''Wine of Youth'' is a 1924 American silent

comedy drama film Comedy drama, also known by the portmanteau ''dramedy'', is a genre of dramatic works that combines elements of comedy and drama. The modern, scripted-television examples tend to have more humorous bits than simple comic relief seen in a typical ...

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 released by

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 ...

, shortly after the merger which created MGM in April 1924. Vidor did not consider it important enough to mention in his autobiography, although it did advance the careers of three young stars-to-be:

Ben Lyon Ben Lyon (February 6, 1901 – March 22, 1979) was an American film actor and a studio executive at 20th Century-Fox who later acted in British radio, films and TV. Early life and career Lyon was born in Atlanta, Georgia, the son of Alvine ...

Eleanor Boardman Olive Eleanor Boardman (August 19, 1898 – December 12, 1991) was an American film actress of the silent era. Early life and career Olive Eleanor Boardman was born on August 19, 1898, the youngest child to George W. Boardman and Janice Merriam ...

, and

William Haines Charles William Haines (January 2, 1900 – December 26, 1973) was an American actor and interior designer. Haines was discovered by a talent scout and signed with Goldwyn Pictures in 1922. His career gained momentum when he received favo ...

. An early “

flapper Flappers were a subculture of young Western women in the 1920s who wore short skirts (knee height was considered short during that period), bobbed their hair, listened to jazz, and flaunted their disdain for what was then considered accepta ...

” romance of the

Roaring Twenties The Roaring Twenties, sometimes stylized as Roaring '20s, refers to the 1920s decade in music and fashion, as it happened in Western society and Western culture. It was a period of economic prosperity with a distinctive cultural edge in the ...

, Vidor tested the limits of presenting unconventional social behavior among American youth in the Jazz Age which ends with a

paean A paean () is a song or lyric poem expressing triumph or thanksgiving. In classical antiquity, it is usually performed by a chorus, but some examples seem intended for an individual voice ( monody). It comes from the Greek παιάν (also πα ...

to parental authority.

Plot

Mary (Eleanor Boardman) is a girl wooed by two suitors but made afraid of marriage by the quarreling of her parents. Eventually she accepts Lynn, the more refined and poised of the two suitors.

Cast

Production

Vidor's arrival at the newly amalgamated

would mark the beginning of a 20-year association with the studio. ''Wine of Youth'' is his first film appear under M-G-M.Durghat and Simmon 1988 p. 52-53

Theme

''Wine of Youth'' is the first of four films that preceded Vidor's groundbreaking war epic

The Big Parade ''The Big Parade'' is a 1925 American silent war drama film directed by King Vidor, starring John Gilbert, Renée Adorée, Hobart Bosworth, Tom O'Brien, and Karl Dane. Written by World War I veteran, Laurence Stallings, the film is about ...

(1925). In substance these four “ Jazz Age flaming youth pictures” of which three survive bear little resemblance to work to emerge in the late 1920s. Vidor opens the film by contrasting the courtship rituals that characterized the mothers and grandmothers of the female “flappers” in the post-WWI period. The young women of the earlier

Victorian Era In the history of the United Kingdom and the British Empire, the Victorian era was the period of Queen Victoria's reign, from 20 June 1837 until her death on 22 January 1901. The era followed the Georgian period and preceded the Edwardia ...

swoon while reclining in their parent's parlor with their beaux, declaring “there's never been so great a love as ours.” The liberated flappers reject these conventions and organize a faux honeymoon with their boyfriends in the forest. Here they drink alcohol, smoke cigarettes and cavort sexually, images very appealing to urban youth of that era. (Vidor described the movie as an “exploitation piece”). Having defied conventionality and flirted with her virginity, the protagonist, Mary, discovers a new and genuine desire for her future husband that returns her to the fold: “there's never been so great a love as ours.” Ostensibly an effort to present the virtues of a trial marriage - to discover “how a man is in every day life before you give him your all” - Vidor contended that “there were so many restrictions and inhibitions that it really took the guts out of the idea.”

Preservation

The film is preserved at

George Eastman House The George Eastman Museum, also referred to as ''George Eastman House, International Museum of Photography and Film'', the world's oldest museum dedicated to photography and one of the world's oldest film archives, opened to the public in 1949 in ...

, Rochester New York. In February 2020, the film was shown at the 70th Berlin International Film Festival, as part of a retrospective dedicated to King Vidor's career.

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. *Eames, John Douglas (1988). ''The MGM Story: the Complete History of Fifty Roaring Years''. Crown Publishers.

External links

* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Wine Of Youth 1924 films 1924 comedy-drama films 1920s English-language films American silent feature films American black-and-white films Films directed by King Vidor Films produced by Louis B. Mayer Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer films Flappers 1920s American films Silent American comedy-drama films