splash  The American Venus is a romantic comedy set against the backdrop of a beauty pageant, namely the actual 1925 Miss America contest in Atlantic City. The film is the second in which Louise Brooks appeared, and the first for which she received screen credit.

The American Venus proved popular upon release, and continued to be shown around the United States for an unusually long two years. Though largely eye-candy, many fans and at least a few critics responded to the numerous scantily clad bathing beauties, an elaborate tableaux and fashion show, and the film’s pioneering use of Technicolor. The critic for the Boston Herald wrote, “The scenes made at Atlantic City and during the prologue are artistically done in Technicolor. Comedy relief in abundance is furnished by a wild automobile chase replete with giggles and thrills. The picture on the whole is entertaining.”

However, not all were pleased with this otherwise frothy comedy. Harrison’s Reports, an industry trade journal, echoed the comments found in other publications: “The only striking feature about it is the technicolor scenes; they are extremely beautiful. But some of them will, no doubt, prove offensive to church going people, particularly in the small communities, because of the fact that women’s legs, backs, sides and abdomens as low as below the navel, are shown aplenty. Women in tights have been shown in his pictures by Mack Sennett, but he has never been so ‘raw’; at least he had the girls wear brassieres, whereas Jesse Lasky has his girls wear nothing under the bathing suits, with the result that the women’s outlines of their breasts are clearly seen. In places there isn’t even the thin cloth of the bathing suit to cover the flesh.”

The Washington Herald added, “Many of the tinted scenes of the fashion review were very daring in their exposure of the Atlantic City bathing girls. Once scene especially drew forth gasps from the audience; whether from shock or admiration, we cannot say.”

The stars of the film, which was called a “shape show” by some publications, were Esther Ralston, a renown beauty, and Fay Lanphier, the reigning Miss America. Though she had only a small role, Brooks was featured on a lobby card and film poster, as well as in advertisements. She was also singled out by a handful of critics. The female critic for the New York Evening Journal noted Brooks’ “distinct screen personality”, while the male critic for the New York World stated Brooks was “better looking than any of the other brunettes now acting in films”.

STORY SYNOPSIS:
“Mary Gray, whose father manufactures cold cream, is engaged to sappy Horace Niles, the son of Hugo Niles, the elder Gray’s most competitive rival in the cosmetics business. Chip Armstrong, a hot-shot public relations man, quits the employ of Hugo Niles and goes to work for Gray, persuading Mary to enter the Miss America contest at Atlantic City, with the intention of using her to endorse her father’s cold cream should she win. Mary breaks her engagement with Horace. When it appears that she will win the contest, Hugo lures her home on the pretext that her father is ill, and she misses tile contest. Chip and Mary return to Atlantic City, discovering that the new Miss America has told the world that she owes all her success to Gray’s cold cream. On this note, Chip and Mary decide to get married.”

Lobby Card - The American Venus
Lobby Card – The American Venus

RELATED MATERIAL:

  • Posters & Lobby Cards
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  • Scene Stills

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PRODUCTION HISTORY:
Production took place in the fall of 1925, beginning around August 24 and ending around November 10. The film was shot in part in early September at the Miss America beauty pageant in Atlantic City, New Jersey, and later at Paramount’s Astoria Studios on Long Island (located at 3412 36th Street in the Astoria neighborhood in Queens), as well as on the Coney Island boardwalk, in Greenwich, Connecticut (in the vicinity of Round Hill and Banksville), and “near a swimming hole” in Ocala, Florida.

CAST:
Esther Ralston
 Mary Gray
Lawrence Gray
 Chip Armstrong
Ford Sterling
 Hugo Niles
Fay Lanphier
 Miss Alabama
Louise Brooks
 Miss Bayport
Edna May Oliver
 Mrs. Niles
Kenneth MacKenna
 Horace Niles
William B. Mack
 John Gray (Mary Gray’s husband)
George DeCarlton
 Sam Lorber
W.T. Benda
 Artist
Ernest Torrence
 King Neptune
Douglas Fairbanks Jr.
 Triton
Raymond Hatton
 unknown role (uncredited)
Evelyn Louise Carmen
 Miss Seattle – 1925 contestant (uncredited)
Helen Corcoran
 Miss Newark – 1925 contestant (uncredited)
June Elkin
 Miss Newark – 1925 contestant (uncredited), also as Fay Lanphier double
Edythe Flynn
 Miss San Francisco – 1925 contestant (uncredited)
Ethel Grossbeck
 Miss Bay Ridge – 1925 contestant (uncredited)
Harold Hendee
 a drunk (uncredited)
Edith Higgins
 Miss Bronx – 1925 contestant (uncredited)
Nellie Kincaid
 Miss Birmingham – 1925 contestant (uncredited)

CREDITS:
Studio:
 Famous Players-Lasky Corporation
Distributor:
 Famous Players-Lasky Corporation
Producer:
 Adolph Zukor and Jesse L. Lasky
Director:
 Frank Tuttle
Assistant Director:
 Russell Matthews
Writing Credits:
 Townsend Martin (story), Frederick Stowers (screenplay), Robert Benchley (titles, uncredited)
Cinematography:
 J. Roy Hunt
Color Photography:
 Ray Rennahan, W. Howard Greene (assistant), Joseph Biroc (assistant)
Art Direction:
 Frederick A. Foord
Production Design:
 Lawrence Hitt, Joe Mielziner (artistic tableaux)
Costumes:
 Gilbert Clark
Format:
 Silent – black & white, with Technicolor two-strip color process sequences
Running Time:
 8 reels (7,931 feet), reported as 92 to 113 minutes – elsewhere, Austria: 2450 meters, or 8038 feet, in 8 acts. Sweden: 2344 meters, or 85 minutes. United Kingdom: 7,000 and 7,821 feet.
Copyright:
 January 25, 1926 by Famous Players-Lasky Corporation (LP22325)
Release Date:
 January 31, 1926
Premiere:
 January 11, 1926 (Stanley Theater, Atlantic City, NJ)
Opening:
 January 24, 1926 (Rivoli Theater, NYC)
Country of Origin:
 United States

