Cupid in Quarantine Break Its Silence . . . after 100 Years
Notes by Adam Andre
Coming out of quarantine at the 11th Orphan Film Symposium is Cupid in Quarantine, a 10-minute silent comedy originally released in September 1918 by the Mutual Film Corporation. The one-reeler stars Elinor Field as a young woman who fakes a case of smallpox to foster a love affair with her crush Jack, played by co-star Cullen Landis, making it an opportune choice for the Orphans 11 theme of “Love.”
Upon its premiere, Field received a glowing notice in the October 5, 1918 issue of Moving Picture World, the leading industry publication of its time. “Miss Field’s vivaciousness permeates the entire picture, filling it with life and action and a humor that is contagious.” Although the short received little further press, the movie helped to launch Field’s career as she went on to star in multiple films, most notably the 15-part Selig Polyscope production The Jungle Goddess (1922). Landis would go on to become a Hollywood leading man for the next ten years, appearing in dozens of silent movies before starring in the first all-talking picture Light of New York (1928). Yet he quit Hollywood for Detroit, becoming a director of industrial films for the Jam Handy Organization and later the federal government. (Bio at Wikipedia.)
Through a repatriation project announced at the 2014 NYU Orphan Film Symposium held in Amsterdam, the National Film Preservation Foundation (NFPF) and EYE Netherlands Filmmuseum have partnered to rescue and return more than 50 American nitrate films from the Netherlands back to the United States, including Cupid in Quarantine. In 2015, the NFPF raised money to preserve and restore the film, with the support of “For the Love of Film”: The Film Preservation Blogathon, an annual initiative to spread awareness of and raise funds for motion picture preservation.
Jeff Lambert of the National Film Preservation Foundation and Frank Roumen of EYE introduce Cupid in Quarantine, with a 35mm print fresh from Colorlab, at the final session of the 11th Orphan Film Symposium. See it on the big screen at Museum of the Moving Image in historic Astoria on Saturday, April 14, 8pm. Stephen Horne provides live piano accompaniment.
p.s.
Post-symposium upate.
NFPF published the streaming video, with music composed, performed, and recorded by Stephen Horne. Notes by Steve Massa.
Frames courtesy of Eye and NFPF, with Colorlab and LOC, which conducted the preservation and scanning.
