The Bride's Play

TCM's Alicia Malone introduces The Bride's Play, 1922.

Ben Mankiewicz introduces The Bride’s Play, 1921.

Fantasy flashback begun by tales told by Irish peasants at the wedding of Irish heroine Marion Davies, appearing here as medieval maiden Enid, unwilling to marry the local Earl (Wyndham Standing, also the groom in the contemporary story), with more elaborate staging by architect and designer Joseph Urban, in The Bride’s Play, 1922.

More spectacle from designer Joseph Urban, given vast resources by William Randolph Hearst, lover and sponsor of the star Marion Davies, who plays Irish lass Aileen, invited by the admiring Sir Fergus (Wyndham Standing), but more drawn to the dashing poet Bulmer Meade (Carlton Miller), in The Bride’s Play, 1922.

Marion Davies as Irish Aileen, now at a convent school, with classmates entranced by the poetry of Bulmer Meade (Carlton Miller), whose dwelling offers an opportunity for Joseph Urban, the architect and designer expensively hired by Davies’ lover and de facto producer William Randolph Hearst, in one of his first movie projects, The Bride’s Play, 1922.