June Mathis: The Rise and Fall of a Silent Film Visionary

by Thomas J. Slater

Overview

Along with thousands of other girls who hoped to escape tedious employment and domesticity, June Mathis (1887–1927) started acting as a young teen. After more than a decade of stepping onto stages across the US, she moved into the burgeoning film business and behind the camera to begin a prolific career as a screenwriter and producer for profound movies like The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (1921) and Blood and Sand (1922). With her expert use of melodrama and masterful technique, Mathis would eventually become the first female head writer at Metro Pictures.

In June Mathis: The Rise and Fall of a Silent Film Visionary, Thomas J. Slater illuminates Mathis's important and complicated life and work, not only detailing her discovery of the silent movie superstar Rudolph Valentino and her involvement on the original screenplay for Ben-Hur (1925) but also her prowess in all aspects of production. Slater pulls from historical records as well as letters, never-before-studied scripts, and Mathis's handwritten will to build a robust narrative for someone who always had to struggle for success, even though Photoplay acknowledged her as "the most powerful woman in the motion picture industry" in 1923. Slater discusses Mathis's artistic and moral failings, as well as how her efforts—such as overlooked collaborations with writer Katharine Kavanaugh and actress Alla Nazimova—consistently challenged male dominance, militarism, and greed.

Despite her talent and achievements, Mathis was pushed to the margins when the industry began removing women from spheres of influence. Following a few months of freelancing, she suffered a heart attack during a Broadway show and died at the age of forty. Very quickly, this woman whose ideas shaped American film for more than a decade was forgotten. June Mathis portrays the cinematic legacy of this "million-dollar girl" whose complex story ended too soon but remains relevant today.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781985901926
Publisher:	University Press of Kentucky
Publication date:	04/08/2025
Series:	Screen Classics
Pages:	304
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x (d)

About the Author

Thomas J. Slater is professor emeritus of English at Indiana University of Pennsylvania. He is the author of Milos Forman: A Bio-Bibliography, editor of the Handbook of Soviet and East European Films and Filmmakers, and coeditor of American Silent Film: Discovering Marginalized Voices. His work has been published in the Journal of Film and Video, Cinema Journal, Women's Studies, and Post Script.

Table of Contents

Introduction: The Importance of June Mathis
1. June Mathis's Journey from Acting to Writing, 1897-1915
2. Success at Metro, 1915-1921
3. Metro's Women Writers, 1917-1921
4. The Nazimova Films, 1917-1921
5. The Valentino Films, 1921
6. The Valentino Films, 1922
7. Crucial Films and Transitions, 1920-1923
8. June Mathis's Ben-Hur, 1922-1924
9. First National and Freelancing, 1924-1927
Acknowledgments
Notes
Selected Bibliography
Index

Editorial Reviews

Fantastic. This immaculate biography and scholarly study of film pioneer June Mathis is a great contribution to silent cinema history. Starting with her time onstage and charting her rise to become editorial director at Goldwyn, Mathis's story is also that of the once forgotten women of Hollywood's early days. Slater details her work on key productions such as The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (1921), the abortive screenplay for Ben-Hur (1925), and later collaborations with Colleen Moore. At all times, he is attentive to Mathis's idealistic vision of what cinema might represent, specifically her embrace of the power of female spirituality over the violence wrought by men in times of war. June Mathis: The Rise and Fall of a Silent Film Visionary charts Mathis's complex relationship with her protégé, Valentino, as well as her increasing struggles within what was to become a male-dominated film industry. Slater's archival research is admirable, and his writing is always clear and a pleasure to read. Mathis deserves no less.

Ruth Barton

Long neglected, June Mathis finally gets her due in this important study of her groundbreaking life and career. Slater's diligent research has brought to light the story of a woman who began in films in 1915, who not only wrote for the screen but also directed and produced movies, including The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (1921), the film that made Valentino a star. At the time of her death in 1927, she had outlasted most of her better-known female colleagues such as Alice Guy Blaché. This book is a significant contribution to our understanding of just how important women were to the actual production of motion pictures during the silent era.

Joanna E. Rapf

★ 03/01/2025

Debut author Slater spotlights an influential talent of the silent film era with this insightful biography of screenwriter and producer June Mathis, a former child actor who began writing scenarios (the era's term for screenplays) in 1914, eventually becoming chief scenario writer for MGM's predecessor, Metro Pictures, in 1917. With a tireless work ethic and prodigious output—she wrote 19 films in 1917 alone—Mathis benefited from the industry's insatiable need for talent, which allowed women to take various roles in film production. Slater examines the details of Mathis's extant scripts, showing how she infused a recognizable spiritual perspective into her work, which championed an unseen feminine world of emotion over the masculine materialism of the modern age. While Mathis's great triumph came with 1921's The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, in which she cast the then little-known Rudolph Valentino, Slater details how Mathis's career took a downward turn as the male-dominated studio system led to a fragmentation of filmmaking duties and the ouster of women from positions of influence. VERDICT Slater's thorough research and astute analyses of cinematic themes make this an exemplary biography of a filmmaking pioneer.—Sara Shreve

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