Damaged Goods (1914 film)
Damaged Goods is an American silent drama film directed by Tom Ricketts, starring Richard Bennett. It is based on Eugène Brieux's play Les Avariés about a young couple who contract syphilis. No print of the film is known to exist, making it a lost film, although according to the silent film survival database a fragment survives. It is believed to have begun the sex hygiene/venereal disease film craze of the 1910s.
The play was adapted into a British silent film Damaged Goods in 1919. A sound film based on the Brieux play, also titled Damaged Goods was directed by Phil Goldstone, released by Grand National Pictures.
Cast
- Richard Bennett as George Dupont
- Adrienne Morrison as a Girl of the Streets
- Maud Milton as Mrs. Dupont
- Olive Templeton as Henriette Locke
- Josephine Ditt as Mrs. James Forsythe
- Jacqueline Moore as Seamstress
- Florence Short as Nurse
- Louis Bennison as Dr. Clifford
- John Steppling as Senator Locke
- William Bertram as a Quack Doctor
- George Ferguson as the Quack's Assistant
- Charlotte Burton as Mrs. Lester
Production and release history
Film historian Terry Ramsaye stated that the film was "pretentiously made" for a cost of less than $50,000, including marketing, and that "its states' rights... sold for $600,000, thus indicating a box-office take of probably more than $2,000,000". According to a 1915 account, audience demand for the film in Detroit was so great that police were required to control the crowds at the theater.Damaged Goods was re-released in a "new edition" in 1917, perhaps in response to concerns about the spread of venereal disease among World War I soldiers. It was re-released again in 1919.
In 1929 a synchronized soundtrack was reportedly added to the film for a states' rights re-release.