The Branded Woman (1920) Norma Talmadge Film Corporation/First National. Produced by Joseph M. Schenck. Directed by Albert Parker. Scenario by Anita Loos and Albert Parker. Titles by Burns Mantle. Camera, J. Roy Hunt. Technical director, Williard M. Reinecke. Gowns by Lucile. Cast: Norma Talmadge, Percy Marmont, Vincent Serrano, George Fawcett, Grace Studdiford, Gaston Glass, Jean Armour, Edna Murphy, H. J. Carvill, Charles Lane, Sydney Herbert, Edouard Durand, Henrietta Floyd. 7 reels. A copy of this film is located at the Library of Congress (35 mm.)

This lovely portrait of Norma was used as a prop in this film (thanks to Leslie Evans for this picture, who notes that it bears the name of Joseph M. Schenck on the back). Click thumbnail to view larger picture.

Review from Variety, September 17, 1920

This is a blackmail story with excellent heart interest. Norma Talmadge is starred. The offering is made by Joseph M. Schenck via First National at the Strand. The effects are mostly interiors. While excellently lighted, they seem like painted sets. These are adequate for after all it is the story that counts. In this case the yarn is from the play of the same title by Oliver Baily. Anita Loos is responsible for the scenario and handles her end of it and presumably the inserts also in a craftsmanlike manner. Albert Parker directed adequately, but in the last analysis the burden of carrying the show rests on Miss Talmadge and she still commands the delicacy and tenderness of expression that have made her a great star. She was adequately supported by a cast including such dependable performers as Percy Marmont, Vincent Fawcett and Gaston Glass.

The story relates how Ruth owed her origin to a matrimonial alliance between a man of wealthy family and chorus girl who turned out to be a bad egg. Ruth herself was rescued by her grandfather, but she made the mistake when she married of not telling her husband of the circumstances that had separated her parents. Her mother had gone completely to the bad. In company with this mother went a man named Craft who preyed on Ruth when later he needed money. The way this was done is played up in interesting fashion and scores on the screen for its intriguing quality and simplicity.

The tangle is straightened out and the final shot is a new sort of close-up in which father, mother and baby are happily united. Excellent society stuff for first class houses.

Review from the New York Times, September 6, 1920

This seems to be the open season for heroines of scandalous ancestry. Last week it was Elsie Ferguson as "Lady Rose's Daughter." This week it is Norma Talmadge, at the Strand, who again demonstrates, in "The Branded Woman," that a girl can't be too careful about picking a mother. The picture is hardly as good as Miss Talmadge's talents deserve, and whatever popularity it achieves will be due largely to the good work of the star as Ruth Sawyer, Percy Marmont as Douglas Courtenay and Vincent Serrano as "Velvet" Craft.

The story is hardly epoch-making in its novelty, relating as it does the trials of Ruth Sawyer, a young woman whose mother was not only a chorus beauty but ran a gambling den in the bargain. Shortly after learning of her mother's past our heroine meets the man of her dreams, from whom she conceals her terrible secret. After their marriage her mother's gambling partner turns up, of course, and blackmails Ruth. Follow discovery, grief and rage of husband, flight of Ruth to save her baby's name, pursuit by repentant consort, discomfiture of villain, reconciliation at the hands of a little chee-ild. Grace Studdiford is effective as a sinful mother, and George Fawcett is a pleasantly grumpy but kindly grandfather.

Review in Moving Picture World, September 18, 1920

"The Branded Woman"

Joseph M. Schenck Presents Norma Talmadge in a Photodramatic Adaptation of the Play "Branded."

Reviewed by Louis Reeves Harrison

OUTSTANDING features of interest in "The Branded Woman," released byFirst National, are the personality and fine acting of Norma Talmadge. The idea involved, that the sins of the parents are visited on the children, is one pervading a great many English novels and plays. The usual method of setting it forth is for the young wife to conceal the family skeleton from her husband. He marries in ignorance of the misdeeds of her ancestors. She pays the penalty when a villain appears with threats of exposure. There is no variation from this in "The Branded Woman."

In order to imbue the character of a young wife with some of the finest attributes of womanhood, Norma Talmadge does some remarkable acting. Her impersonation of a guileless young girl fresh from refined training and clean environment is as sweet and refreshing as an orchard breeze in apple blossom time. In the difficult role of a pure-minded young wife carrying a secret sorrow which she dares not tell her husband for fear of losing her devotion Miss Talmadge is a revelation. Whenever she is accorded fine opportunity she demonstrates her exceptional ability as an actress. Her performance, intelligent direction and close attention to environment lift "The Branded Woman," as shown at the Strand Theatre, out of the commonplace and into the class of good entertainment.

Cast

Story by Oliver P. Dailey

Directed by J.M. Schenck

Length, Five Reels.

The Story

"The Branded Woman" is Ruth Sawyer, brought up in ignorance that her mother runs a gambling joint. Ruth's grandfather, Judge Whitlock, keeps the innocent young girl's mind free from contamination of any kind until she has graduated from a refined school for young ladies. Then the mother's past is revealed and Ruth becomes socially ostracized. The unnatural mother, to spite Judge Whitlock, carries Ruth off to the demoralizing atmosphere of her gambling den and makes her downfall as good as ussured, [sic] but she is rescued by Judge Whitlock. The Judge turns matchmaker by carrying Ruth away on a ship bearing a dear friend of his, Douglas Courtney, who has adiplomatic mission in Paris. He keeps the young people together, and moonlight does the rest.

Courtney and his wife live happily together in Paris for three years. Then comes Velvet Graft, partner of Ruth's mother in the gambling house. The place has been closed and the mother destroyed in a hotel fire. Graft is out of funds, but he has a newspaper account of the mother's death with him, and he uses it to blackmail Ruth. A substitution discovered in her jewels leads her husband to employ a detective. The latter discovers that Ruth is visiting Graft at his rooms.

Graft reveals the character of Ruth's mother to Courtney. He brands her as unfit to be the wife of an honorable man. She leaves him, asserting her innocence of other wrong than the deception, and goes to Judge Whitlock. Courtney follows her, in time and shows such a repentant spirit that the Judge essays a reconciliation. Ruth yields in the end for the sake of her child, and she is no longer a "Branded Woman."

Viewing comments

Poor Norma Talmadge, she will always be misunderstood by her husband, who thinks only the worst of her. Percy Marmont is exceedingly unpleasant as the husband who jumps to the wrong conclusion. Talmadge is her usual charming self, convincing as the schoolgirl, the shy young thing forced into a den of iniquity, and the mother struggling with a blackmailer. It's fairly typical of Talmadge's more routine pictures. The chief interest in this film are the "symbolic" sequences, where Talmadge's plight is compared to an Arab girl on the slave block, and later is literally dragged through the mud. They are quite literal and not terribly well handled.
Print viewed: 35 mm at the Library of Congress.

Last revised, December 31, 2012