The Wife of the Centaur
The Wife of the Centaur is a 1924 American silent drama film directed by King Vidor, and released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer shortly after it formed from a merger of Metro Pictures, Goldwyn Pictures, and Mayer Pictures in April 1924. Metro had acquired the movie rights to Cyril Hume's debut novel Wife of a Centaur (Doran, 1923) in November.[1]
| The Wife of the Centaur | |
|---|---|
.jpg.webp) Still with John Gilbert and Aileen Pringle | |
| Directed by | King Vidor |
| Written by | Douglas Z. Doty Cyril Hume |
| Starring | Eleanor Boardman |
| Cinematography | John Arnold |
| Edited by | Hugh Wynn |
| Distributed by | Metro-Goldwyn |
Release date |
|
Running time | 81 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | Silent (English intertitles) |
Plot
A novelist, Jeffery Dwyer (Gilbert), imagines that he has been reincarnated as a creature from Greek mythology. He is romantically torn between the emotionally mature Joan (Boardman) and a less stable “jazz girl” Inez (Pringle). Jeffery marries Inez, but a love triangle forms when he returns repeatedly to Joan.[2]
Cast
- Eleanor Boardman as Joan Converse
- John Gilbert as Jeffrey Dwyer
- Aileen Pringle as Inez Martin
- Kate Lester as Mrs. Converse
- William Haines as Edward Converse
- Kate Price as Mattie
- Jacqueline Gadsden as Hope Larrimore
- Bruce Covington as Mr. Larrimore
- Philo McCullough as Harry Todd
- Lincoln Stedman as Chuck
- William Orlamond as Uncle Roger
- Betty Francisco
Preservation
With no copies of The Wife of the Centaur (1924) located in any film archives,[3][4] it is a lost film. A few seconds of Boardman from this film (from around 3:07 to 3:10) is included in Twenty Years After (1944), a promotional short made by MGM to celebrate its 20th anniversary.
Footnotes
- "Cub Reporter Gets $25,000 For Movie Rights To Novel". The Sun (Baltimore). November 23, 1923. Dateline "New York, Nov. 22 (Special)". "Movie Facts and Fancies". Boston Daily Globe. December 1, 1923, page 2.
- Durgnat and Simmon 1988 p. 342
- "Progressive Silent Film List: The Wife of the Centaur". Silent Era. Retrieved March 26, 2009.
- "The Wife of the Centaur". American Silent Feature Film Survival Database. Retrieved January 10, 2014.
Sources
- Durgnat, Raymond and Simmon, Scott (1988). King Vidor, American. University of California Press, Berkeley. ISBN 0-520-05798-8