For the Love of Mike (1927 film)
For the Love of Mike | |
---|---|
Robert Kane | |
Starring | Ben Lyon Claudette Colbert George Sidney Richard "Skeets" Gallagher Ford Sterling Hugh Cameron |
Cinematography | Ernest Haller |
Production company | Robert Kane Productions |
Distributed by | First National Pictures |
Release date |
|
Running time | 75 min |
Country | United States |
Languages | Silent English Intertitles |
For the Love of Mike (originally titled Hell's Kitchen) is a 1927 American silent romantic drama film. Directed by Frank Capra, it starred Claudette Colbert (in her film debut) and Ben Lyon.[1][2] It is now considered to be a lost film.[3]
Plot
A baby boy is found abandoned in a Hell's Kitchen tenement and subsequently is raised by three men: a German delicatessen owner (Sterling), a Jewish tailor (Sidney), and an Irish street cleaner (Cameron). They adopt the boy and raise him as their own. The timeline jumps 20 years into their future. The now-grown Mike (Lyon) resists going to college because he does not wish to be a financial burden to his adoptive fathers, however a pretty Italian girl, Mary (Colbert) working at the delicatessen convinces him to go.
Mike enrolls at
Cast
- Ben Lyon as Mike
- Claudette Colbert as Mary
- George Sidney as Abraham Katz
- Ford Sterling as Herman Schultz
- Hugh Cameron as Patrick O'Malley
- Richard "Skeets" Gallagher as Coxey Pendleton
- Rudolph Cameron as Henry Sharp
- Mabel Swor as Evelyn Joyce
Background
For the Love of Mike is based on the story Hell's Kitchen by John Moroso.
For the Love of Mike was the tenth in this package, funding was limited, and agent Leland Hayward convinced Capra into deferring his salary until the end of production.[5] Capra was never paid for his participation.[7] The film was considered a commercial failure despite a strong cast and decent production values.[7]
The film is marked as being the screen debut of Claudette Colbert and her only silent film appearance.[8][9][10] After the film received poor reviews and failed financially, Colbert vowed, "I shall never make another film".[11] However, two years later, she signed with Paramount Pictures.[12]
Reception
Critic Mordaunt Hall of The New York Times wrote that the film "makes no pretensions of being anything but a movie. It seemed to satisfy the audience at the Hippodrome yesterday afternoon, for there was laughter and, at the end, applause", and concluded "Claudette Colbert, who was seen in Kenyon Nicholson's play "The Barker," lends her charm to this obstreperous piece of work. She seems quite at home before the camera".[13]
See also
References
- ^ Hall, Mordaunt (2009). "For the Love of Mike (1927)". Movies & TV Dept. The New York Times. Archived from the original on April 22, 2009. Retrieved August 18, 2009.
- ^ "For the Love of Mike (1927)". British Film Institute. Archived from the original on October 16, 2012. Retrieved August 17, 2009.
- ^ "SilentEra entry". Archived from the original on November 24, 2009. Retrieved February 2, 2010.
- ^ a b
Robert Sklar; Vito Zagarrio (1998). Robert Sklar, Vito Zagarrio (ed.). Frank Capra: authorship and the studio system (illustrated ed.). ISBN 978-1-56639-608-0.
- ^ ]
- ^ a b
McBride, Joseph (1992). Frank Capra: the catastrophe of success (illustrated ed.). ISBN 978-0-671-73494-7.
For the Love of Mike, lost film.
- ^ a b c Erickson, Hal. "For the Love of Mike". Allmovie.
- ^ "Claudette Colbert". Classic Film Guide. Retrieved August 19, 2009.
- ^
Rausch, Andrew J. (2003). Hollywood's All-Time Greatest Stars: A Quiz Book. ISBN 978-0-8065-2469-6. Retrieved August 17, 2009.
- ^ "Studio Flashes". The Age. July 17, 1937. Retrieved August 18, 2009. [dead link]
- ^
Stempel, Tom (1980). Screenwriter, the life and times of Nunnally Johnson (illustrated ed.). ISBN 978-0-498-02362-0.
For the Love of Mike, Capra.
- ^ "Biography for Claudette Colbert". tcm.com. Turner Classic Movies. Retrieved August 19, 2009.
- ^ Hall, Mordaunt (August 24, 1927). "The Screen; Ben Lyon, the Athlete". The New York Times. Retrieved August 18, 2009.
External links
- For the Love of Mike at IMDb
- For the Love of Mike at the TCM Movie Database
- For the Love of Mike at the AFI Catalog of Feature Films
- For the Love of Mike at Silentera.com Archived April 14, 2018, at the Wayback Machine