"The Affairs Of Anatol Threaten His Marriage"

While D.W. Griffith (with muse Lillian Gish) was creating the historical epic with such landmark movies as The Birth of a Nation and Intolerance, Cecil B. De Mille was busy developing Hollywood sophistication, decadence and glamour in a series of 'bedroom' dramas he made with star Gloria Swanson during the late teens and early twenties. One such movie is The Affairs of Anatol.

 The De Witt Spencers, a young, newly married, upper-class couple (Gloria Swanson as Vivian and Wallace Reid as Anatol) enjoy an evening out atThe Green Fan, a glitzy Manhattan nightclub. Unfortunately the kindhearted Anatol runs into Emilie Dixon, his childhood sweetheart from Pompton Lakes, New Jersey, who is now the flapper-toy of an older rich man. He soon puts his marriage at risk by trying to 'save' the girl from a life of sin. When his social experiment ends in disaster the De Witts try to patch things up by taking a second honeymoon in the country. Anatol is soon up to his old tricks, this time getting involved with the suicidal wife of a self-righteous preacher. Finally he decides to give everything up for a life of hedonism in the arms of Satan Synne (the wickedest woman in New York) only to discover that she is a closet sentimentalist trying to raise money for her invalid husband. He rushes back to Vivian but is it too late? Has she already fallen for the charms of best friend Max?

 Never before had the American public seen glamorous people living in such opulence. Never before had they seen independent women drinking, smoking and showing off so much skin. The sets are magnificent, some of the scenes are meticulously hand-tinted and the costumes are more extravagant than anything seen since. Emilie wears a beaded headband; Satan Synne sports a tiara and cape of pearls in the shape of an octopus, and Gloria Swanson as the pouty, spoiled Vivian demonstrates why she was known for her stylish ability to wear anything.

 Silent movies rarely had all-star casts. The studios considered it foolish to 'waste' more than one star on a single movie. The Affairs of Anatol is a happy exception to this rule. Although Swanson is the only one remembered today Wallace Reid, Agnes Ayres, Bebe Daniels, Monte Blue and Theodore Kosloff (who appears intermittently as a Hindu hypnotist) were all big name stars at the time.

 De Mille's moralizing is certainly dated, and the movie runs at least twenty minutes too long, still it is worth watching for the elegant stars of yesteryear in extravagant scenes of epic debauchery as only one of cinemas two greatest geniuses could have created.

Did you enjoy Patrick's review? +1 -0