April Folly (1920)
Director:
Robert Z. Leonard
Writers:
Adrian Johnson, Cynthia Stockley (story)
Stars:
Marion Davies, Madeline Marshall, Hattie Delaro, Amelia Summerville, Conway Tearle, J. Herbert Frank
April Poole (Marion Davies) is a prominent magazine writer. She tells her publisher, Kerry Sarle (Conway Tearle) and editor, Ronald Kenna (Herbert Frank) that she has put them in her latest story, which unfolds as follows: April disguises herself as Lady Diana Mannister, so that the real Lady Diana (Madeline Marshall) can get married. April, meanwhile, sails to South Africa with a very large, very valuable diamond. During her journey, she meets a handsome young businessman, Sarle, while Kenna, a jewel thief, tries to get his hands on the diamond. April locks herself inside a trunk which is delivered to her aunt's in South Africa. Kenna has followed it, believing it contains the diamond, but when he opens it, he finds April confronting him with a revolver. She turns the crook in, while winning the love of Sarle -- both in her story and in real life. Not surprisingly, this picture was based on a serial (written by Cynthia Stockley) that ran in Cosmopolitan magazine -- one of the publications belonging to Marion Davies' paramour and producer, William Randolph Hearst. The relationship between Davies and Hearst was one of the '20s worst-kept secrets -- in its advice to exhibitors, trade magazine Motion Picture News significantly notes, "In advertising this picture you have the cooperation of the Hearst publications, so a good deal of your work is already accomplished."