Cecil B. DeMille's Hollywood

22. The Heart of Nora Flynn

22 Th~ H~art of Nora Flynn Produced by the Jesse L. Feature Play Company for Paramount release. Director: Cecil B. DeMille. Scenario by Jeanie Macpherson. Original story by Hector Turnbull. Art director: Wilfred Buckland. Photography: Alvin Wyckoff Picture started: March 7, 1916. Picture completed: March 27, 1916. Length: 4,819 feet (five reels). Cost: $21,998.57. Released: April 24, 1916. Gross: $87,738.27 Cast: Marie Doro (Nora Flynn), Elliott Dexter (Nolan), Ernest Joy (Brantley Stone), Lola May (his wife), "Little" Billy Jacobs (Tommy Stone, their son), Peggy George [Margaret deMilleJ (Anne Stone, their daughter), Charles West Uack Murray), and Mrs. Lewis McCord (Maggie, the cook) The Heart ofNora Flynn is little more than a pleasant program picture, 1 notable for the appearance of stage star Marie Doro and her future husband, Elliott Dexter. Doro acted with William Gillette in his stage adaptation of Sherlock Holmes and was famous for her portrayal of Oliver Twist in a play based on the Dickens novel. She was a gifted actress with large, sad, dark eyes. Elliott Dexter became one of DeMille's favorite leading men. Solid, pleasant, capable-he never set the screen on fire, but he embodied the middle-class man in crisis that became the central character of so many DeMille productions of the late 191Os and 1920s. The rest ofthe cast included DeMille standby Ernest Joy, Griffith-Biograph alumnus Charles West, and the particularly untalented Lola May. Six-year-old "Little" Billy Jacobs (already a four-year veteran of the picture business) played one of the Stone children, and Peggy George (in reality DeMille's niece Margaret deMille) played his sister. Even though DeMille was director-general of the Jesse L. Lasky Feature Play Company, his projects were for the most part assigned by Lasky, and he didn't work up much enthusiasm for yet another Hector Turnbull story. The feud between DeMille and Lasky over Turnbull's abilities as a writer continued, and the film's main title reads: 79 80 / C~cil B. D~Mill~'5 Hollywood Marie Doro in The Heart of Nora Flynn By Jeanie Macpherson from the story by Hector Turnbull DeMille was simply unwilling to concede that Turnbull could produce a usable scenario without assistance, although Turnbull went on to a long and reasonably distinguished career as a screenwriter. The story for The Heart ofNora Flynn bears some resemblance to Turnbull's earlier scenario for The Cheat. Mrs. Brantley Stone is bored with her workaholic husband and encourages the attentions of playboy Jack Murray. The Cheat concentrates on the love triangle, but The Heart ofNora Flynn plays its tale of marital infidelity against the love story of Nora, the Brantley's Irish nanny, and Nolan, the family chauffeur. As in The Cheat, the wife's lover is shot (this time by the chauffeur, not the wife) and a great deal oflegal confusion arises over who really pulled the trigger, but the central conceit of the film is the old saw about the maid with a heart of gold taking the rap to save her mistress from social ruin. DeMille manages to build some on-screen excitement, however, as Nolan and his employer, Brantley Stone, return to Stone's home. Stone is certain that Jack Murray is keeping company with his wife, while Nolan is equally sure that Murray's attentions are directed toward Nora. The sequence takes on the appearance of an "old dark house" thriller as Brantley hovers over his wife and Nolan searches for Nora, while she tries to sneak Murray out of the house to protect Mrs. Stone's honor. Unfortunately, the rest of the film never develops the energy of this extended sequence, and the overall plot lacks focus. The Heart ofNora Flynn demonstrates DeMille's growing sense of staging scenes for the camera. Composition and movement within the frame combine in a deceptively simple visual approach. From his first film DeMille preferred to stage his scenes in a modified "American foreground " style-working close to the actors, but favoring two-shots over single close-ups or long shots. I He saved the visual pyrotechnics for emphasis and effect. In part this was simply practical technique. The closer one worked, the more one could save on building sets. But such considerations were only part ofthe reason for DeMille's fondness for the mid-shot. IfD.W. Griffith favored isolated close-ups to delve into his characters' thoughts [3.145.131.28] Project MUSE (2024-04-19 22...