Watch something else. There are very few redeeming qualities to this film.

The acting is good, and the firecracker script has some excellent ideas.

I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

J.M. Barrie's "The Admirable Crichton" opened on London's West End in 1902 and ran for a staggering 828 performances, the next year it came to Broadway. The play differed from the film in that (in the play) Lord Loam considered class division artificial and during tea parties, servants were expected to mingle with the guests as equals - only Crichton, the butler disapproves, feeling everyone should know their place.The Loam family are introduced as upper class twits with more money than sense. The house is run by the servants - in particular, Crichton (Thomas Meighan), the Loam's dignified butler, who is always at the ready to show people the right way of doing things (especially adoring scullery maid Tweeny (Lila Lee) and boot boy, Buttons (Wesley Barry)). The family beauty - Lady Mary (gorgeous Gloria Swanson) is completely spoilt and has servants to cater to her every whim, from seeing her bathwater is just the right temperature to making sure her toast is not too soft. There is a wonderful bathroom scene, with all the most modern conveniences, including luxurious rose water spraying from a fountain.The Loams go on a South Sea cruise but disaster strikes as their boat hits a rock and they have to make their way to an uninhabited island. True characters come to the fore, the family are lazy and expect their servants to obey their every whim. Crichton soon shows himself a true leader and everyone in the party turns to him for guidance. Two years pass and everyone is living together as equals and pulling their weight, there is no master or servant - all except Crichton, who is now the supreme leader. Mary and Tweeny now fight for the opportunity to serve him supper. Being a DeMille production, there is a spectacular Biblical scene (maybe his first) with Meighan as a bored, callous King, Bebe Daniels as a saucy slave girl and Gloria Swanson as a beggar maid, who goes to the lion's den rather than put aside her Christian principles.They are eventually rescued and Crichton and Lord Loam are the first to remember their "places" in the world. Lady Mary can't forget her love, they were just about to be married when the rescue boat is seen. Back in civilization, Lord Brockelhurst resumes his courting of Mary - all through the film he has shown himself to be pretty flirtatious with Mary's maid - you know when Mary accepts his proposal - her life will not be a happy one. Crichton hides his true feelings about Mary and when she is visited by an old friend who has defied her family, married her chauffeur and lived to regret it - he impulsively asks Tweeny to marry him. They will leave service and sail for America, where everyone is equal (the last scene is particularly sweet as Crichton walks to a farmhouse after finishing ploughing for the day, to find Tweeny waiting for him.)I do agree, I think the titles are profuse and flowery and excessive - they would do credit to a William S. Hart western!!! I also think Thomas Meighan was born for this role - he was manly and masterful. He was also excellent in "Why Change Your Wife?" - Cecil B. DeMille obviously liked him a lot as he popped up in quite a few of his movies. Although Barrie had considered ending his play with Crichton and Mary continuing their affair, even after Lady Mary is married, he decided on a more conventional ending as he thought "the stalls wouldn't like it"!!!Highly, Highly Recommended.

