CORINNE GRIFFITH in THE DIVINE LADY (1929)

Corinne Griffith - As Mary Boyne In

The Unknown Quantity (1919)

"Corinne Griffith pictured in a scene from the Alexander Korda film, Lilies of the Field. She plays a show-girl who takes part in a modernistic ballet mechanique and, dressed in silver tights, represented the figure of Speed on a radiator cap of a gigantic automobile. The men were dressed to represent robots."

Lilies of the Field, Alexander Korda, 1929

American film actress Corinne Griffith on a vintage postcard

Bela Lugosi and Corinne Griffith in Prisoners 1929

(Unfortunately lost movie )

Symbolic Flowers in Picture Play magazine, 1929

Corinne Griffith ❤️

Screenland Magazine, June 1929.

Corinne Griffith in The Garden of Eden (1928)

Corinne Griffith as Grand Duchess Tatiana in INTO HER KINGDOM (1926), directed by Svend Gade

Corinne Griffith photographed by E.O. Hoppe, 1922

Corinne Griffith

Corinne Griffith

Photography by Alfred Cheney Johnston

Corinne Griffith and Victor Varconi in The Divine Lady (Frank Lloyd, 1929)

Cast: Corinne Griffith, Victor Varconi, H.B. Warner, Ian Keith, Marie Dressler, Montagu Love, William Conklin, Dorothy Cumming. Screenplay: Forrest Halsey, titles by Harry Carr and Edwin Justus Mayer, based on a story by E. Barrington. Cinematography: John F. Seitz. Art direction: Horace Jackson. Film editing: Hugh Bennett. Music: Cecil Copping.

Frank Lloyd is a director nobody remembers today except for the fact that he won two best director Oscars. Unfortunately, they were for movies that almost no one except film scholars and Oscar completists watch today: this one and Cavalcade (1933). His other distinction is that his Oscar for The Divine Lady is the only one that has ever been awarded for a film that was not nominated for best picture.* It's a moderately entertaining film about the affair of Emma Hamilton (Corinne Griffith) and Lord Horatio Nelson (Victor Varconi) -- a story better told in That Hamilton Woman (Alexander Korda, 1941) with Vivien Leigh and Laurence Olivier as the lovers. Griffith is one of those silent stars whose career didn't make it into the sound era, reportedly because her voice was too nasal. She was, however, considered* for the best actress Oscar, which went to Mary Pickford for Coquette. She doesn't have to speak in The Divine Lady: Although it has a synchronized music track, including Griffith supposedly singing (but probably dubbed) "Loch Lomond", and sound effects, including cannon fire during Nelson's naval battles, there is no spoken dialogue. The only truly standout performance is a small one by Marie Dressler as Emma's mother: She has a funny slapstick bit at the beginning of the movie, but disappears from the movie far too soon. The cinematography by John F. Seitz (miscredited as "John B. Sietz" in the opening titles) was also considered* for an Oscar, but it went to Clyde De Vinna for White Shadows in the South Seas (W.S. Van Dyke and Robert J. Flaherty, 1928).

*If you want to get technical about it, there were no official nominations in any of the Oscar categories for the 1928-29 awards. What are usually regarded as nominees are the artists and films that Academy records show were under consideration for awards. In Lloyd's case, he was also under consideration for directing the films Drag and Weary River during the same time period, but when his win was announced, only The Divine Lady  was specified.

ACTRESSES WHO DIED 1979

Mary Pickford at 87 from brain hemorrhage

Dolores Costello at 75 from emphysema

Joan Blondell at 73 from leukemia

Jean Seberg at 40 from barbiturate overdose

Corinne Griffith at 84 from heart attack

Merle Oberon at 68 from stroke

Ann Dvorak at 67 from cancer

Kathleen Case at 45 from unknown events

Catherine Hessling at 79 from unknown events

Doris Kenyon at 81 from cardiac arrest