Jeanne Eagels with John Gilbert and Marc McDermott in Man, Woman and Sin
Jeanne Eagels’ last silent movie – and her only Hollywood shoot – Man, Woman and Sin (1927) is showing in a restored print as part of To Save and Project, the 20th annual film preservation festival at New York’s Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) next Saturday, January 13th, at 1:30 pm.
MGM contract director Monta Bell (obscure today, but once regarded on the level of Lubitsch) used his own background as a Washington, DC, cub newspaper reporter as the basis of this sophisticated psychodrama. Teaming top Hollywood romancer John Gilbert with Broadway legend-in-her-own-lifetime Jeanne Eagels ensured a hit, but the film was withdrawn due to rights issues and long thought lost. This restoration, the first in almost a century, uses original 35mm elements and original tints.
The screening will be introduced by author and film historian David Stenn, who funded the George Eastman Museum’s restoration, with a piano accompaniment by Ben Model. The event also includes two short Hollywood rediscoveries: Adele Astaire’s screen test for Dark Victory, and a Fox Movietone newsreel from 1930 featuring Abe Lyman’s jazz orchestra.