Pampered Youth – Silent (1925)

Description

Pampered Youth is a 1925 American silent drama film directed by David Smith and starring Cullen Landis, Alice Calhoun, and Allan Forrest. It is an adaption of the 1918 novel The Magnificent Ambersons by Booth Tarkington.

As described in a review in a film magazine, twenty-five or thirty years ago, every small town boasted of its Amberson family, whose home was the showplace and whose every move made the news. Major Amberson’s (King) daughter Isabel (Calhoun) loves Eugene Morgan (Forrest), but he gets himself in disgrace by performing a drunken serenade and leaves town. Isabel marries Wilbur Minafer (MacDonald), a poor second choice, who makes a very passable husband. Not loving her husband, Isabel centers all of the love in her heart upon her son George, who naturally grows from a very spoiled young boy into a despicable young cad. His extravagances eventually deplete the Amberson fortune. When his father dies, George resents his mother’s love for Morgan, who has returned as a prosperous automobile manufacturer. George has come to love, however, Morgan’s daughter Lucy (Merriam). The death of Major Amberson forces George to go to work, bringing about his regeneration. Then there is the heroic rescue of Isabel by Morgan when the home in which she lodges burns. The final tableau suggests the rehabilitation of George.

Cast:

• Cullen Landis as George Minafer
• Ben Alexander as George Minafer, as a child
• Allan Forrest as Eugene Morgan
• Alice Calhoun as Isabel Minafer
• Emmett King as Major Amberson
• Wallace MacDonald as Wilbur Minafer
• Charlotte Merriam as Lucy Morgan
• Kathryn Adams as Fanny Minafer
• Aggie Herring as Mrs. Foster
• William Irving as George Amberson