That Royle Girl | |
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Film poster
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Directed by | D. W. Griffith |
Produced by | Jesse L. Lasky |
Written by | Paul Schofield |
Based on |
That Royle Girl by Edwin Balmer |
Starring |
Carol Dempster W. C. Fields James Kirkwood Harrison Ford |
Cinematography |
Harold S. Sintzenich |
Production
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Distributed by | Paramount Pictures |
Release date
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Running time
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114 minutes |
Country | United States |
Language | Silent English intertitles |
That Royle Girl was a 1925 American silent comedy film directed by D. W. Griffith and released by Paramount Pictures. The film was based on the novel of the same name by Edwin Balmer, and starred Carol Dempster, W. C. Fields and Harrison Ford. It is now considered lost.
A poor young woman (Carol Dempster) from the slums of Chicago singlehandedly saves a jazz bandleader (Harrison Ford) after he is improperly convicted and sentenced to death for murder.
This film, along with Sally of the Sawdust, marked Griffith's return to working for an important Hollywood studio, (Paramount), something he hadn't experienced since leaving Biograph in 1914. He also had to work with a tight shooting script as Paramount executives Adolph Zukor and Jesse L. Lasky insisted the film be brought on schedule and on budget.
Griffith had been a founding partner in Triangle Studios in 1915 and United Artists in 1919, and these ventures allowed him leeway in the way he made films. However, now the leisurely approach to filmmaking Griffith had enjoyed at his own Mamaroneck, New York was gone. Griffith had been for all intents and purposes an independent producer since leaving Biograph. Griffith shot That Royle Girl on locations across Chicago. The film’s climactic sequence, a devastating tornado, was filmed on a football field at Paramount’s Astoria Studio in Queens, New York, where Griffith created a fully built village. Griffith used the power of 24 airplane propellers to recreate the wreckage and ruin of the tornado’s fury.