Male and Female

DeMille!

Male and Female, 1919. What is it about? Humm...it's like 'Remains of the Day' meets 'Survivor' meets 'Gilligan's Island' meets 'Wtf was that'...

It is a story of class, of fortune's reversal (even though it is locked in it's time), but I don't think that's why contemporary audiences went to see it.



The kid gets it.



Yup, Sex. Gloria Swanson's thigh..in 1919!



And then there's the bathtub sequence. Even at the time this was seen for what it was, an advertisement for the latest fixtures..and Gloria's too.

Anyywayyy, the story involves a group of upper class Brits and their servants who become ship wrecked together.



The wreck sequence is actually well done, with Miss Swanson flailing around in a flooding set that is pitching back and forth.



So the tables are turned and the servant becomes the master. The costumes are another matter...

Just then you think DeMille can't get any stranger though, along comes this:



A flashback involving the King of Babylon and a Christian slave girl (but you say, Babylon and Christianity together?...it's a movie).

In it, is this shot, surely one of the most famous from silent cinema.



Live lion, live Gloria. DeMille!