The Sinful Sister ~ Devereaux Silent Movie

~ "The Sinful Sister" ~

~ "Lost" silent film starring the Devereaux Sisters ~

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~ Newly discovered artifacts from the "lost" Devereaux Sisters movie! ~

Yes, after more research into the Devereaux Sisters' movie history, this very rare mid 1920s lobby card for their movie "The Sinful Sister" has been found! The movie was made in France, though the release title was in English. (Apparently the plan was to debut the film in the U.S. also.)

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Lobby cards from the old movie days were usually hand tinted sepia or b&w photos. The added color gave them great visual appeal, and although the shades were often quite strong, they gave the images a wonderful eye catching look all their own.

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The Devereaux Sisters were famous for their fabulous live stage shows where they enchanted audiences with their wonderful singing and dancing. Aways the adventuresses, they became intrigued by allure of the silver screen. This was the mid 1920s, so films were still silent and their enchanting voices would not be heard, but the sisters possessed the kind of beauty that just lit up a screen. So when a famous movie producer asked them several times to make a motion picture for his studio, they finally agreed... but only if they could write the script themselves!

Louise and Renee knew they wanted to do something unexpected for the film. Since they were known for their vivacious, good natured personalities, and also got along with each other so well, they wanted to turn all that on its head! So they came up with a story of sisters whose close bond was slowly destroyed as one sister, the "bad" one, embarked upon a life of sin, crime and questionable alliances. As they began to write the script, each sister knew one thing for sure... Renee wanted at least one dramatic scene where she would weep terribly (it made her giggle to think about it), and Louise wanted a sensational and tragic death scene. Oh my!

They flipped a coin to decide which sister would play who, with the result being Renee would play the virtuous sister, and Louise the fallen sister. The working title was, "The Sinful Sister"... they were sure that title would fill up the theatre seats!

There were several still photographs taken during the production of the movie, but time and the closing of Cinémagie Studios in the mid 1950s has caused many of the photos, scripts and film canisters to be lost. Some have survived and been found, and here are some of the now very rare still photographs. Often it was the case that stills like these were used to create promotional material for the film such as posters and lobby cards.

In the early planning stages of the film, the sisters toyed with the idea of having some of the movie be in color. In the 1920s, Technicolor was in its infancy and there were ways to achieve limited color in movies. Full color was still a monumental task, but an approximation of full color could be achieved with a two color strip technique using red and green. Here are early wardrobe and make-up test photos done in the two color technique. Renee wanted so much to be a flaming redhead!

Here are two more color test stills. Some of the early color processes were unstable and suffered from color shifts and film degradation over time. These two stills were stored in different areas of the old Cinémagie Studios warehouse and were exposed to different environmental affects. The first photo was in a box near a window, and the resulting light and heat exposure faded and washed out the print.

The second still was stored in a box at the back of the warehouse were it was much cooler and darker. The color still has the red-green tint of the original two color Technicolor process, and it retains much more depth and contrast than the other print.

After realizing how expensive it would be to make a color movie, even just a few scenes in color, the sisters decided to make the movie in black and white to keep a reasonable budget. Also, snce red hair photographs darker in black and white, Renee decided to go platinum blonde for the movie. In addition to showing up better on screen, she thought her platinum hair would make a nice opposite to Louise's raven black hair. These test shots also showed that the luxurious black fur coat that Louise wore was too dark in the scene, so a different coat was used for the movie.

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This scene takes part a little bit into the story. Renee, and her sweet boyfriend Sean, meet Louise's new gentleman friend for the first time. Renee is rather stunned to see that he is quite a bit older than Louise, and dresses so boldly. Renee also wonders why Louise keeps calling him "Daddy" all the time... they already have a daddy!

Closer view of the sisters ~

Here is a still frame from the movie, a reverse angle showing Renee's intensity. They had such fun playing dramatic scenes with each other, but were also known to make faces to each other in an attempt to make the other one laugh!

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Just Discovered!

Recently unearthed in the old Cinémagie Studios warehouse, is this fabulous large poster for "The Sinful Sister" movie! This is truly an amazing discovery because the poster is so extremely rare and it is in surprisingly pristine condition. This treasure can now be added to the lobby card and photo stills previously found.

Along with the discovery of the large full color poster is this wonderful duotone version of the poster. These smaller two color poster prints were more common as their printing costs were substantially lower. The full color posters were often used for the larger, big city movie houses, while the smaller two color posters would be used in smaller theatres, or as street advertisements.

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The hopes are that more searches though the old boxes will finally produce the most prized treasure of all... the film canisters of this lost silent classic.

"The Devereaux Sisters", "Reneé Devereaux" and "Louise Devereaux" are trademarks of The Tonner Doll Company, Inc. Doll photography art, graphic designs and story copyrighted ©2009 Susan Renee Tomb. All Rights Reserved.

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