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Peg o' My Heart (1922 film)
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Wikipedia article
'Peg o' My Heart' is a 1922 American silent drama film directed by King Vidor 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.Durgnat and Simmons, 1988 p. 36: Approximately ten thousand English-language performances....within six years of its 1912 debut.
Six reels of the original eight reels survive at the Library of Congress.
Proposed Paramount film
In 1919 Famous Players-Lasky filmed a version of the play and it starred newcomer Wanda Hawley. However, because of legal issues with Laurette Taylor and her husband J. Hartley Mannersultimately decided in the United States Supreme Court case 'Manners v. Morosco'the film was never released.Blum, Daniel (c. 1953), 'Pictorial History of the Silent Film', p. 238.
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 as Sir Gerald Adair
* Russell Simpson as Jim O'Connell
* Ethel Grey Terry as Ethel Chichester
* Nigel Barrie as Charistian Brent
* Lionel Belmore as Hawks
* Vera Lewis as Mrs. Chichester
* Fred Huntley 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.Durgnat and Simmons, 1988 p. 35: ...the collaspe of [Vidor's] independent production company [and the loss Vidor Village studios] necessarily afforded fewer opportunities
Producer Louis B. Mayer, soon to form Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer 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.Durgnat and Simmons, 1988 p. 35: The stage play 'Peg o My Heart' an extremely restricted assignment. and p. 26: The two other films were 'Happiness' (1924), also with Taylor, and 'The Woman of Bronze' (1923)
The enormously popular Broadway actress Laurette Taylor who portrayed the impish Peg OConnell, an 18-year-old Irish orphan girl, was cast to star in the film production andat the age of thirty-eight (born 1884)presented certain technical challenges.Baxter 1976 p. 15
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.Baxter 1976 p. 16
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.Baxter 1976 p. 16-17
Theme
As written by Manners, 'Peg o' My Heart' contrasts the snobbishness of the British upper-middle class (Pegs 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, Pegs father emerges as an agitator for agrarian land reform, rather than a disaffected manual laborer as in the stage production. Pegs 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.Durgnat and Simmons, 1988 p. 36-37, Also see Rudiments of Vidors Political Philosophy, p. 26-27.
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.[https://web.archive.org/web/20141225003106/http://www.thegreatstars.com/lost_film_wanted.htm 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.
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