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Damaged Goods (1914 film)

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Damaged Goods
Advertisement for the 1917 edition
Directed byTom Ricketts
Written byHarry A. Pollard (adaptation)
Based onLes Avariés
by Eugène Brieux
StarringRichard Bennett
Adrienne Morrison
CinematographyThomas B. Middleton
Production
company
Distributed byMutual Film Corporation
Release date
  • September 1, 1914 (1914-09-01)
Running time
7 reels
CountryUnited States
LanguageSilent (English intertitles)

Damaged Goods (1914) is an American silent drama film directed by Tom Ricketts, starring Richard Bennett. It is based on Eugène Brieux's play Les Avariés (1901) about a young couple who contract syphilis. No print of the film is known to exist, making it a lost film.[1] It is believed to have begun the sex hygiene/venereal disease film craze of the 1910s.[2]

The play was adapted into a British silent film Damaged Goods in 1919. A sound film based on the Brieux play, also titled Damaged Goods (1937) was directed by Phil Goldstone, released by Grand National Pictures.

Cast

Herald for Damaged Goods (1914)

Production and release history

Film historian Terry Ramsaye stated that the film was "pretentiously made" for a cost of less than $50,000, including marketing, and that "its states' rights ... sold for $600,000, thus indicating a box-office take of probably more than $2,000,000".[3] According to a 1915 account, audience demand for the film in Detroit was so great that police were required to control the crowds at the theater.[3]

Damaged Goods was re-released in a "new edition" in 1917, perhaps in response to concerns about the spread of venereal disease among World War I soldiers. It was re-released again in 1919.[3]

Reception

The film was positively received by critics. Reviews in Variety and The Moving Picture World praised it as morally salubrious.[3]

See also

References

  1. ^ "Damaged Goods". silentera.com. Retrieved March 17, 2013.
  2. ^ Eric Schaefer, Bold! Daring! Shocking! True!: A History of Exploitation Films, 1919-1959 (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1999).
  3. ^ a b c d Schaefer, Eric (1992). "Of hygiene and Hollywood: origins of the exploitation film". Velvet Light Trap.
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