| Vanity's Price | |
|---|---|
 Lobby card | |
| Directed by | Roy William Neill Josef von Sternberg (ass't director) |
| Written by | Paul Bern (story, scenario) |
| Produced by | Gothic Productions |
| Starring | Anna Q. Nilsson |
| Cinematography | Hal Mohr |
Production company | Gothic Productions |
| Distributed by | Film Booking Offices of America |
Release date |
|
Running time | 60 minutes; 6 reels |
| Country | United States |
| Language | Silent (English intertitles) |
Vanity's Price is a 1924 American silent drama film directed by Roy William Neill and starring Anna Q. Nilsson. It was produced by the Gothic Productions company and released by FBO.[1][2]
The film is notable as the feature that brought assistant director Josef von Sternberg to the attention of critics for his handling of two sequences in the film.[3]
Cast
- Anna Q. Nilsson as Vanna Du Maurier
- Stuart Holmes as Henri De Greve
- Wyndham Standing as Richard Dowling
- Arthur Rankin as Teddy, Vanna's son
- Lucille Ricksen as Sylvia, Teddy's fiancée
- Robert Bolder as Bill Connors, Theatrical Manager
- Cissy Fitzgerald as Mrs. Connors
- Dot Farley as Katherine, Vanna's Maid
- Charles Newton as Butler
- Rowfat-Bey Haliloff as Dancer
Production
Von Sternberg, in his 1965 autobiography recalls:
Two incidents had been left out of the supposedly completed Vanity’s Price, which the director [Roy William Neill] had not considered worthwhile doing, and the studio [FBO] head now pleaded with me to direct those short episodes.”[4] One of the scenes concerned a young couple on a park bench, in love. The other involved a surgery in which a woman is operated in a therapeutic procedure related to the "Monkey gland" theory of Serge Voronoff.
Von Sternberg writes:
I gave orders to build an operating theatre with a deep pit and circular rows of seats rising steeply above the other to make it look like a cockfight arena. I planned to have the student physicians watch the surgery through binoculars with an occasional ironic grin.[5][6]
When the picture was previewed this sequence was praised by critics and von Sternberg was offered a position as director at FBO studios, but he turned it down to make an independently financed film, The Salvation Hunters (1925).[7][8][9]
Preservation
Vanity's Price is currently presumed lost.[10] In February of 2021, the film was cited by the National Film Preservation Board on their Lost U.S. Silent Feature Films list.[11]
Footnotes
- "Vanity's Price". afi.com. Retrieved April 11, 2026.
- Progressive Silent Film List: Vanity's Price at silentera.com
- Sternberg, 1965 p. 197-198
- Sternberg, 1965 p. 197-198
- Sternberg, 1965 p. 197-198
- Hall, 1924: "Monkey gland"
- Sternberg, 1965 p. 198
- Hall, 1924
- Baxter, 1971 p. 25-26: see footnote "October 8, 1924" review.
- "The Library of Congress American Silent Feature Film Survival Database: Vanity's Price". memory.loc.gov. Archived from the original on July 26, 2023. Retrieved April 11, 2026.
- "7,200 Lost U.S. Silent Feature Films (1912-29)" (PDF). National Film Preservation Board. Retrieved April 11, 2026.
Sources
- Baxter, John. 1971. The Cinema of Josef von Sternberg. London: A. Zwemmer / New York: A. S. Barnes & Co. ISBN 978-0498079917
- Hall, Mordaunt. 1924. THE SCREEN: “A Rejuvenation Story.” The New York Times, October 8, 1924. https://www.nytimes.com/1924/10/08/archives/the-screen-a-rejuvenation-story.html Retrieved 20 May 2024.
- Sternberg, Josef von. 1988. Fun in a Chinese Laundry. Mercury House, San Francisco, California. ISBN 0-916515-37-0 (pbk.)