Three Weeks. 1924. Directed by Alan Crosland. Screenplay by Elinor Glyn. With Aileen Pringle, Conrad Nagel, Stuart Holmes, Dale Fuller. Digital restoration by La Cineteca del Friuli, from a print in the collection of Gosfilmofond. 103 min.
Elinor Glyn’s steamy 1907 novel Three Weeks was among the most censored, banned, and, inevitably, parodied works of the early 20th century. The breathless tale of a young, naive British aristocrat who learns about life and love while sharing a tiger skin rug with a mysterious, sensual older woman—actually the queen of an unnamed Baltic country, traveling incognito—had already been filmed twice before Samuel Goldwyn produced this lavish, now-definitive version, starring Aileen Pringle as the queen and Conrad Nagel as her boy toy. The real stars are art director Cedric Gibbons and costume designer Sophie Wachner, who cast an elegant, art nouveau aura over the extravagant goings-on. Long believed lost, the film was discovered in the vaults of Russia’s Gosfilmofond and was recently restored by the Cineteca del Friuli.