The Cave Man
Cast & Crew
Theodore Marston
Robert Edeson
Fay Wallace
Lillian Burns
George De Beck
Frances Connelly
Film Details
Technical Specs
Synopsis
Cynical socialite Madeleine Mischief, who complains of the lack of real men in her social class, wagers her friends that she can change a man from the streets into a social lion within a week. Madeleine places half a $100 bill in an envelope with a note asking any woman who finds it to give it to the nearest man, and any man to collect the other half at her address. Hanlick Smagg, a burly coal heaver, finds the note and agrees to Madeleine's plan. After a trip to the barber and tailor, Madeleine trains Hanlick in rudimentary table manners, and introduces him at parties as a sociologist studying the lower classes. Under Madeleine's direction, he soon becomes a prominent figure. After Madeleine's friend, Dolly Van Dream, falls in love with Hanlick, he realizes that he has been just a plaything to Madeleine. He is tempted to take revenge until he discovers that he loves Madeleine. With newly awakened ambition, Hanlick works at a steel plant and develops an invention which earns him a fortune. Now Madeleine's equal, he boldly embraces her and they elope.
Director
Theodore Marston
Cast
Robert Edeson
Fay Wallace
Lillian Burns
George De Beck
Frances Connelly
John T. Kelly
Charles Eldridge
William Sellery
Charles Morrison
Film Details
Technical Specs
Quotes
Trivia
Notes
The play May have opened in Provincetown, RI before it opened in New York. Robert Edeson starred in and staged the play. This was Fay Wallace's first film. The film was called The Caveman in some sources. Some interior and exterior footage was shot at the steel works at South Bethlehem, PA. On February 6, 1926, Warner Bros. Pictures released a new film based on the play, directed by Lewis Milestone, and starring Matt Moore and Marie Prevost. (See AFI Catalog of Feature Films, 1921-30; F2.0808.)
