Louise Glaum in Sex 1920

Film Review and Rating / Synopsis

• Sex (1920) - Plot Summary - The Homewreckers. Interesting morality tale about a vamp named Adrienne Renault (Louise Glaum) who works the "Midnight Frolic" at a New York nightclub where she performs this season's sensation "the Spider Dance", which begins by her floating down from the ceiling clinging to a giant spider web. When not dressed up in spider attire, this gal is busy running around and attending wild parties at four in the morning with a married "admirer" named Philip (William Conklin), who leaves his poor wife home alone and lonely, and at the same time Adrienne has taken under her wing, Daisy (Peggy Pearce), an innocent small-town girl who also dances at the club. Adrienne shows "the kid" the ropes, telling her to "grab what she can get" and not worry whether a man is already married. Soon Philip's wife has hired a detective who gives up the dope on hubby's affair and next thing you know, they are divorced. So - Adrienne's got him all for herself - but not for long 'cause she soon has her vampish eyes on yet another rich man! And what goes around comes around - as soon our vamp learns her lesson about stealing husbands and gets her comeuppance the hard way.

  Review - This film is quite good, if a slight bit preachy. The wild nightclubs and scenes of frolicsome partygoers are fun to watch and Louise Glaum does a fine job switching from leopard-print kimono wearing, cigarette puffing, ostrich feather fan waving homewrecker to good girl trying to run her own home. The film has well-done artwork on each title card giving an interesting reflection of the action currently onscreen. The print of this on the DVD I saw looked decent, just a bit faded but fairly good as a whole. It featured an appropriate organ score. Worth seeing. Rating - * 7/10 stars *

  Director: Fred Niblo
  Film Genre: Melodrama
  Film Runtime: 80 minutes

Links / Resources

• IMDb film listing for Sex (1920), cast and crew
• AFI Catalog Listing, cast, summary, tech details

RATINGS KEY:

10 = Absolutely Fabulous/Superb
9 = Really Good/Excellent
8 = Good
7 = Fairly Good/Decent
6 = So-so, some flaws
5 = Mediocre
4 = Not that good, many flaws
3 = Poor
2 = Very Poor/Stinker
1 = One of the worst BOMBS ever filmed