Don Juan (1926 film)

Don Juan
Directed by	Alan Crosland
Produced by	Warner Brothers
Written by	Maude Fulton(intertitles) Bess Meredyth(scenario)
Starring	John Barrymore Mary Astor Warner Oland
Music by	William Axt David Mendoza
Cinematography	Byron Haskin
Editing by	Harold McCord
Distributed by	Warner Bros.
Release date(s)	August 6, 1926 USA
Running time	110 min.(movie only; not with the Vitaphone shorts
Country	United States
Language	Silent film English intertitles

First-nighters posing for the camera outside the Warners' Theater before the premiere of "Don Juan" with John Barrymore (6 August 1926)

Don Juan (1926) is a Warner Brothers film, directed by Alan Crosland. It was the first feature-length film with synchronized Vitaphone sound effects and musical soundtrack, though it has no spoken dialogue. The production, which premiered in New York City on August 6, 1926, stars John Barrymore as the hand-kissing womanizer (the number of kisses in the film set a record).

Plot

If there was one thing that Don Juan de Marana learned from his father Don Jose, it was that women gave you three things - life, disillusionment and death. In his father's case it was his wife, Donna Isobel, and Donna Elvira who supplied the latter. Don Juan settled in Rome after attending the University of Pisa. Rome was run by the tyrannical Borgia family consisting of Caesar, Lucrezia and their evil cousin Count Donati.

Juan has his way with and was pursued by many women, but it is the one that he could not have that haunts him. It will be for her that he suffers the wrath of Borgia for ignoring Lucrezia and then killing Count Donati in a duel. For Adriana, they will both be condemned to death in the prison on the river Tiber.^[1]

Cast

• John Barrymore - Don Jose de Marana / Don Juan de Marana
• Jane Winton - Donna Isobel
• John Roche - Leandro
• Warner Oland - Cesare Borgia
• Estelle Taylor - Lucrezia Borgia
• Montagu Love - Count Giano Donati
• Josef Swickard - Duke Della Varnese
• Willard Louis - Pedrillo
• Nigel De Brulier - Marchese Rinaldo
• Hedda Hopper - Marchesia Rinaldo
• Myrna Loy - Mai, Lady in Waiting
• Mary Astor - Adriana della Varnese
• Lionel Braham - Duke Margoni (uncredited)
• Helene Costello - Rena, Adriana's Maid (uncredited)
• Helena D'Algy - Donna Elvira, Murderess (uncredited)
• Yvonne Day - Don Juan (at age 5) (uncredited)
• Philippe De Lacy - Don Juan (at age 10) (uncredited)
• Emily Fitzroy - The Dowager (uncredited)
• Johnny George - Hunchback/Castlekeeper/Informer (uncredited)
• Gibson Gowland - Gentleman of Rome (uncredited)
• Phyllis Haver - Imperia (uncredited)
• Sheldon Lewis - Gentleman of Rome (uncredited)
• June Marlowe - Trusia (uncredited)
• Dick Sutherland - Gentleman of Rome (uncredited)
• Gustav von Seyffertitz - Neri, the Alchemist (uncredited)
• Helen Lee Worthing - Eleanora (uncredited)

Sound recording

George Groves, on assignment to Vitaphone, was charged with recording the soundtrack to the film. He devised an innovative, multi-microphone technique and performed a live mix of the 107-strong orchestra. In doing so he became the first music mixer in film history. The music was played by the New York Philharmonic.

Program of Vitaphone Shorts Shown Before Don Juan

The following short films made in Vitaphone were shown before Don Juan on August 6, 1926 at the Warner Theater on 52nd and Broadway in Times Square:

• Introductory Remarks by Will H. Hays
• The New York Philharmonic, under the direction of Henry Hadley, plays the overture to Richard Wagner's Tannhäuser
• Roy Smeck, billed as "The Wizard of the Strings" in His Pastimes
• Anna Case and The Dancing Cansinos in La Fiesta
• Mischa Elman performs "Humoresque" by Antonín Dvořák
• Giovanni Martinelli sings "Vesti la giubba" from I Pagliacci

The Vitaphone system was quickly duplicated for the Hollywood premiere in October 1926 at Grauman's Egyptian Theater. Among the stars who attended included such luminaries as Charlie Chaplin, Greta Garbo, Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks, Theda Bara, Buster Keaton, Samuel Goldwyn, King Vidor and Eleanor Boardman, Cecil B. DeMille, Wallace Beery, Pola Negri, Dolores del Rio, Marion Davies, Janet Gaynor, Allan Dwan, Victor Fleming, and Richard Barthelmess.

References

1. ^ IMDB entry

External links

• Don Juan at the Internet Movie Database
• poster for Don Juan
• Don Juan at the silentera.com database