Frank Lloyd IV: THE DIVINE LADY, BERKELEY SQUARE

Frank Lloyd (below the camera), Gary Cooper, Clara Bow, Esther Ralston, Einar Hanson in Children of Divorce

Frank Lloyd III: Silent Films

Any movies Frank Lloyd wanted to make, but that he wasn't able to? What were his biggest financial and/or critical hits? His biggest flops?

I am not aware of any films that Lloyd wanted desperately to make but could not. Certainly, he would have liked to have made a sequel to Mutiny on the Bounty, and even had plans to shoot the scenes with Charles Laughton as Captain Bligh in England as the actor was unable to travel to the U.S. at that time. He did try and purchase the rights to The Hurricane, which Goldwyn acquired and which John Ford directed [in 1937].

The two Republic films [The Shanghai Story, 1954; The Last Command, 1955] were not particularly successful, but I don't believe that Lloyd had any real flops as such. Mutiny on the Bounty is arguably his most famous film, but it is not my personal favorite.

Leslie Howard in Berkeley Square

Did Frank Lloyd have a favorite among his films? Or a favorite performer? What are your favorite Frank Lloyd films? And why?

Berkeley Square is probably Lloyd's favorite film — and a hard one to see. The negative has not apparently survived. [Berkeley Square was remade as the Tyrone Power vehicle I'll Never Forget You (1951). It also inspired Somewhere in Time (1980), with Christopher Reeve.] In the 1910s, Lloyd was very fond of William Farnum, with whom he had a good professional partnership. He and Clara Bow got on one well [while working on Children of Divorce, 1927], surprisingly, and she really liked him.

My favorite Lloyd film is The Divine Lady because of its sweep, its stature and the emotional intensity of its love scenes between Victor Varconi and Corinne Griffith. I also find the latter incredibly beautiful. The camera loves her — and so do I.

As an Englishman, I must also single out Cavalcade. I acknowledge that a lot of the emotion that the film engenders has to do with Noel Coward's original stageplay, but Lloyd brings all the elements from the theatre together to make a motion picture that is far more than a filmed stageplay. Watching that film, one is moved to tears by Diana Wynyard, and one regards Una O'Connor with fascination, realizing as did Hollywood that here is a great character actress.

How do you believe Frank Lloyd's movies hold up for a modern audience? Which Lloyd films would you recommend to a "beginner," someone who hadn't heard of Frank Lloyd but would like to become acquainted with the director's work?

Frank Lloyd's films hold up as well as do the films of any other Hollywood director of his stature and his time period. The obvious choice for a "beginner" would be Mutiny on the Bounty, simply because of the presence of Laughton and Clark Gable.