Beau Brummel (Silent) (DVD)

George Brummel, a relatively penniless captain in the British Cavalry, is in love with Maid Margery, the daughter of a tradesman. Though she loves him in return, she is pressured into marrying wealthy Lord Alvanley. No longer seeing any point in the respectable life, Brummel refashions himself as a devil-may-care womanizing dandy. He becomes friends with George, the Prince of Wales, and the two soon become notorious for their carousing. A rift forms in their friendship when newly-widowed Margery re-enters Brummel's life. Now "Beau" Brummel, the most stylish man in Britain, and the Prince of Wales are in direct competition over the hand of the fair (and presently quite rich) maiden...

A tragi-comic take on the life of the notorious English dandy, Beau Brummel is best enjoyed as a showcase for the talents of "the Great Profile", John Barrymore. The legendary actor was at the time just hitting his stride. His recent theatrical presentation of Hamlet at the Manhattan Opera House had caught the eye of Warner Brothers, who signed him as their lead in Beau Brummel. (Amazingly, this was actually considered the studio's first "A" picture.) Chosen as his co-star was a 17-year-old Mary Astor, who had only appeared in six feature films at this early stage in her career. In her twenties and thirties, she would give strong performances in such classics as Red Dust (1932), The Prisoner of Zenda (1937), Midnight (1939), The Maltese Falcon (1941) and win an Academy Award for The Great Lie (1941). But in 1924, Astor was still a teenage girl insecure in her acting ability, and embarked on an affair with the 42-year-old Barrymore, who was unsatisfied in his marriage to socialite Blanche Oelrichs. "In the next three years he would teach me that I was a person, that I was somebody in my own right, and not just a...trained seal" Astor would recall years later in her autobiography. Capitalizing on the sexual magnetism of Barrymore and Astor, Beau Brummel was a massive success for Warner Brothers. The studio subsequently signed Barrymore to a lucrative three-picture contract. Sadly, his affair with Astor fell apart by the time they co-starred together again in Don Juan (1926). Beau Brummel would be remade by MGM in 1954 with Elizabeth Taylor and Stewart Granger.

• silent