Just Another Long-Ago Audience


These patrons don’t look very happy, do they? Is it because they didn’t enjoy Gloria Swanson’s talking debut in The Trespasser? Judging by the ceiling display, and the November 1929 release date of the picture, this is likely January 1930. Swanson got out The Trespasser in a hurry after the disaster of Queen Kelly and her realization that the much-heralded collaboration with Erich Von Stroheim would be more or less unreleasable (at least in the US). Dialogue sequences for that one were considered, but the idea was abandoned when Gloria was persuaded by director Edmund Goulding to go forward with The Trespasser. This Leow’s crowd looks to be feeling effects of the Crash --- ragamuffin kids having got worst of it. Could this be some kind of orphan’s benefit? Never mind Gloria Swanson --- these urchins could use a good scrubbing. I’d guess at least a few are still living. Wonder if any would recognize themselves in this photo taken seventy-six years ago…