Famous Players-Lasky for Paramount release. A Cecil B. DeMille Production. Director: Cecil B. DeMille. Original story and scenario by Jeanie Macpherson. Art director: Paul Iribe. Photography: Alvin Wyckoff and L. Guy Wilky. Film editor: Anne Bauchens
Picture started: September 26,1922. Picture finished: November 27,1922. Length: 9,530 feet (ten reels). Cost: $408,432.64. Released: February 4,1923 (Los Angeles premiere). Gross:$881,206.75
Cast: Anna Q. Nilsson (Marian Ramsay), Milton Sills (Michael Ramsay), Pauline Garon (Mathilda “Tillie” Ramsay), Theodore Kosloff (M. Jaromir, king of Moravia), Elliott Dexter (Professor Reade), Julia Faye (the mischievous one), Clarence Geldart (James Kilkenna), George Field (minister to Moravia), Robert Brower (Hugo Kermaier), Forrest Robinson (Kramer), Gino Corrado (Lt. Braschek), Wedgewood No well (secretary to the minister), and Clarence Burton (caveman)
DeMille returned to top form with Adam’s Rib. The picture has a rich, well-made look, and there are many fine moments. Ultimately, however, the film suffers from a reliance on creaky, melodramatic plot devices that dim its overall effect.
The premise is simple: the wild young flapper of today is not so different from the wild young cave girl of several eons ago. Deep down she has heart, soul, and a willingness to sacrifice her own happiness for the happiness of others. The plot devised by Macpherson and DeMille concerns a middle-aged couple and their daughter. Michael Ramsay is a Chicago commodities trader trying to corner the market in wheat. After nineteen years of marriage, Marian Ram say suffers “the wife’s dilemma—a grown daughter and a lost romance.” Their teen ager, Tillie, “like most children today is left to shift for herself.”
Tillie is in love with Professor Reade, a gifted but socially backward paleontologist.1 Meanwhile, Tillie’s mother is being courted by Jaromir, deposed king of Moravia. At the risk of losing her scientist “caveman,” Tillie saves her mother’s reputation by pretending to cozy up to Jaromir to keep her father from discovering that his wife and the monarch are planning to run off together. When Professor Reade becomes disenchanted over the girl’s seeming interest in Jaromir, she explains her actions by telling him a domestic tale of primitive men. One of the better motivated flashbacks in DeMille’s work, the prehistoric sequence is visually stunning and serves not only as a vague parallel to modern life, but also foreshadows the action to come in the film. Although Paul Iribe was the primary art director on Adam’s Rib, Wilfred Buckland returned to create the primitive setting for the flashback. Idealized and realistic at the same time, Buckland’s stage-bound forest of ancient redwoods is a fine example of the “imaginative” scenery he sought to bring to the screen.
Where Manslaughter is devoid of any visual distinction, Adam ’s Rib amply demonstrates DeMille’s visual wit. In the museum after hours Tillie (the modern Eve) pursues Professor Reade (the reluctant Adam) around the skeletons of long-extinct dinosaurs. The scene plays on biblical associations between the first two people and all their ancestors with subtle charm. Later, at a party, Mrs. Ramsay expects to meet Jaromir in the garden. Michael Ramsay suspects his wife and manages to head off the deposed king. Ramsay approaches his wife from behind and puts his hands on her shoulders. Unaware that the man is not Jaromir, Marian Ramsay confesses her love and with closed eyes kisses her devastated husband. She turns away and goes back to the party without realizing the substitution. While the scene might be improbable, DeMille stages the action convincingly, and the impact is much greater than if Ramsay had merely discovered Marian in Jaromir’s embrace.
Where Adam’s Rib fails to be believable, however, is in the resolution of the dramatic situation. As Marian is about to leave with Jaromir, Tillie comes to stop her mother. Michael Ramsay arrives to buy off the king, and both women hide in his apartment. Just as Ramsay is about to discover his wife, Tillie reveals herself as being Jaromir’s hidden love. Ramsay is even more devastated—certain that no decent man will marry his daughter now that she has spoiled herself with the likes of Jaromir. This is exactly the sort of moralistic claptrap that DeMille avoided in most of his earlier social comedies, and the melodramatic turn drags Adam’s Rib down in its final act. What starts out as a defense of the “flapper” turns into a muddled “women’s drama.”
One problem with the film is the casting. Pauline Garon was a pleasant, non descript screen personality. DeMille touted her as a major discovery, but Garon had none of the charisma of Gloria Swanson, Bebe Daniels, or Leatrice Joy. Adam’s Rib is supposed to be Tillie’s story, but attention shifts to the characters played by Anna Q. Nilsson and Milton Sills. Garon simply was not strong enough to carry the picture.
While critics were relatively kind toward Manslaughter, they roasted Adam’s Rib with phrases like “The Ornate DeMille’s latest—and worst” and “A silly, piffling screenplay.” The last word was written by play wright-critic Robert E. Sherwood in old Life magazine: “Adam’s Rib is somewhat above the usual DeMille standard—which statement may be added to the Dictionary of Faint Praise.” 1923 audiences agreed with the critics. While Manslaughter piled up huge grosses, returns on Adam’s Rib fell by a third. With distribution fees and costs for prints and advertising, the picture barely broke even. After five years and ten pictures the DeMille “bedroom” cycle was threadbare.
Buster Keaton offered a devastating parody of the DeMille flashbacks in his first feature, The Three Ages (Keaton-Metro, 1923). What had passed for art in 1919 was becoming pretension in 1923.
One factor that contributed to the modest box-office performance of Adam’s Rib was the growth of Christian fundamentalism in the 1920s. From the founding of the first colonies, Americans have always exhibited strong religious inclinations, but there is a cyclical ebb and flow to the public expression of religious belief. The 1880s saw the growth of camp meetings and religious revivals. In the 1980s the televange list rose quickly and then fell from favor. While the 1920s are remembered as the Jazz Age, it was also a decade of religious fundamentalism. Evangelists like Billy Sunday and Aimee Semple McPherson were well-known national figures, and the debate pitting creationism against Darwinism raged. The 1925 Dayton, Tennessee, “Monkey” trial of John T. Scopes brought the issue to national attention. Tennessee passed a law forbidding the teaching of evolution, and biology teacher Scopes set out to test the law. Chicago attorney Clarence Darrow came south to handle Scopes’ s defense; William Jennings Bryan (Democratic presidential candidate in 1896, 1900, and 1908) volunteered his services as assistant to the prosecution. Ultimately Scopes lost, and the Tennessee law was upheld. Given the atmosphere of the time, the scenes of apelike cave people in the Adam’s Rib flashback were anathema to a sizeable segment of the audience. The relative failure of the picture contributed to the anxiety of Paramount executives as costs began to mount on DeMille’s next film, The Ten Commandments.