The Bride's Play

Set in Ireland, THE BRIDE'S PLAY, stars Marion Davies as Aileen, a young innocent lass who is enamored of the legends and tales of that land. Upon entering adulthood after growing up in a convent, she becomes enamored with a nobleman played by Wyndham Standing, but then falls for a romantic poet played by Carl Miller (The Kid, A Woman of Paris). After learning about the poet's hidden life, Aileen instead embraces her nobleman and agrees to marry him. In their lavish wedding ceremony she re-enacts the legendary "Bride's Play", in which the bride asks a line of men if they are her one true love. The poet races to attend the wedding in hopes that it is he, after all - and Aileen's one true love is revealed just in time.


Released January 1922, THE BRIDE'S PLAY features excellent cinematography, costume design and art direction, and is one of the string of 1921-22 Cosmopolitan Davies pictures that lead up to her breakthrough role in the star-making When Knighthood Was In Flower. The film is seen here in a scan from an archival 35mm print preserved by the Library of Congress, its original color tinting disitally restored, and features a new piano score by Ben Model.