Lucretia Lombard (1923)

 

Cast:
Irene Rich ... Lucretia Morgan
Monte Blue ... Stephen Winship
Marc McDermott ... Sir Allen Lombard
Norma Shearer ... Mimi Winship
Alec B. Francis ... Judge Winship
John Roche ... Fred Winship
Lucy Beaumont ... Mrs. Winship
Otto Hoffman ... Sandy

Directed by Jack Conway.
Produced by Harry Rapf.
Based off of the novel Flaming Passion, by Kathleen Norris.
Scenario by Sada Cowan and Bertram Millhauser.
Edited by Howard Hawks.

Released December 8, 1923.
A Warner Bros. Picture.

Box Office Information:
Cost of Production: $128,000
Domestic Gross: $348,000
Forgein Gross: $37,000
Total Gross: $385,000
Profit/Loss: (?)

Background:

“By the time of Lucretia Lombard,” argued Mick LaSalle in Complicated Women, “[Norma’s] second Hollywood feature and the earliest to survive, the camera adored her. Indeed, it adored her too much---it was supposed to adore the film’s star, Irene Rich. It was Rich who had the title role of Lucretia, a woman whose lover is forced into an engagement with a superficial, spoiled young girl, played by Shearer.”

For every Hollywood superstar, there comes a time when a studio pushes out with the old and in with the new. Such was the case with Lucretia Lombard, as Mick LaSalle pointed out. As director Lloyd Bacon and film editor Frank Ware later made a Billie Dove melodrama, A Notorious Affair (1930), a featured vehicle for an up-and-coming Kay Francis, director Jack Conway and, acting as a film editor, legendary Howard Hawks created a fine showcase for Norma Shearer in this typical drama of the early cinema.

“I liked Norma Shearer,” Hawks remembered, “and didn’t think much of Irene Rich, so I made Norma the heroine and reversed the whole thing.”

Conway and Hawks went all out for the climax of the movie, in which Norma dies in a devastating forest fire. Apparently, prints at the time were tinted a blood-red to give the dramatic effect even more tragedy. This gave a printed image of Norma in the minds of 1923 audiences, bolstering her fame considerably with audiences, even though Lucretia Lombard was meant to be a reunion for Irene Rich and Monte Blue, who had already successfully made Brass (1922), directed by Sidney Franklin, one of Norma’s favorite directors in the coming years.

Irene Rich had started her career out with a film debut in A Desert Wooing (1918), which also featured Jack Holt, Norma’s leading man in Empty Hands (1924). Work in eight films with Will Rogers followed, including Water Water Everywhere (1920, their first teaming) and The Ropin’ Fool (1922, made for Hal Roach). She hadn’t followed the typical road to stardom like Norma would, starting off at eighteen in bit parts, working up to leading lady and superstar ten years later. Rich was twenty-seven when she made her movie debut, and her typecasting as society figures and good-girls limited her stardom.

Lucretia Lombard was the type of character Rich would become most associated with.

By the time 1931 rolled around, she was playing a supporting part in Strangers May Kiss (1931), which featured Norma in her first film after receiving an Academy Award for Best Actress in The Divorcee (1930).

Monte Blue began his career debuting as an extra in D.W. Griffith’s The Birth of a Nation (1915), appearing in minor roles in Griffith’s Intolerance (1916), Walter Edwards’ Romance and Arabella (1919, with Constance Talmadge). Blue never reached the level of popularity other leading men like John Gilbert did, but he worked up until his death in 1963, having bit parts in such prestige movies like Possessed (1947, with Joan Crawford) and Key Largo (1948, Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall).

Lucretia Lombard was based off of Kathleen Norris’ Flaming Passion. In just under twenty years, Norris’ work would be brought to the screen seventeen times. Other notable film versions of her works include Passion Flower (1930, with Kay Francis) and Josselyn’s Wife (1919), which was remade in 1925 Pauline Frederick by Tiffany Productions. Change of Heart (1934), based on Norris’ novel, would star Janet Gaynor and Charles Ruggles, featuring both Ginger Rogers and Shirley Temple in small roles.

Though today she is seldom remembered, if at all, judging by the star-power behind the film versions of her works she must have been pretty popular during the time.

But Norris' popularity with the public didn't phase critics, Lucretia Lombard didn’t perform well with critics at all, “Lucretia Lombard, by the way, has an alternate title,” wrote Robert E. Sherwood in Life magazine. “As a matter of fact, the title doesn’t make a difference. It isn’t a good picture.”

The opinion was turned into fact when the New York Times considered it “poorly cut” and “not an overwhelming success of entertainment.”

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