ALTERNATE TITLES:
Under its American title, documented screenings of the film took place in Australia (including Tasmania), Bermuda, British Malaysia (Singapore), Canada*, China, Dutch Guiana (Surinam), India **, Ireland, Jamaica, Korea, New Zealand, Panama, South Africa, and the United Kingdom (England, Isle of Man, Northern Ireland, Scotland, and Wales). In the United States, the film was presented under the title La Venus Americana (Spanish-language press) and A Venus Americana (Portuguese-language press).

Elsewhere, The American Venus was shown under the title Vénus moderne (Algeria); Die Amerikanische Venus (Austria); A Venus Americana and La Venus Americana (Brazil); La Venus Americana (Chile); La Venus Americana (Cuba); Americká Venuše (Czechoslovakia) and Die amerikanische Venus (Czechoslovakia, German language); Den amerikanske venus (Denmark); La Venus Americana (Dominican Republic); De Moderne Venus (Dutch East Indies – Indonesia); Vénus moderne (Egypt); The Modern Venus (England); Miehen ihanne (Finland); Vénus moderne and Vénus américaine (France); Die Schönste Frau der Staaten (Germany); Az amerikai Vénusz (Hungary); Il trionfo di Venere and Trionfo di Venere (Italy); 美女競艶 or Bijo dai Kei tsuya  (Japan); Venus Moderne–Die Modern Venus (Luxembourg); La Venus americana (Mexico); De Moderne Venus (Netherlands);  Amerykan’ska Wenus and Venus Pokutujaca (Poland); A Vénus American (Portugal); Miss Amerika (Slovenia); Американская Венера (Soviet Union); La Venus americana and La Venus Moderna (Spain); Mannens ideal and Mannens ideal–Venus på amerikanska (Sweden ***); and La Venus moderne (Switzerland).

* The film was banned in the province of Quebec due to “nudities.”
** Bengali censorship records from 1927 called for the elimination of close-ups of women in the film’s tableaux, noting “The figures are too naked for public exhibition.”
*** restricted to those over 15 years old

STATUS:
The film is lost, though a few minutes of material was found in Australia in the late 1990’s. The surviving material includes fragments, variously in black and white, tinted and in Technicolor, from two theatrical trailers. These surviving trailers, each about 180 feet in length, are housed at Library of Congress and at Pacific Film Archive. The two trailers were screened at the San Francisco Silent Film Festival in 2002, and can be found on the DVD box set, More Treasures from American Film Archives 1894 – 1931. In 2018, the BFI announced they had found a three second piece of Technicolor stock from the film which depicts Louise Brooks.

REVIEWS & RELATED ARTICLES:
“Movie of the Month” by J.B. Kaufman (June 2016)

TRIVIA: about the film

– More than a little controversy surrounded the 1925 Atlantic City beauty pageant. The week long event was widely reported on, and was even covered by radio, then a very new media. Two contestants made news when they withdrew in protest, claiming that other entrants (notably Miss Manhattan – Brooks’ friend and Follies star Dorothy Knapp) were professional beauties, and that the contest was “being run as a publicity stunt for a national film-producing organization.” (Frank Tuttle, director of The American Venus, was one of the pageant judges.) Miss Pittsburgh also withdrew claiming she “had been forced to sign a contract in which she agreed to appear in a motion picture.” Speculation about the contest continued to circulate. After the New York Evening Graphic published an expose claiming the contest was fixed, Atlantic City officials filed a $3,000,000 libel suit.

— The selection of Miss America and the crowning of the American Venus was broadcast around the country via radio station WPG in Atlantic City.

– The American Venus was among the earlier films to feature Technicolor. There are three scenes which utilize the process. One is of the boardwalk parade of beauty contestants at the Atlantic City beauty pageant, the second is of series of artistic tableaux, and the last is of a fashion revue.

– The film was privately screened at the Atlantic City Ambassador Hotel as a benefit under the auspices of the Atlantic City Shrine Club on December 26, 1925. A benefit screening of the film also took place at midnight on December 31, 1925 in Oakland, California — the hometown of star Fay Lanphier.

– Lanphier enjoyed considerable fame after winning the 1925 Miss America contest; she wrote articles and made personal appearances around the country – many in conjunction with the screening of The American Venus. Her movie career, however, never developed. Lanphier appeared in only one other film, a Laurel and Hardy short titled Flying Elephants (1928). Later, the honey-blond beauty worked as a stenographer in Hollywood.

– Miss Bayport, the role played by Louise Brooks, was originally assigned to Olive Ann Alcorn, a stage and film actress who had bit parts in Sunnyside (1919) and The Phantom of the Opera (1925).

– Townsend Martin, whose story served as the basis for the film, was a college friend of F. Scott Fitzgerald. According to the New Yorker and other publications, famed humorist Robert Benchley wrote the film’s titles.

– According to the 1999 book, Russian Writings on Hollywood, author Ayn Rand reported seeing The American Venus in Chicago, Illinois not long after she left the Soviet Union.