Damaged Goods (1914 film)

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Damaged Goods (1914 film) - Wikipedia

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Damaged Goods
Advertisement for the 1917 edition
Directed by	Tom Ricketts
Written by	Harry A. Pollard (adaptation)
Based on	Les Avariés by Eugène Brieux
Starring	Richard Bennett Adrienne Morrison
Cinematography	Thomas B. Middleton
Production company	American Film Manufacturing Company
Distributed by	Mutual Film Corporation
Release date	September 1, 1914 (1914-09-01)
Running time	7 reels
Country	United States
Language	Silent (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, although according to the silent film survival database a fragment survives.^[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)

Richard Bennett as George Dupont
Adrienne Morrison as a Girl of the Streets
Maud Milton as Mrs. Dupont
Olive Templeton as Henriette Locke
Josephine Ditt as Mrs. James Forsythe
Jacqueline Moore as Seamstress
Florence Short as Nurse
Louis Bennison as Dr. Clifford
John Steppling as Senator Locke
William Bertram as a Quack Doctor
George Ferguson as the Quack's Assistant
Charlotte Burton as Mrs. Lester

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]

References

^ "Damaged Goods / Thomas Ricketts [motion picture]". memory.loc.gov. Retrieved January 19, 2024.
^ Eric Schaefer, Bold! Daring! Shocking! True!: A History of Exploitation Films, 1919-1959 (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1999).
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d Schaefer, Eric (1992). "Of hygiene and Hollywood: origins of the exploitation film". Velvet Light Trap.