Regeneration (1915 film)
Regeneration | |
---|---|
James A. Marcus Carl Harbaugh | |
Cinematography | Georges Benoît |
Distributed by | Fox Film Corporation |
Release date |
|
Running time | 72 minutes |
Country | United States |
Languages | Silent film English intertitles |
Regeneration (alternately called The Regeneration) is a 1915 American
It was feared lost until a copy was located by the Museum of Modern Art.[2]
Plot
Cited as one of the first full-length gangster films,[3] Regeneration tells the story of a poor orphan who rises to control the mob until he meets a woman for whom he wants to change.
The film is a "candid adaptation" of the autobiography of
Deering's choices perplex her beau, a district attorney (Harbaugh) who has declared war on the gangs.[5]
Cast
- Rockliffe Fellowes – Owen Conway
- James A. Marcus– Jim Conway
- Anna Q. Nilsson – Marie "Mamie Rose" Deering
- Maggie Weston – Maggie Conway
- William Sheer – Skinny
- Carl Harbaugh – District Attorney Ames
- John McCann – Owen Conway (10 years old)
- Harry McCoy – Owen Conway (17 years old)
Production
Set in New York City, Regeneration was shot on location in New York City's
By 1915, 28-year-old director Raoul Walsh was in New York, with a three-picture contract with Fox Film Corporation for $400 a week - he was assigned Regeneration, to be the first feature-length gangster film in the United States. It was based on the book My Mamie Rose. Walsh's statement that he wrote the script was contradicted by other comments he made that he worked on it with Carl Harbaugh.[8] Walsh had previously played John Wilkes Booth in The Birth of a Nation, and this was his first directing project[9] on a feature, with him going on to film 140 other feature films.[10]
When he filmed the scene with actors jumping off a boat into the river, fireboats and police showed up to calm the "crowds", and Walsh was taken to the local station house, amused. The studio "relished" the free publicity.[8] French cinematographer Georges Benoit worked on the film as his first Fox picture.[8]
Release
Regeneration was originally released on September 13, 1915, to critical acclaim and was a box office hit.[6][8] It was re-released to theaters on January 12, 1919.[7]
The release was "rife with the dramatic elements that pleased broad audiences of early cinema - violence and redemption, heavy sentiment, romance and tragedy".[8] It opened to critical and box-office success.[8] William Fox was so pleased, he bought Walsh a Simplex automobile and afforded him a salary of $800 a week, a small fortune in 1915.[8] It cemented his reputation as an action director,[11] although critics noted had "had a gift for revealing emotional vulnerability in even his roughest, toughest heroes."[5]
Home media
In 2001, Regeneration was released on
Legacy
Regeneration was previously thought to be lost but was rediscovered in the 1970s. A copy of the film is preserved and held by the Museum of Modern Art Department of Film and the Film Preservation Associates.[7] TimeOut wrote that "intriguingly, its eventful plotline is revealed as flatly contradicting the accepted synoptic account provided by Walsh in his autobiography. There the eventual fates of Nilsson and Fellowes are reversed, and an ending is transposed from another film entirely."[2] The Guardian says "it's a milestone in the history of the gangster film, and with its religious themes, mobile camerawork, and potent evocation of its grim locations, it's the spiritual ancestor of Martin Scorsese's Mean Streets."[9]
Time Out says it is notable for its "remarkable approach to physical casting, a robust treatment of violent action, and a sheer narrative pace to shame contemporary ponderousness."[2]
In 2000, Regeneration was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically or aesthetically significant".[13][14][15]
References
- ISBN 978-0-786-48610-6.
- ^ a b c "Regeneration". Timeout.com. 20 November 2015. Retrieved 16 November 2021.
- ISBN 0-195-17506-9.
- ^ "Regeneration. 1915. Directed by Raoul Walsh | MoMA". Moma.org. Retrieved 16 November 2021.
- ^ a b "A Master of Action and Reaction". Los Angeles Times. 28 September 2000. Retrieved 16 November 2021.
- ^ ISBN 0-517-48079-4.
- ^ a b c d "Regeneration (1915)". silentera.com.
- ^ ISBN 978-0-813-14444-3.
- ^ a b "Why cinema came of age 100 years ago". The Guardian. 24 August 2015. Retrieved 16 November 2021.
- Project MUSE 464612.
- ^ "Gangsters and pranksters in eclectic Walsh retrospective". Villagevoice.com. 28 June 2005. Retrieved 16 November 2021.
- ^ "Regeneration (1915): DVD Release Info". silentera.com.
- ISBN 978-0-195-30656-9.
- ^ "Complete National Film Registry Listing". Library of Congress. Retrieved 2020-05-08.
- ^ "Librarian of Congress Names 25 More Films to National Film Registry". Library of Congress. Retrieved 2020-05-08.
External links
- Tracy, Tony (2011). "The Pauper and the Prince: Transformative Masculinity in Raoul Walsh's Regeneration". Film History: An International Journal. 23 (4): 414–427. Project MUSE 464612.
- Regeneration essay [1] by Marilyn Ann Moss at National Film Registry
- Regeneration at AllMovie
- Regeneration at IMDb
- Regeneration at Rotten Tomatoes
- glass slide for the 1919 rerelease version
- Regeneration essay by Daniel Eagan in America's Film Legacy: The Authoritative Guide to the Landmark Movies in the National Film Registry, A&C Black, 2010 ISBN 0826429777, pages 46–47 [2]
- The entire film on Internet Archive