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List Price: $24.99 | | Label: Image Entertainment
Salesrank: 71513
Released: August 17, 1999 |
| Our Price: $17.09 |
| Used Price: $13.69 |
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MPAA Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Media: DVD |
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Editorial Review:
Cecil B. DeMille's breakthrough production, a satire on class distinctions. Based on James M. Barrie's play "The Admirable Crichton," "Male and Female" made a star of Gloria Swanson (Queen Kelly) and solidified DeMille's standing as a big box office director with one of his more modest, but no less 'big' silent classics.
Male and Female Reviews:
Gloria Swanson in Hollywood glory 
2009-07-17 - This movie is all about Gloria. One certainly understands that phrase "we had faces then" implying we didn't need talking from "Sunset Boulevard" much, much better after seeing this production.
From the very start Gloria as Lady Mary Lasenby is in a palatial home and wearing exceedingly elaborate gowns, even to go from her bed to her bath, and I mean trailing yards of fabric. She is a spoiled brat that complains that the toast is soggy in her breakfast to her handsome butler (Thomas Meighan) who is salivating for her and to her maid that the bath is not exactly the 90 degrees she expects. Eventhough her bath routine could have rivaled Cleopatra's, including the sunken pool and the shower with rose-perfumed water, one suspects that something is wrong with little poor rich girl and she is not totally happy.
At one point she is counseling a friend-aristocrat Lady Eileen Duncraigie (Rhy Darby)not to marry her chauffeur (Henry Woodward) who is a handsome hunk of a man who seems to really care for her. We get a glimpse of him helping her out of the car and I totally understood their relationship: Anyone that does as much touching, holding, supporting and clutching in such a brief period of time is bound to be a great lover and it helps that he looks like a model wearing a uniform that seems to emphasize all his good points.
Gloria however counsels her against the match on principle, and as part of her own prejudiced, limited vision of life.
She also spends a considerable amount of time searching for the second volume of a book of poems by a third rate writer, which has actually caught the fancy of her butler also. He has been reading the poems to a fellow servant in the library, a pretty maid (Lila Lee) that is very attracted to him and can not help but caress his shoe while he reads the line "I was a King in Babylon and you were a Christian slave" with a very sensuous persistance that would suggest a foot/shoe fetish passion was at work.
The statement of the poem itself is an idiocy as there were never any Christians in Babylon, much less enslaved ones. The reason being that Babylon was at the time of Christ already largely abandoned as a city (from about 141 bc onwards) for over a century. The movie however does have a Babylonian scene that reenacts this poem in the most extravagant fashion, it happens much later when all the characters are stranded in an island after their yacht is shipwrecked in a deserted island, but it deserves coverage in detail.
The shipwreck scene is quite dramatic and very suggestive of a mini-Titanic, piano included. Needless to say all the characters survive and get to a deserted island, some like her father (Robert Cain) atop a chicken box, in rather comical ways, and soon find out that there are not only wild goats and abundant clams and lobsters, but also leopards. The Butler at this point becomes the leader of the pack and turns engineer-handy man: he buids a fire, cooks the food, builds a hut, soon expanded into residential proportions and decorated with the latest 'native' style. As they all start living a Robinson Crusoe lifestyle, one can not help but think of this set up as an ancestor of the Gilligan's Island TV series.
Gloria also changes from her art nouveau gown to a huntress look that could have been thought up by Chanel and that applies to a lesser degree to the rest of the cast, she has a primitive-fabric suit with a hat that supports two pheasant feathers "a la savage" and she learns to hunt with arrows from her butler, now become king of the heap who is similarly attired but with the obligatory leopard skin hunting cape.
It is precisely at this archery lesson that we see their feelings for each other are growing, (reminiscent of a similar deserted island story romance done in "Swept Away" which has two versions, (1975) and (2002) and soon after we have the dream sequence into Babylon when they mention the poem again.
This is a most elaborate scene that most have sent the budget of the movie through the roof; There is a palatial hall in the Hollywood Babylonian style with the wrong sculptural motifs but otherwise quiet believable, and with a heavy dose of Art Deco stylization that would make for an impressive lobby in Radio City. The butler sits on the throne, a large cocktail-shaker crown on his head, metalized tunic and high sandals complete the outfil, worn with a brooding expression of tyrannical granderur that never lifts through the entire scene. Behind him there is a guard that surely had a career in dancing, standing in a Deco-Babylonian uniform and to his right a favorite of his harem decked out in an exquisite follies girl costume, complete with a crown that would be phenomenal in a Brazillian carnival but would be soon eclipsed by Gloria's appearance as the rebellious beauty, all done in a white peacock theme that includes the stuffed bird in her head, complete with tail fanning out as a tiara. It takes real glamour not to make this get up completely farcical, and Gloria not only makes it, she looks beautiful in that crazy thing, amazingly she can walk in it too, and goes to meet her fate in the lion's den with a doomed heroine's aplomb.
A wedding scene soon develops for Gloria and her butler that is interrupted by the unexpected arrival of a ship that finally rescues them all and brings them back to England where they all go back to their former lives without interruption, as if the Babylonian dream had also extended into their past and made it all a complete fantasy.