The silent films of Cecil B DeMille, scripted by his long-time collaborator (and mistress) Jeanie MacPherson were often bizarre, overwrought and sometimes just plain silly. Once in a while however they hit the nail right on the head. Male and Female, heavily adapted from JM Barrie's play The Admirable Crichton, is a powerful drama with some strong performances, DeMille's direction at its most lyrical, and MacPherson's storyline only occasionally veering off the rails.The majority of DeMille films from this part of his career begin with a lengthy title card with some kind of moral or motto. However, Male and Female opens with images – the crashing sea, a sunset – before getting onto the intertitles. The typical DeMille silent would then follow this up by introducing us to each of the main characters with a title followed by a shot of them. Male and Female is no exception, but it works these introductions into the film's world and draws the audience in by making them point-of-view shots of a young servant peeping through the keyholes into his masters' and mistresses' bedrooms.The acting style that DeMille had encouraged and developed in his silent pictures since the mid-1910s was largely naturalistic, but with the occasional broad theatrical gesture to highlight a dramatic moment. It was a style that reduced the need for intertitles, without resorting to ridiculous pantomiming. The two leads, Gloria Swanson and Thomas Meighan are both perfectly suited to this style. Meighan was probably the finest male actor DeMille had worked with since Sessue Hayakawa (in 1915's The Cheat), and his performance here is mesmerising. Swanson is also great as usual, although I have to say that although it was her run of pictures with DeMille that made her name, she didn't do her best work with him. Her talent was put to far better use in later features such as Queen Kelly and Sadie Thompson.Aside from the performances, it's the dramatic story and its presentation that makes Male and Female so memorable. Only the basic plot of Barrie's play remains, and this is a typical DeMille/MacPherson story of the reversal of fortune and forbidden love – probably the strongest of this kind that they did before the slant in DeMille's films became increasingly moralist (and, of course, religious). Although DeMille loved these tales of class and inequality (he was at that point a socialist as well as a Christian), it is the impossible love between the two leads that is at the heart of this story. The real tragedy of Male and Female has nothing to do with the selfish pomposity of the aristocrats – it is the fact that the love between the rich woman and the poor man can only exist in this fantasy world of the remote island. This is set up from the beginning with the subplot of Swanson's friend who marries her chauffeur and becomes a social outcast. The final scenes in which the various love triangles are resolved are incredibly moving.The only significant wrong note in Male and Female is a brief and rather pointless flashback to ancient Babylon. These historical inserts had been en vogue since Griffith's Intolerance (a more influential film than some would have us believe), but this one is rather lacklustre and it's hard to see exactly how it fits the main story. It appears more of an excuse for DeMille to work in some epic grandeur (from 1918 to 1922 he only made contemporary dramas and comedies) and MacPherson to explore her interest in reincarnation. The story does need a dramatic highpoint at the stage where the flashback comes in, but they could have done better than the Babylon sequence. Overall however Male and Female is free of much of the preachiness, questionable morality and plot holes that mar many of Jeanie MacPherson's screenplays.Male and Female was Paramount's highest grossing film of 1919, which is no surprise. DeMille's steady flow of captivating images and his emphasis on acting performances are at their best here. In certain aspects it may appear dated, but as with many of DeMille's films we have to suspend our dependence on realism and plausibility. Of course, the island where the action takes place, with its convenient abundance of edible wildlife, sailing distance from England yet remote enough to be shipwrecked for two years, could never really exist – but it's an unreal place created to serve the story. Taken as the silent melodrama that it is, this is a stunning motion picture.

Thomas Meighan (as the admirable Crichton) is head butler for an aristocratic British family; he is obviously quite taken with luscious Gloria Swanson (as Lady Mary Lasenby), but unable to cross class barriers. The household's scullery maid Lila Lee (as Tweeny) is in love with Crichton. The threesome, and some others, go out yachting; when cross currents hit, the ensemble is shipwrecked! Turns out, the servant class has far more advanced survival skills. Who knew? Ms. Swanson is the film's main attraction; her bathing and showering scenes, near the beginning of the film, helped clean-up at the box office. Note that whenever there is nakedness afoot, DeMille has an object cover-up Swanson's figure, however. Though not as famed, Swanson's later wet spot, when she is nearly drowned in the bowel of the sideswiped yacht, is far superior. Swanson and Ms. Lee perform well, actually, with the material given. Loved the "upper crust" lady complaining about limp toast! Mr. Meighan delivers the movie's finest performance; the other players have moments, but Meighan is outstanding in the pivotal role of Butler Crichton. From the moment he checks the mansion for dust, he is delightful; the actor makes the movie even more interesting when the suppressed desire for Swanson begins registering on his face. A couple of smaller roles are noteworthy: Wesley Barry is great as the peeping Buttons, indicating what Cecil B. DeMille's "Male and Female" is really all about (more or less). You should also keep an eye on Bebe Daniels during the "King of Babylon" imaginary sequence; she is terrific as Meighan's right-hand lady. Silent film veterans Guy Oliver and Clarence Burton inexplicably disappear, after the shipwreck. Theodore Roberts and Raymond Hatton are around much longer, thankfully.The film is recommended, and DeMille obviously expert - but it's one of the more ludicrously-themed silent era classics preserved for modern scrutiny. Apparently, in adapting "The Admirable Crichton" for DeMilledom, the director substituted sex for satire. AND, he gets his titillating re-title "Male and Female" from no less than God Himself! quoting, "So God created Man in His own image, in the image of God created He him: Male and Female created He them." There is also a oddly placed bow to the good ol' U.S.A. With all its oddities, it's still a fun film. ******** Male and Female (11/23/19) Cecil B. DeMille ~ Thomas Meighan, Gloria Swanson, Lila Lee

