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The Admirable Crichton, J.M. Barrie's grand spoof of The Swiss Family Robinson, receives the Cecil B. DeMille readjustment: "Why shouldn't the bathroom express as much art and beauty as the drawing room?" Spoiled aristos are introduced through their respective keyholes, the dainty peacock (Gloria Swanson) rises from bed and is unwrapped in the marble bathtub; Crichton the butler (Thomas Meighan) takes stern pride in his duties, and ignores the lovelorn maid (Lila Lee) while being strangely attracted to a Victorian poem about ancient Babylon. When a fellow heiress busts taboos by falling for her chauffeur, Swanson is startled: "Why, it would be like me falling for Crichton," she says within his earshot during a yacht trip to the South Seas. The wreck strikes a distant precursor of L'Avventura, the lady of the manor finds herself in an island with a soaking satin gown and a gang of clueless bourgeois survivors. Only the butler is equipped to survive in the jungle, so class rules are overthrown only to be replaced by macho rules -- Swanson stands her ground until her belly growls, then she's eagerly downing Meighan's soup (an earlier scene is inserted, showing the master refusing her servant's too-soft toast). The gusto of the cast of spirited farceurs is keyed ideally to the inane surroundings (bamboo condominium and leopard-pelt ensembles), DeMille clinches the lunacy by dissolving from their verdant idyll to Mesopotamian splendor and apropos of not much recasting his leads as haughty monarch and feisty slave. Rescue reinstates the upstairs/downstairs structure, DeMille positions the desolate Meighan and Swanson by the corner of a festive tableau. Pricelessly obvious, and greatly mined by others: It Happened One Night, El Ángel Exterminador, Sherwood Schwartz... With Theodore Roberts. In black and white.
--- Fernando F. Croce |