Masks and Faces (1917) Online

This movie is based on the old play by Charles Reade and Tom Taylor. It concerns itself with Irene Vanbrugh as Peg Wolfington, her amours and good heart and her championing of Johnston Forbes-Robertson, a painter and would-be playwright, and succoring of Gladys Cooper, the wife of Dennis Neilson-Terry, with whom she had been carrying on an affair and whom she did not know (in the show, anyway) was married.

It was made for the movies to finance the building fund of the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts, and there is a pleasing prologue in which distinguished playwrights of the era appear to discuss its production. As a result, it has a tremendously distinguished cast of stage actors, many of whom rarely appeared in the silent movies. Its interest -- and it is considerable -- lies in seeing these actors at this age: not only Miss Vanburgh and Miss Cooper (who was quite a sweet-faced young dish at this age, not at all the stern woman I know from the 1940s), but Henry Irving, Matheson Lang (in a bit part) and Helen Haye in her screen premiere.

Because of this cast and the wordiness of the play's script, there are an enormous number of titles, and the compositions are stagey, despite some careful camera work. As a movie, it is rather forgettable. It is worth watching for the faces... and for the RADA facilities it helped underwrite.