Unknown filmmakers | The Crinoline Girl / 1914 [Lost film]

all in the name of love

by Douglas Messerli

 

Unknown screenwriter and director (based on the musical with book by Otto Harbach and music and lyrics Julian Eltinge and Percy Wenrich) The Crinoline Girl / 1914 [Lost film]

 

This short silent film, starring the renowned female impersonator Julian Eltinge, was made and released soon after the New York stage play finished its 96 performances, and represents evidently his first appearance on film.

     One might almost describe this short cinematic presentation as a kind of momento of the Broadway production or, more likely from Eltinge’s point of view, a promotional work, much like today’s musical videos, of one of the major New York theater performers, who salary was one of the highest in the business. The Empire Theater at 234 West 42nd Street, now the lobby of an AMC Theater, was originally named the Eltinge Theater.

     Unlike the coarse drag performances of early film such as Gilbert Saroni and even some of Fatty Arbuckle’s and Charles Chaplin’s earliest appearances in female attire, performances which had made their way to film from burlesque and vaudeville, Eltinge apparently looked back to the far more realist and graceful drag portrayals of the minstrel cake-walk dancers I recounted above in the 1903 film Le Cake-Walk au Nouveau Cirque, filmed by Louis Lumière. There are recountings of Eltinge having studied cake-walk dancing at Mrs. Wyman’s dance studio in Boston.

    So convincing were Eltinge’s performances that men were some of his most ardent admirers, both straight and gay, and the actor was quickly dubbed “Mr. Lillian Russell” and described by Chicago Tribune drama critic Percy Hammond as “ambisextrous.” Yet Eltinge fought hard against being characterized as a homosexual, and would often threaten violent action against those who described him as being gay; he regularly posed for boxing pictures and promoted himself as a horse back rider, as well as titillating his audiences with countless rumors of marriage. He never married, and there is plenty of evidence to suggest that Eltinge was, in fact, a gay man; certainly, Milton Berle and others who worked with him believed he was.

     There seems to be little remaining information about this 1914 film production; I could find no list of the performers nor a description of the film’s plot. But presumably it followed an abridged version of the Broadway stage production.

    In that work, so one plot summary tells us: “Tom Hale wants to marry Dorothy Ainsley, but her father Richard Ainsley does not want to allow it. Although Tom is from a wealthy family, Richard challenges Tom to show that he can earn $10,000 of his own money. Only then will Richard approve of the marriage. Tom decides he can do this by collecting the reward that Richard is offering for a diamond recently stolen from his family. The thieves are operating from the Hotel de Beau Rivage in Lausanne, Switzerland, where the Ainsleys are also staying. Tom tracks down the gang's female accomplice, the titular Crinoline Girl, and subdues her. He then puts on women's clothes to disguise himself as the Crinoline Girl and capture the thieves. Tom's success facilitates not only his own romance with Dorothy, but also the romance of his sister Alice Hale with Dorothy's cousin Jerry Ainsley.”

    The role of Tom Hale was played, quite obviously, by Eltinge, although we have no record of who the other film actors were. Presumably, given the short time this film appeared after its Broadway run it must have included some if not all of his original theater cast, which included Jeanne Eagles, Herbert McKenzie, Joseph S. Marba, Nannie Palmer, Charles P. Morrison, Edward Garvie, Jane Marbury, James C. Spottswood, Walter Horton, Corrinne Barker, and Edward Cushman. Perhaps the film was also directed by the original stage director, John Emerson.

     The original dramatic script also appears to have been partially lost, but is apparently being restored by George Contini. The pictures above are from the stage version, not the film.

 

Los Angeles, September 1, 2024 

Reprinted from My Queer Cinema blog (September 2024).