Seventh Heaven (1927 film)

Seventh Heaven
Directed by	Frank Borzage
Produced by	William Fox
Written by	Benjamin Glazer
Starring	Janet Gaynor Charles Farrell Ben Bard
Cinematography	Ernest Palmer Joseph A. Valentine
Editing by	H.H. Caldwell Katherine Hilliker
Distributed by	Fox Film Corporation
Release date(s)	May 6, 1927
Running time	110 min
Country	USA
Language	Silent film English intertitles

Janet Gaynor in 1927

Seventh Heaven (1927) is a silent film and one of the first films to be nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture (then called "Best Picture, Production"). The film was written by H.H. Caldwell (titles), Benjamin Glazer, Katherine Hilliker (titles) and Austin Strong (play), and directed by Frank Borzage.

The movie is a romance starring Janet Gaynor and Charles Farrell. Gaynor won the Academy Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role, Borzage won for Best Director and Glazer won for Best Writing, Adaptation.

Seventh Heaven is the 13th highest grossing silent film in cinema history, taking in more than $2.5 million at the box office in 1927.

In 1995, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".

Broadway play

Seventh Heaven was based on one of the most popular Broadway plays of the 1920s. A 1922 production that ran at Booth Theatre from October 30, 1922 to July 1924 for a total of 704 performances. The leads were played by George Gaul(Chico) and Helen Menken(Diane). Also in the cast of the play was Frank Morgan.

Cast

• Janet Gaynor ... Diane
• Charles Farrell ... Chico
• Ben Bard ... Col. Brissac
• Albert Gran ... Boul
• David Butler ... Gobin
• Marie Mosquini ... Madame Gobin
• Gladys Brockwell ... Nana
• Emile Chautard ... Father Chevillon
• Jessie Haslett ... Aunt Valentine
• Brandon Hurst ... Uncle George
• George E. Stone ... Sewer Rat
• Lillian West ... Arlette

Theme tune

Seventh Heaven features the song "Diane" by Erno Rapee and Lew Pollack, who wrote the song specifically for the film.

Trivia The poster for "7th Heaven" is displayed on the wall of the student Watanabe's lodgings in the oldest surviving film by the Japanese director Yasujiro Ozu: "Days of Youth: A Student Romance" [Gakusei Romansu: Wakaki Hi] (1929).

1937 US remake

Main article: Seventh Heaven (1937 film)

A comparatively unknown remake of Seventh Heaven was produced as a sound film in 1937, starring Simone Simon, James Stewart, Jean Hersholt, and Gregory Ratoff, with Henry King directing.

1937 Chinese remake

Main article: Street Angel (1937 film)

Chinese writer-director Yuan Muzhi loosely based the plot of his 1937 film Street Angel on Seventh Heaven, though it shares a title with a different Frank Borzage film, the 1928 release Street Angel. Yuan's film, a tragicomedy, portrays the lives of the underclass in Shanghai, including two lovers, a returning soldier and his fiance, a singing girl played by then-little-known Zhou Xuan. Zhou herself was from a very poor background and in her youth had narrowly escaped a future in the sex trade, but she became one of China's iconic seven great singing stars on the strength of her performance, and the film became one of the last great hits of the First Golden Age of Chinese Cinema before the 1937 Japanese invasion of China. It remains one of the most acclaimed Chinese language films ever made, appearing at number 11 in a 2005 centennial list by the Hong Kong Film Awards, immediately below Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.

External links

• Seventh Heaven at the Internet Movie Database

[[de:Das Glück in der Mans]arde]]