The Price of Pleasure

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The Price of Pleasure
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Directed byEdward Sloman
Written byJ.G. Hawks
Raymond L. Schrock
Story byElisabeth Sanxay Holding
Marion Orth
Produced byCarl Laemmle
StarringVirginia Valli
Norman Kerry
Louise Fazenda
CinematographyJohn Stumar
Production
company
Universal Pictures
Distributed byUniversal Pictures
Release date
  • March 15, 1925 (1925-03-15)
Running time
70 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageSilent (English intertitles)

The Price of Pleasure is a 1925 American silent drama film directed by Edward Sloman and starring Virginia Valli, Norman Kerry, and Louise Fazenda.[1][2]

Plot[edit]

As described in a film magazine,[3] Garry Schuyler (Kerry), a young millionaire, is charmed by Linnie Randall (Valli), a department store clerk whom he hears sighing for at least one week of real pleasure. He takes her up on that, just for a lark. From then on her life is one round of delights after another. He takes her to his palatial home, now empty because his mother and sister are out of town. At the end of the week, the very evening when she is to return to her dreary room, he takes pity on her, realizing that now her unhappiness is to be greater than ever. He proposes marriage and saves her feelings. When they return to his home, his mother (Lester) and Grace (Astaire), his sister, unexpectedly return, unknown to the newlyweds. Linnie goes upstairs and is ordered out of the room by Garry's sister, who thinks she is one of the maids. Then it is that the mother and daughter make life miserable for Linnie. One night she dashes away from the table, into the blinding night rain. Garry follows and accidentally runs her down in his car. Early in the morning, believing she is dead, he falls in a faint, and thereafter has brain fever. His people take him to Europe to recover and forget. Linnie has a child, and supports herself by doing fashionable dancing at a leading Broadway cabaret. Garry returns with his mother about a year later. A word from his faithful butler (Barrows), and he begins to stir about in search of his wife, whom he finds being attacked by her dancing partner. The latter proves to be a crook, whom the family lawyer had hired in order to get sufficient evidence so as to get a divorce for Garry without consulting him. A swift unravelling results as the pair is happily reunited.

Cast[edit]

Still with Valli and Kerry

Preservation[edit]

With no prints of The Price of Pleasure located in any film archives,[4] it is a lost film.

References[edit]

  1. ^ Munden p. 954
  2. ^ Progressive Silent Film List: The Price of Pleasure at silentera.com
  3. ^ "Price of Pleasure". Universal Weekly. 20 (19). New York City, New York: Moving Picture Weekly Pub. Co.: 40 December 20, 1924. Retrieved August 26, 2021.
  4. ^ Library of Congress American Silent Feature Film Survival Database: The Price of Pleasure

Bibliography[edit]

  • Munden, Kenneth White. The American Film Institute Catalog of Motion Pictures Produced in the United States, Part 1. University of California Press, 1997.

External links[edit]