Vanity's Price

{{short description|1924 film}} {{Use mdy dates|date=September 2020}} {{Infobox film | name = Vanity's Price | image = Vanity's Price lobby card 3.jpg | caption = Lobby card | director = Roy William Neill<br>Josef von Sternberg (''ass't director'') | producer = Gothic Productions | writer = Paul Bern (story, scenario) | starring = Anna Q. Nilsson | cinematography = Hal Mohr | studio = Gothic Productions | distributor = Film Booking Offices of America | released = {{film date|1924|09|07}} | runtime = 60 minutes; 6 reels | country = United States | language = Silent (English intertitles) }} '''''Vanity's Price''''' is a 1924 American silent drama film directed by Roy William Neill and starring Anna Q. Nilsson. It was produced by the Gothic Productions company and released by FBO.<ref name="afi">{{cite web|url=https://catalog.afi.com/Film/13005-VANITYS-PRICE |title=''Vanity's Price'' |work=afi.com |access-date=April 11, 2026}}</ref><ref>[http://www.silentera.com/PSFL/data/V/VanitysPrice1924.html Progressive Silent Film List: ''Vanity's Price''] at silentera.com</ref>

The film is notable as the feature that brought assistant director Josef von Sternberg to the attention of critics for his handling of two sequences in the film.<ref>Sternberg, 1965 p. 197-198</ref>

==Cast== *Anna Q. Nilsson as Vanna Du Maurier *Stuart Holmes as Henri De Greve *Wyndham Standing as Richard Dowling *Arthur Rankin as Teddy, Vanna's son *Lucille Ricksen as Sylvia, Teddy's fiancée *Robert Bolder as Bill Connors, Theatrical Manager *Cissy Fitzgerald as Mrs. Connors *Dot Farley as Katherine, Vanna's Maid *Charles Newton as Butler *Rowfat-Bey Haliloff as Dancer

==Production==

Von Sternberg, in his 1965 autobiography recalls:

{{blockquote | Two incidents had been left out of the supposedly completed ''Vanity’s Price'', which the director [Roy William Neill] had not considered worthwhile doing, and the studio [FBO] head now pleaded with me to direct those short episodes.”<ref>Sternberg, 1965 p. 197-198</ref> One of the scenes concerned a young couple on a park bench, in love. The other involved a surgery in which a woman is operated in a therapeutic procedure related to the "Monkey gland" theory of Serge Voronoff.}} Von Sternberg writes:

{{blockquote | I gave orders to build an operating theatre with a deep pit and circular rows of seats rising steeply above the other to make it look like a cockfight arena. I planned to have the student physicians watch the surgery through binoculars with an occasional ironic grin.<ref>Sternberg, 1965 p. 197-198</ref><ref>Hall, 1924: "Monkey gland"</ref>}}

When the picture was previewed this sequence was praised by critics and von Sternberg was offered a position as director at FBO studios, but he turned it down to make an independently financed film, The Salvation Hunters (1925).<ref>Sternberg, 1965 p. 198</ref><ref>Hall, 1924</ref><ref>Baxter, 1971 p. 25-26: see footnote "October 8, 1924" review.</ref>

==Preservation== ''Vanity's Price'' is currently presumed lost.<ref name=''LOC''>{{Cite web |date= |others= |title=The Library of Congress American Silent Feature Film Survival Database: ''Vanity's Price'' |url=http://memory.loc.gov/diglib/ihas/loc.mbrs.sfdb.10227/default.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230726195215/https://memory.loc.gov/diglib/ihas/loc.mbrs.sfdb.10227/default.html |archive-date=2023-07-26 |access-date=2026-04-11 |website=memory.loc.gov}}</ref> In February of 2021, the film was cited by the National Film Preservation Board on their Lost U.S. Silent Feature Films list.<ref name="Lost U.S. Silent Feature Films">{{cite web |url=https://www.loc.gov/static/programs/national-film-preservation-board/documents/SFF-LostFilmsList020421.pdf |title=7,200 Lost U.S. Silent Feature Films (1912-29) |publisher=National Film Preservation Board |access-date=April 11, 2026}}</ref>

== Footnotes == {{reflist}}

== Sources == * Baxter, John. 1971. ''The Cinema of Josef von Sternberg''. London: A. Zwemmer / New York: A. S. Barnes & Co. {{ISBN |978-0498079917}} *Hall, Mordaunt. 1924. THE SCREEN: “A Rejuvenation Story.” The New York Times, October 8, 1924. https://www.nytimes.com/1924/10/08/archives/the-screen-a-rejuvenation-story.html Retrieved 20 May 2024. *Sternberg, Josef von. 1988. ''Fun in a Chinese Laundry''. Mercury House, San Francisco, California. {{ISBN | 0-916515-37-0}} (pbk.)

==External links== {{commons category|Vanity's Price (1924 film)}} *{{IMDb title|id=0015455|title=Vanity's Price}}

Category:1924 films Category:American silent feature films Category:Films directed by Roy William Neill Category:American black-and-white films Category:1924 drama films Category:Lost American silent drama films Category:Film Booking Offices of America films Category:1924 lost films Category:1924 American films Category:1924 English-language films