This month marks the eighth anniversary of the Turner Classic Movies broadcast premiere of Souls for Sale (1923), and the network obliges silent film buffs by re-airing the film tonight at 9 PM PT/Midnight ET. Viewers who have never seen Rupert Hughes‘s film before or those who love movies about making movies are in for a treat!
Souls for Sale was once thought a lost film. Copies began being found in archives or shared by collectors in the eighties and nineties. Most were in rough shape and not all were complete. A collaboration between Turner Classic Movies and MGM resulted in a restored version of the film. Marcus Sjöwall won The Young Film Composers Competition to provide its soundtrack.
Roger Ebert called it, “drama, melodrama, romance and satire all at once–wrapped up in a behind-the-scenes look at how a desperate young woman fell into the movie business by accident and became a star.” That young woman, Remember “Mem” Steddon, is played by Eleanor Boardman in her lead debut. She’s given plenty of material.
Mem flees her quickly wed and highly suspect husband Owen Scudder (Lew Cody) on their wedding night. She hops off their honeymoon train and ends up lost in a desert before being rescued by a Sheik on a camel (Frank Mayo). Mem’s not hallucinating! She’s stumbled upon a film set. Despite Mem not initially being interested in a film career due to the industry’s scandalous reputation, she ends up an actress and caught in a love polygon completed by Richard Dix and Mae Busch. If that’s not enough to tempt you to watch, would a climactic scene taking place under a big top during a lightning storm?
Besides delivering plenty of plot, the movie offers many cameos. Actors and actresses like Blanche Sweet, Patsy Ruth Miller, Zasu Pitts, Dale Fuller, Raymond Griffith, Anna Q. Nilsson, Jean Hersholt, and Chester Conklin appear. Directors Erich von Stroheim, Charlie Chaplin, King Vidor (later Eleanor’s spouse), Fred Niblo, and Marshall Neilan are caught in front of the camera. Stroheim fans get the gift of a scene shot on Greed‘s set. Even rarely filmed screenwriter and editor June Mathis appears.
Overall, a fun movie offering plenty of silent film Easter eggs!
