love with Gerald. Gerald follows her and proposes.

Cast

* Laurette Taylor as Margaret O'Connell *

Mahlon Hamilton Mahlon Preston Hamilton, Jr. (June 15, 1880 – June 20, 1960), was an American stage and screen actor. He was the son of a bartender born in Baltimore, Maryland, the eldest of four children, with the rest of the siblings being girls. Census ...

as Sir Gerald Adair * Russell Simpson as Jim O'Connell *

Ethel Grey Terry Ethel Grey Terry (October 2, 1882 – January 6, 1931) was an American actress of the silent era. She is best remembered for her role in '' The Penalty'' with Lon Chaney. Early years Ethel Grey Terry was born in Oakland, California, the ...

as Ethel Chichester *

Nigel Barrie Nigel Barrie (5 February 1889, in Calcutta, British India – 8 October 1971, in South Africa) was an Indian-born British actor. Biography Barrie's background as a dancer and actor on legitimate stages and in vaudeville in both Great Britain an ...

as Charistian Brent *

Lionel Belmore Lionel Belmore (12 May 1867 – 30 January 1953) was an English character actor and director on stage for more than a quarter of a century. Life and career Onstage, Belmore appeared with Wilson Barrett, Sir Henry Irving, William Faversham, ...

as Hawks *

Vera Lewis Vera Lewis (June 10, 1873 – February 8, 1956) was an American film and stage actress, beginning in the silent film era. She appeared in more than 180 films between 1915 and 1947. She was married to actor Ralph Lewis. Biography She was b ...

as Mrs. Chichester *

Fred Huntley Fred Huntley (29 August 1862 in London, England – 1 November 1931 in Hollywood, California) was an English silent film actor and director. Fred Huntley made his theater debut at London's Covent Garden in 1879. After years as the leading ...

as Jarvis, the butler (as Fred Huntly)

Production

After his short-lived “Vidor Village” studio closed, King Vidor abandoned independent film-making and sought work with the dominant film studios. Producer

Louis B. Mayer Louis Burt Mayer (; born Lazar Meir; July 12, 1882 or 1884 or 1885 – October 29, 1957) was a Canadian-American film producer and co-founder of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer studios (MGM) in 1924. Under Mayer's management, MGM became the film industr ...

, soon to form

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc., also known as Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures and abbreviated as MGM, is an American film, television production, distribution and media company owned by Amazon through MGM Holdings, founded on April 17, 1924 ...

offered him the task of adapting the stage production ''Peg o’ My Heart'' stage version to film. This would be the first of three plays Vidor would make for Mayer. The enormously popular

Broadway Broadway may refer to: Theatre * Broadway Theatre (disambiguation) * Broadway theatre, theatrical productions in professional theatres near Broadway, Manhattan, New York City, U.S. ** Broadway (Manhattan), the street **Broadway Theatre (53rd Stree ...

actress Laurette Taylor who portrayed the “impish” Peg O’Connell, an 18-year-old Irish orphan girl, was cast to star in the film production and—at the age of thirty-eight (born 1884)—presented certain technical challenges. The relatively insensitive film stock of the early 1920s required ample lighting to record images, and tended to reveal the chronological age of an actor.. Given these limitations, Vidor improvised with modified lens and succeeded in creating a sufficiently youthful screen appearance for Taylor. Vidor was not, however, able to suppress the stage mannerisms that Taylor had internalized during her lengthy Broadway career. Taylor was delighted with Vidor's handling of the picture and frequently screened ''Peg o' My Heart'' at social gatherings, prompting guest actress Ethel Barrymore to warn Taylor that she would cease to attend her parties if she had to “sit through Peg o' My Heart again”.

Theme

As written by Manners, ''Peg o' My Heart'' contrasts the snobbishness of the British upper-middle class (Peg’s aunt Chichester) with the good-willed and sweetly sentimental character of the Irish lass, Peg - a commonplace theatrical conceit. Vidor invests the film with a moral facet derived from his populism that champions agrarian self-reliance and political independence. In the film version, Peg’s father emerges as an agitator for agrarian land reform, rather than a disaffected manual laborer as in the stage production. Peg’s superiority to her aristocratic relatives is altered by Vidor, and now originates in her class orientation that holds rural populism as a virtue. As such, Vidor was able to invest an element of his social commitments into an “extremely restricted” cinematic project.

Preservation status

Copies of the film exist at Cinematheque Royale de Belgique Brussels, Museum of Modern Art New York, Cinematheque Quebecoise, Montreal and Filmoteca Espanola, Madrid.Peg O'My Heart at TheGreatStars.com; Lost Films Wanted
Wayback Machine).Retrieved July 21, 2018

Footnotes

References

*Baxter, John. 1976. ''King Vidor''. Simon & Schuster, Inc. Monarch Film Studies. LOC Card Number 75-23544. * Durgnat, Raymond and Simmon, Scott. 1988. ''King Vidor, American.'' University of California Press, Berkeley.

External links

*
''Peg o' My Heart''
at Virtual History {{DEFAULTSORT:Peg O My Heart 1922 films 1922 drama films Silent American drama films American silent feature films American black-and-white films Films directed by King Vidor Films with screenplays by J. Hartley Manners Metro Pictures films 1920s American films