In 1952 humorist S.J. Perelman contributed a piece to The New Yorker magazine devoted to Cecil B. DeMille's silent drama Male and Female. He was a teenager when the movie was first released in 1919, and found it so enthralling he sat through it twice. More than thirty years later Perelman, by then a middle-aged playwright and essayist, saw the film again at the Museum of Modern Art and recorded his impressions. It goes without saying for anyone familiar with the man's work that his piece is hilarious, but what's surprising is how little he exaggerated. I read his essay long before I saw the movie itself, and assumed that when he quoted title cards or described the action he was employing artistic license to get laughs, but no; he described the film with journalistic accuracy and yet his article is laugh-out-loud funny. Time has not been kind to Male and Female, that is, if DeMille honestly intended to say something profound about class and gender relations, but viewed in the proper spirit the movie is still quite entertaining. Certainly it offers sumptuous production values and top-notch cinematography (and happily, survives in beautiful condition), while most of the performances are surprisingly nuanced. It's the storytelling technique that lacks subtlety, for DeMille was a moralist who could never make his points delicately when there was a sledgehammer handy.The story is based on J. M. Barrie's 1902 stage play "The Admirable Crichton," a satire on the English class system that has been staged repeatedly and adapted into all sorts of movies over the years, and no wonder: it presents a deeply satisfying fantasy of virtue recognized and bogus class distinctions overturned—temporarily, anyway. Crichton, dignified butler in a household full of pampered, lazy snobs, proves to be the most useful person present when the whole gang is shipwrecked on a remote island in the South Seas. In the version made in the '30s, We're Not Dressing with Bing Crosby and Carole Lombard, this premise was turned into a musical comedy, while a 1957 English adaptation followed the satirical elements of the play more closely, but DeMille had his own distinctive approach to the material. As the title suggests, Male and Female plays up the romantic/erotic aspects of the role reversal, giving audiences of 1919 some of the steamiest situations then permissible.The naughty tone is set early on, when an impish serving boy who works in the stately household of Lord Loam peeks through bedroom keyholes, giving us our first look at each major character via "keyhole shot." The most dramatic intro is reserved for the beautiful, haughty Lady Mary (Gloria Swanson), who rises from her luxurious bed and is promptly accompanied by serving girls into her marbled bathroom for a descent into a sunken tub—and celluloid immortality! This bathing sequence was an instant sensation, and lives on in the textbooks as the most famous such scene in silent cinema. Today it's a little difficult to imagine what all the fuss was about, but I'll bet your eyes won't wander from the screen. Miss Swanson was at the peak of her youthful beauty at this time, with a special charisma all her own.Once the plot gets under way the opening sequences set up the thesis question: can lovers who cross class boundaries find happiness, or is "kind-to-kind" the only formula that works? The question is put to the test on a South Sea voyage when the Loam family's rented yacht hits the rocks, splinters apart, and strands them on an uncharted island, along with loyal Crichton and scullery maid Tweeny (the adorable Lila Lee), who is slavishly devoted to him, but well aware of the charged relationship between he and Lady Mary. Crichton soon establishes himself as the only person present who knows how to live on an island: he can build a fire, hunt, and cook a good meal, so his authority is grudgingly recognized. Two years pass, and here's where the inescapably silly elements of the story kick in. Crichton is now the unquestioned but benevolent ruler of an idyllic jungle paradise. Like the Swiss Family Robinson —or Gilligan and his friends— our castaways live in elaborate "primitive" huts that look like rustic vacation cabins where everyone wears designer pelts. Clothes horse Gloria even has a Peter Pan-style hat with a feather! We note the altered relationship between the one-time butler and his former employers: Lady Mary, who commanded Crichton with such hauteur in the opening scenes, now literally fights with Tweeny over the privilege of serving him his dinner. And it's finally explained why Mary and Crichton repeatedly yet unwittingly quote a passage of Victorian poetry concerning antiquity. It seems that, in a past life, Crichton was a Babylonian King and Lady Mary was a Christian slave, a defiant captive the King was unable to subdue, thus compelling him to feed her to "the sacred lions of Ishtar." (This is all enacted in a jaw-dropping flashback played absolutely straight.) The slave's dying curse is that the King will suffer for his deed throughout the ages, and so now, naturally, she is his superior and he waits on her—although on the island, of course, their roles have reverted to what they once were, back in ancient Babylon.After that bizarre episode there is little left to do but arrange for the timely rescue of the castaways and then conclude with Barrie's ironic finale, in which the class system reasserts itself and all our characters revert to type. Crichton earns himself a happy ending, however, and so does the long-suffering Tweeny. This movie was a smash hit in its day, and it remains a kitschy treat for silent film buffs who enjoy exquisitely produced hokum. If you can find a copy of Perelman's essay it may help to have it handy as a sort of Viewer's Guide while you watch Male and Female: he captures its grandeur as well as its absurdity with admirable precision.