Don Juan

Director: Alan Crosland Alan Crosland

Overview

Historically important as the first film to carry a Vitaphone sound track (consisting of music and sound effects, but no dialogue) Don Juan is a first-rate production by any standards, and would have been just as good with or without musical accompaniment. John Barrymore plays the legendary lover Don Juan, raised by his cynical father (also played by Barrymore) to "love 'em and leave 'em", and to never trust any woman. All of this changes when he meets the beautiful Adriana Della Varnese (Mary Astor). When it seems that Adriana has betrayed him in favor of a wealthy marriage to the lecherous Count Donati (Montague Love), Don Juan renounces her and returns to his rakish ways. What he doesn't know is that Adriana is a political pawn, who has been forced into an alliance with Donati by the calculating Borgias (Estelle Taylor and Noah Beery Sr.). By the time Don Juan finds out that his true love is still true, he has been tossed in prison for killing Donati in a spectacular duel. He breaks out, rescues Adriana from the Borgias' torture chamber, and escapes with his beloved to the safety of Spain. The plot is, of course, more complicated than that, but so fascinating is John Barrymore's performance that it's difficult to concentrate on anything else. The film's highlights include the out-sized duel between Barrymore and Montagu Love, capped by Barrymore's spectacular leap from the top of a huge staircase, and the torture chamber sequences, wherein Barrymore sneaks past the Borgia guards by assuming the facial characteristics of fiendish torturer Gustav von Seyfertitz--and this without makeup. "In the know" film historians may read a lot more into the Barrymore/Mary Astor love scenes than is readily apparent, forearmed as they are with the knowledge that John and Mary had once been passionate lovers offscreen. Scenarist Bess Meredyth used the Lord Byron poem Don Juan as a mere stepping stone for this imaginative, exquisitely filmed romantic adventure.

Product Details

Release Date:	04/22/2011
UPC:	0883316126080
Original Release:	1926
Rating:	NR
Source:	Warner Archives
Presentation:	[B&W]
Sound:	[Dolby Digital Mono]
Language:	English
Time:	3:20:00

Special Features

Before the feature - the August 6, 1926 opening night vitaphone shorts program: Will B. Hays introduction to Vitaphone ; Overture to Tannhauser - New York Philharmonic ; Mischa Elman - Humoresque and Gavotte ; Roy Smeck in His Pastimes ; Marion Talley - Caro Nome ; Efrem Zimbalist and Harold Bauer - Theme and Variations from Kreutzer Sonata ; Giovanni Martinelli - Vesti La Giubba ; Anna Case - La Fiesta

Cast & Crew

Performance Credits

John Barrymore	Don Juan
Mary Astor	Adriona Della Varnese
Willard Louis	Perdillo
Estelle Taylor	Lucretia Borgia
Myrna Loy	Mai, Lady in Waiting
Helene Costello	Rena, Adriona's Maid
Jane Winton	Donna Isobel
John Roche	Leandro
June Marlowe	Trusia
Warner Oland	Cesare Borgia
Montagu Love	Count Giano Donati
Yvonne Day	Don Juan, at Age 5
Philippe De Lacy	Don Juan, at Age 10
John George	Hunchback
Josef Swickard	Duke Della Vamese
Lionel Braham	Duke Margoni
Phyllis Haver	Imperia
Hedda Hopper	Marquise Rinaldo
Gibson Gowland	Gentlemen of Rome
Sheldon Lewis	Gentlemen of Rome
Dick Sutherland	Gentleman of Rome
Gustav von Seyffertitz	Neri, the Alchemist
Nigel de Brulier	Marchese Rinaldo
Emily Fitzroy	The Dowager
Helen Worthing	Eleanora
William Axt	Composer

Technical Credits

Bess Meredyth

Alan Crosland	Director
Bess Meredyth	Screenwriter

Editorial Reviews

Historically significant for its groundbreaking use of sound, Don Juan was no mere box-office gimmick. It indicates why John Barrymore was one of the top stars of the 1920s, and it features the crisp, rich cinematography of Byron Haskin, who would later direct some of the best episodes of the television series The Outer Limits. It was a hallmark of Haskin's career that he could create vivid, believable visual settings that were strange and wonderful to the viewers, whether in science fiction or historical romance. Directed by Alan Crosland at the height of his career, Don Juan was an enormous box-office success, leading Warner Bros. to ask Crosland to helm an even more complex sound project, The Jazz Singer.