By Richard Harland Smith
Scarlet Pages
Brief Synopsis
A female attorney makes a startling discovery about the woman she's defending from murder charges.
Cast & Crew
Read More
Ray Enright
Director
Elsie Ferguson
Mary Bancroft
John Halliday
John Remington
Marion Nixon
Nora Mason
Grant Withers
Bob Lawrence
Daisy Belmore
Sister Beatrice
Film Details
Genre
Drama
Action
Crime
Release Date
Sep
28,
1930
Premiere Information
not available
Production Company
First National Pictures
Country
United States
Screenplay Information
Based on the play Scarlet Pages by Samuel Shipman, John B. Hymer (New York, 9 Sep 1929).
Technical Specs
Duration
1h 6m
Sound
Mono
Color
Black and White
Theatrical Aspect Ratio
1.37 : 1
Film Length
5,906ft
(9 reels)
Synopsis
Mary Bancroft, a prominent New York attorney, refuses to marry John Remington, district attorney, for a reason she cannot divulge. At a nightclub, they are entertained by dancer Nora Mason. Nora, on her way to a rendezvous with Bob Lawrence, her sweetheart, learns that her father and Gregory Jackson, a theatrical promoter, are waiting for her; she pleads with Bob to take her away. The next day, Barnes, a friend of Bob's, asks Mary to defend Nora, who is accused of killing her father. Nora then confesses that her father had forced her to submit to Jackson, who promised her a feature role; and Remington, investigating the girl's past, is stunned to find that Mary is the girl's mother. Nora is acquitted of the crime and meets her mother, who is reconciled with Remington.
Director
Ray Enright
Director
Cast
Elsie Ferguson
Mary Bancroft
John Halliday
John Remington
Marion Nixon
Nora Mason
Grant Withers
Bob Lawrence
Daisy Belmore
Sister Beatrice
De Witt Jennings
Judge
William Davidson
Gregory Jackson
Wilbur Mack
Mr. Mason
Charlotte Walker
Mrs. Mason
Helen Ferguson
Miss Hutchison, secretary
Donald Mackenzie
Callahan
Jean Bary
Carlotta
Neely Edwards
Barnes
Fred Kelsey
Judge
Film Details
Genre
Drama
Action
Crime
Release Date
Sep
28,
1930
Premiere Information
not available
Production Company
First National Pictures
Country
United States
Screenplay Information
Based on the play Scarlet Pages by Samuel Shipman, John B. Hymer (New York, 9 Sep 1929).
Technical Specs
Duration
1h 6m
Sound
Mono
Color
Black and White
Theatrical Aspect Ratio
1.37 : 1
Film Length
5,906ft
(9 reels)
Articles
Scarlet Pages
In her youth, actress Elsie Ferguson (1883-1961) was the toast of Broadway and known internationally as one of the greatest beauties of the American stage. Though offers of film work flooded in almost from the birth of the medium, Ferguson demurred, preferring the Great White Way to Hollywood - until the deaths of her Broadway benefactors Henry B. Harris and Charles Frohman in the sinkings of the Titanic in 1912 and the Lusitania in 1915 gave the actress cause to reconsider. Signing an exclusive contract with Adolph Zukor at Paramount, Ferguson made her film debut for Maurice Tourneur in Barbary Sheep (1917). Often cast as socialites, she was known as "the Aristocrat of the Silent Screen." She alternated films with stage plays for another ten years and in 1929 took the lead in Samuel Shipman and John B. Hymer's Scarlet Pages, as an attorney who takes on the case of a showgirl accused of murdering her father. Ferguson reprised her role in the play in First National's 1930 film adaptation and Scarlet Pages remains her only sound film and one of only two of her films still in existence. A former film editor and gag writer for Mack Sennett, director Ray Enright was a reliable Hollywood helmsman often trucked in to make sequels to popular films, among them The Angels Wash Their Faces (1939) and Brother Rat and a Baby; he remains best known for his many westerns, most memorably The Spoilers (1942), starring John Wayne, Randolph Scott, and Marlene Dietrich.
By Richard Harland Smith
By Richard Harland Smith
Scarlet Pages
In her youth, actress Elsie Ferguson (1883-1961) was the toast of Broadway and known internationally as one of the greatest beauties of the American stage. Though offers of film work flooded in almost from the birth of the medium, Ferguson demurred, preferring the Great White Way to Hollywood - until the deaths of her Broadway benefactors Henry B. Harris and Charles Frohman in the sinkings of the Titanic in 1912 and the Lusitania in 1915 gave the actress cause to reconsider. Signing an exclusive contract with Adolph Zukor at Paramount, Ferguson made her film debut for Maurice Tourneur in Barbary Sheep (1917). Often cast as socialites, she was known as "the Aristocrat of the Silent Screen." She alternated films with stage plays for another ten years and in 1929 took the lead in Samuel Shipman and John B. Hymer's Scarlet Pages, as an attorney who takes on the case of a showgirl accused of murdering her father. Ferguson reprised her role in the play in First National's 1930 film adaptation and Scarlet Pages remains her only sound film and one of only two of her films still in existence. A former film editor and gag writer for Mack Sennett, director Ray Enright was a reliable Hollywood helmsman often trucked in to make sequels to popular films, among them The Angels Wash Their Faces (1939) and Brother Rat and a Baby; he remains best known for his many westerns, most memorably The Spoilers (1942), starring John Wayne, Randolph Scott, and Marlene Dietrich.
By Richard Harland Smith
Quotes
Trivia
The play originally opened in New York on 9 Sepember 1929 and had 72 performances.
