Reckless Youth / Virtue's Revolt

RECKLESS YOUTH (1922): Alice Schuyler, a spoiled child of privilege, is expelled from a convent for bad behavior. Rather than return to her parents, she seeks refuge at a lodge owned by timid John Carmen. Wanting to avoid ever going back to the convent, Alice marries the lonely middle-aged man. They move to the big city, where Alice spends every night partying at the jazz clubs while John stays at home with the newspaper. She soon attracts the attention of playboy Harrison Thornby, who lavishes her with gifts. When John discovers the affair, he forbids Alice from seeing her new lover. The couple try to escape on Harrison's yacht, but a pounding thunderstorm means the night may end in tragedy...

Reckless Youth stars Elaine Hammerstein, the cousin of famed Broadway songwriter Oscar Hammerstein, and is produced by Hollywood legend Lewis J. Selznick. Though Selznick thought highly of Hammerstein, even billing her as "The Screen's Brightest Star" in promotional materials for the film, her career was not particularly long-lived. Having made her film debut in The Moonstone in 1915, she starred in mostly small-scale melodramas like Reckless Youth for a little over a decade, dropping out of the movies altogether in 1926. In 1948, she was killed along with her husband in a tragic automobile accident while returning home from a business trip in Tijuana. Making her film debut as "Tootles", a chorus girl in one of the party scenes, is the lovely Constance Bennett. She would become a major star in the 1930s with comedies such as The Affairs of Cellini (1934), Ladies in Love (1936), Topper (1937) and Merrily We Live (1938).

VIRTUE'S REVOLT (1924): Small town girl Strelsa Caine arrives in New York with dreams of becoming an actress. Those dreams are shattered when Bertram Winthrope, a bigshot talent agent, makes unwanted advances on her during an audition. She flees into the arms of wealthy Steven Marbridge, who makes her his wife. Despite her newfound riches, Strelsa stills longs for the fame she once dreamed of. She agrees to submit to Winthrope's advances if he'll make her a star. Strelsa does not realize that success on the Broadway stage will cost her Steven's love...