The Gold Diggers (1923 film) - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

The Gold Diggers is a Warner Bros.

Warner Bros.

Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc., also known as Warner Bros. Pictures or simply Warner Bros. , is an American producer of film and television entertainment.One of the major film studios, it is a subsidiary of Time Warner, with its headquarters in Burbank,...

silent film directed by Harry Beaumont

Harry Beaumont

Harry Beaumont was an American film director, actor, and screenwriter. He worked for a variety of production companies including Fox, Goldwyn, Metro, Warner Brothers and MGM....

with screenplay by Grant Carpenter based on the play of the same name by Avery Hopwood

Avery Hopwood

James Avery Hopwood , was the most successful playwright of the Jazz Age, having four plays running simultaneously on Broadway in 1920.-Biography:...

which ran for 282 performances on Broadway in 1919 and 1920. Both the play and the film were produced by David Belasco

David Belasco

David Belasco was an American theatrical producer, impresario, director and playwright.-Biography:Born in San Francisco, California, where his Sephardic Jewish parents had moved from London, England, during the Gold Rush, he began working in a San Francisco theatre doing a variety of routine jobs,...

. The film, which is now lost, starred Hope Hampton

Hope Hampton

Hope Hampton was an American silent motion picture actress, who was noted for her seemingly effortless incarnation of siren and flapper types in silent-picture roles during the 1920s....

, Wyndham Standing

Wyndham Standing

Wyndham Standing was an English film actor. He appeared in 131 films between 1915 and 1948. A popular and much beloved leading man in the silent film era, he starred and costarred along many famous names of the day, both men and women. He and Ronald Colman were the stars of the now lost classic...

, Johnny Harron, Louise Fazenda

Louise Fazenda

Louise Fazenda was an American film actress, appearing chiefly in silent comedy films.-Early life:Of Portuguese ancestry, she was born in Lafayette, Indiana. Her father, Joseph Fazenda, was a merchandise broker. After moving west Louise attended Los Angeles High School and St. Mary's Convent...

, Anne Cornwall

Anne Cornwall

Anne Cornwall , was an American actress. She performed for forty years in many early silent film productions starting in 1918, and later in talkies, until 1959. She was first married to writer/director Charles Maigne, then later to Los Angeles Engineer Ellis Wing Taylor...

, and Gertrude Short

Gertrude Short

Gertrude Short was an American film actress of the silent and early sound era. She appeared in 132 films between 1912 and 1945.She was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, and died in Hollywood, California, aged 66....

. It was also the (uncredited) film debut of Louise Beavers

Louise Beavers

Louise Beavers was an African-American film and television actress. Beavers appeared in dozens of films from the 1920s to the 1930s, most often in the role of a maid, servant, or slave. A native of Cincinnati, Ohio, Beavers was a member of Sigma Gamma Rho sorority, one of the four African-American...

, who would eventually make 156 film appearances, many of them as scene-stealing maids, and played "Beulah" for a season on the TV series of that name

Beulah (series)

The Beulah Show is an American situation-comedy series that ran on CBS radio from 1945 to 1954, and on ABC television from 1950 to 1952. The show is notable for being the first sitcom to star an African American actress.-Radio:...

.

The story of The Gold Diggers was filmed again as a talkie in 1929 as Gold Diggers of Broadway, which is now lost, and also in 1933 as Gold Diggers of 1933
Gold Diggers of 1933
Gold Diggers of 1933 is a pre-code Warner Bros. musical film directed by Mervyn LeRoy with songs by Harry Warren and Al Dubin , staged and choreographed by Busby Berkeley...

, with musical numbers created by Busby Berkeley

Busby Berkeley

Busby Berkeley was a highly influential Hollywood movie director and musical choreographer. Berkeley was famous for his elaborate musical production numbers that often involved complex geometric patterns...

. Three other sequels followed: Gold Diggers of 1935
Gold Diggers of 1935
Gold Diggers of 1935 is a Warner Bros. musical film directed and choreographed by Busby Berkeley and starring Dick Powell, Gloria Stuart, Adolphe Menjou, Winifred Shaw, Alice Brady, Hugh Herbert and Frank McHugh...

(1935), Gold Diggers of 1937
Gold Diggers of 1937
Gold Diggers of 1937 is a 1936 Warner Bros. movie musical directed by Lloyd Bacon with musical numbers created and directed by Busby Berkeley, and starring Dick Powell and Joan Blondell, who were married at the time, and Victor Moore. The film features songs by the teams of Harold Arlen and E.Y...

(1936), and Gold Diggers in Paris
Gold Diggers in Paris
Gold Diggers in Paris is a 1938 Warner Bros. movie musical directed by Ray Enright with musical numbers created and directed by Busby Berkeley, starring Rudy Vallee, Rosemary Lane, Hugh Herbert and Allen Jenkins.-Plot:...

(1938).

Plot

Wally Saunders (Johnny Harron) wants to marry chorus girl Violet Dayne (Anne Cornwall), but his uncle, Stephen Lee (Wydham Standing) thinks that all chorines are gold diggers and refuses to give his approval. Violet's friend Jerry La Mar (Hope Hampton) is not a gold digger, but she agrees to go after Lee so aggressively that Violet will look tame by comparison. Of course, the uncle and the friend fall in love and get married, even after he knows the truth about her, and he gives permission for Wally and Violet to get hitched too.

Plot

See also