The acting throughout is superb, and very nuanced, it makes the story, which can be slow at times, very enjoyable. The Babylonian sequence is an unexpected bonus and like seeing another film altogether. I find DeMille's treatment of the theme extremely conservative, if not altogether retrograde. 1919 when this movie was released, was a time of huge social change throughout a world that had just toppled all the European empires at the end of the First World war, and DeMille's commentary is that going back to the old is the best way. I think it remarkable that he chooses that topic and that way of telling the story at that particular time period. We see here an artificiality and make-believe that is the root of Hollywood distortion of socio-historical phenomenon that is going to be an extremely strong tendency in the future: The desire to create a reality that copies the details of real life, but achieves a 'fantastical reality" far from the actual, and also dramatically divorced from the tendencies that were developing in European Contemporary film, such as German Expressionism. Even before the advent of drugs DeMille had detected the strong escapist tendencies in the culture and had decided to "give them more of what they want".
A Poor Tribute to Gloria 
2009-03-21 - This compilation has poor video quality and - the largest sin of all - it leaves out the final reel of "Don't Change Your Husband"! If you are a silent film lover, leave this mess alone and buy the higher quality DVD's which are available for most of the titles. Now I still have to buy a copy of "Don't Change Your Husband" to get the entire film.
wow,so clear you'd think it was created yesterday! 
2008-01-22 - i initially overlooked this dvd because i had almost a dozen others i wanted to study that seemed much more entertaining. so today i happend to have a chance to really pay attn. to the wonderful dvd and am i glad i did! the crispness of the movie is simply astounding and male and female really captivated me. I RECOMEND THIS ONE HIGHLY! so nice to see how people looked and acted in a gentler time. horse and buggy looking autos and slave like servents. GRANTED IT ALL CAME CRASHING DOWN SOON ENOUGH. the depression, the horrid antisemitism, the awfulness of the times to come as well as the realities of the poor and the darker complected citizens, isn't even hinted at in these silent flicks.
i guess i'm lucky i cleaned my bedroom and dug this one out.
simply had to share my delight!
I AM ALSO GLAD THAT THIS WORLD HAS CHANGED-I WOULD'VE HATED THE AWFUL APARTIDE THIS COUNTRY HAD. so many people were very trapped and excluded by society back in the day.
Pretty decent budget boxed set 
2007-09-13 - Containing 10 films, 6 of them features, this set could be a nice way for someone on a shoestring budget to start adding some Gloria Swanson films to one's library. The shorts, 'His New Job' (1915, and really a Chaplin film), 'The Danger Girl' (1916), 'Teddy at the Throttle' (1917), and 'The Sultan's Wife' (1917), are a rather interesting change of pace for the average viewer who is probably only familiar with her work in later features. Gloria actually got started acting in Keystone comedies, and displays great comedic timing and ability in these shorts. They also show her paired with Bobby Vernon, an actor who now seems to be largely forgotten, and with her then-husband Wallace Beery in 'Teddy at the Throttle.' These shorts show that she wasn't just adept in dramatic acting. The depiction of India and Indians in 'The Sultan's Wife' is highly inaccurate, but one shouldn't expect too much in the way of cultural sensitivity and awareness in anything from 1917.
Four of the features are ones she made with Cecil B. DeMille, 'Male and Female' (1919), 'Don't Change Your Husband' (1919), 'Why Change Your Wife?' (1920), and 'The Affairs of Anatol' (1921). A lot of people think of DeMille as a director of over the top Biblical stories, decadent indulgent extravagant films, and preachy morality plays, but he actually did more films like these, light-hearted morality plays and comedies about romance and domestic life. While there are some of his trademark touches of decadence and over the top scenes, such as the Babylonian dream scenes in 'Male and Female,' overall they're enjoyable, believable, and down to earth. Gloria had some great co-stars in these films too, such as Wallace Reid, Thomas Meighan, Bebe Daniels, and Theodore Roberts. 'Sadie Thompson' (1928), believed by many to be one of her greatest silent roles, is another highlight of this set, though sadly the final reel is lost, making the remainder of the story be told through stills and explanatory intertitles, and just when the dramatic intensity was at its height and leading up to what was a really riveting final reel, too. 'Indiscreet' (1931) is a typical early talkie, with very still cameras, not a lot of action shots, and below-par audio quality. It's an interesting way to kill time, but not really that memorable or great. It's also not a good sign when the villain is a lot more interesting and believable than the supposed good guy. Still, Gloria does a great job with the mediocre material, and does it all--singing, comedy, emoting, and dramatic moments. Included as bonus features are a short documentary, a 'Hollywood Biography' episode, interviews, and a newsreel consisting of clips of her films and non-acting footage.
In spite of the good points, though, this is a budget set, and when it comes to technology, one generally gets what one pays for. After viewing the entire set, one can probably guess why so many great films were issued for such an unbelievably generous price. Most of them have already been issued on DVD, only the versions here do not have the same nice prints or custom-made soundtracks. For example, this version of 'The Affairs of Anatol' doesn't have the beautiful scenes near the end that are in early Technicolor on the official DVD. Finding out about how Passport Video has a history of pirating the hard work of other people makes one wonder if perhaps these too weren't taken without permission. There's also a bug on the lower right-hand corner of the screen, and while it can be tuned out periodically because it's a rather transparent white against black and white images, it's still annoying and distracting, and has no reason to be there. One expects that when watching something taped off of the tv, not on a supposedly professional DVD! Still, this is a really good price for someone who might not be able to afford all of the individual higher-quality DVDs that have these films, and it's not like one should expect a really high standard from such a budget boxed set.
GLORIOUS GLORIA IN ALL HER GLORY
2007-05-31 - Who could ask for more than FIVE discs of GLORIA SWANSON...PLUS a documentary on her life. I have hundreds of pieces of Swanson Memorabilia and I am delighted to have been able to buy this set for the price of a cup of coffee at Starbucks. Thank you always Gloria for creating the role of Norma Desmond......All my love always......Dennis
dennisthemenace48 on Ebay
