Beginning her career in 1917 opposite popular young D.W. Griffith actor Robert Harron, brunette beauty Colleen Moore was an immediate movie star. But her relatively modest fame became super-stardom in 1923, with the release of "Flaming Youth" accompanying her appearance as a "Top Ten" favorite; she peaked at #1 in 1926's "Quigley Poll" of box office stars, and remained popular until talking pictures changed audience tastes in the early 1930s. A sanitized version of Warner Fabian's then sexy and scandalous contemporary novel, "Flaming Youth" has been considered Ms. Moore's first defining role...
Unfortunately, only a portion of "Flaming Youth" survives. Fortunately, it contains some pivotal moments. The reel has been released on "Fragments: Surviving Pieces of Lost Films" (2011) and is sometimes shown on Turner Classic Movies (TCM). In it, débutante Moore (as Patricia "Pat" Fentriss) meets one of her deceased mother's loves, Milton Sills (as Cary Scott). She begins a romance with the older man and they attend a swimming pool party. The pool-side fun contains much of the film's notoriously naughty footage; photographed in silhouette, the reel ends with party guests dancing around in their wet underwear.
***** Flaming Youth (11/12/23) John Francis Dillon ~ Colleen Moore, Milton Sills, Myrtle Stedman, Gino Corrado
