Salomé **** (1922, Alla Nazimova, Nigel De Brulier, Mitchell Lewis) – Classic Movie Review 7126

Director Charles Bryant’s extravagant black and white 1922 art nouveau silent movie version of Oscar Wilde’s play cost more than $350,000 to make and is outrageously designed by Natacha Rambova, who was clearly influenced by Aubrey Beardsley, matching his illustrations in the printed edition of Wilde’s play. The extravagant costumes, such as the guards’ real silver lamé loincloths, used material from Maison Lewis of Paris.

It is notable as an ambitious art film, one of the first ever made in America, with no real action or plot development, stylised costumes, exaggerated acting, minimal sets and only necessary props.

Alla Nazimova is suitably seductive as Salomé, while Mitchell Lewis as Herod, Tetrarch of Judea leers on, Nigel De Brulier is Jokaanan the Prophet (John the Baptist), Earl Schenck is Narraboth Captain of the Guard and Rose Dione as Herod’s wife Herodias fumes and plots.

The film and play are loose retellings of the biblical story of King Herod and his execution of John the Baptist. Herodias’s daughter Salome seduces her stepfather Herod with a salacious dance and he promises her the head of John the Baptist.

It was finally released years after filming by a minor independent distributor, but it failed commercially and ended Nazimova’s producing career.

It is alleged that the film has an all gay or bisexual cast in homage to Oscar Wilde, as lesbian star and producer Nazimova required. The two guard characters are played as gay stereotypes and several of the female courtiers are men in drag.

Also in the cast are Arthur Jasmine, Frederick Peters, and Louis Dumar.

Salome is directed by Charles Bryant, runs 75 minutes, is produced by Alla Nazimova and Allied, is released by United Artists, is written by Peter M Winters [aka Alla Nazimova], based on the play by Oscar Wilde, is shot in black and white by Charles Van Enger, is scored by Ulderico Marcelli (music arranger), Carlos U Garza (2003) and Richard O’Meara (2003), and is designed by Natacha Rambova, with costumes by Natacha Rambova.

Salomé was released on DVD in 2006 with James Sibley Watson and Melville Webber’s avant garde film Lot in Sodom (1933).

It was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress in 2000.

All films released before 1923 are in the public domain in the United States.

© Derek Winnert 2018 Classic Movie Review 7126

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