Anna Ascends
{{short description|1922 film by Victor Fleming}}
{{Use American English|date=January 2025}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=August 2020}}
{{infobox film
| name = Anna Ascends
| image = Anna Ascends-593646673-large.jpg
| caption = Theatrical poster
| director = Victor Fleming
| producer = Adolph Zukor
Jesse L. Lasky
| based_on = {{based on|Anna Ascends|Harry Chapman Ford}}
| writer = Margaret Turnbull (scenario)
| starring = Alice Brady
| music =
| cinematography = Gilbert Warrenton
| editing =
| distributor = Paramount Pictures
| released = {{film date|1922|11|19}}
| runtime = {{duration|h=1|m=2}}
| country = United States
| language = Silent (English intertitles)
}}
Anna Ascends is a 1922 American silent romantic drama film directed by Victor Fleming, and based on the 1920 play of the same title by Harry Chapman Ford. Alice Brady reprises her starring role from the Broadway play.{{cite book|editor=White Munden, Kenneth|title=The American Film Institute Catalog of Motion Pictures Produced in the United States: Feature Films, 1921-1930|year=1997|publisher=University of California Press|isbn=0-520-20969-9|page=19}} The film is largely lost, with only a six-minute fragment still in existence.{{cite web |url=http://www.silentera.com/PSFL/data/A/AnnaAscends1922.html |title=Progressive Silent Film List: Anna Ascends |publisher=silentera.com}}
Overview
The Broadway play is about a working class Syrian American waitress who through hard work "ascends" the social and economic ladder and becomes successful in the United States. The playwright Henry Chapman Ford loosely based his play on a real-life Syrian immigrant waitress in Boston named Anna Ayyoub, who mesmerized him. In his book, The Arab Americans: A History, writer Gregory Orfalea describes Ford's inspiration by quoting him, "Their family life, their clean way of living impressed me and I decided that the Americanization of such a race was a big factor in making the "melting pot" one of the greatest nations of history".{{cite book |last=Orfalea |first=Gregory |author-link=Gregory Orfalea |title=The Arab Americans: A History |publisher=Olive Branch Press |year=2006 |location=Northampton, Massachusetts |page=[https://archive.org/details/arabamericans00greg/page/85 85] |url=https://archive.org/details/arabamericans00greg/page/85 |isbn=978-1-5665-6597-4 |url-access=registration }} Ford went on: "I figured here is a people who could read and write probably 6,000 years before the northern 'blue eyes'. Here is a race who had a fine culture along with the great Egyptian dynasties, and as criminology seems to be a statistical fad at the present writing, here are a people who have less, en ratio, in prisons, than any other in the world. Hence, I figured, why not write a Syrian drama, a virgin field, anent the Syrians?"
Cast
- Alice Brady as Anna Ayyob{{cite web|title=Anna Ascends|url=http://www.filmaffinity.com/en/film335546.html|publisher=filmaffinity.com|accessdate=December 16, 2015}}
- Robert Ellis as Howard Fisk
- David Powell as The Baron
- Nita Naldi as Countess Rostoff
- Charles K. Gerrard as Count Rostoff
- Edouard Durand as Siad Coury (credited as Edward Durand)
- Florence Dixon as Bessie Fisk
- Grace Griswold as Miss Fisk
- Frederick Burton as Mr. Fisk
- Benjamin De Casseres as City Editor{{cite news|title=Editor Appears in Film|author=|date=October 29, 1922|page=4-W|newspaper=Oakland Tribune|location=Oakland, California|url=https://www.newspapers.com/image/82534181|access-date=November 8, 2016}}
References
{{reflist}}
External links
{{commons category|Anna Ascends (film)}}
- {{AFI film|1336|Anna Ascends}}
- {{IMDb title|0012898}}
- {{tcmdb title|490630}}
{{Victor Fleming}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Anna Ascends}}
Category:1922 romantic drama films
Category:1920s English-language films
Category:American black-and-white films
Category:American films based on plays
Category:American silent feature films
Category:English-language romantic drama films
Category:Famous Players-Lasky films
Category:Films directed by Victor Fleming
Category:Lost American romantic drama films