Credits

Studio: A Famous Players-Lasky Production
A Paramount Picture
Premiered: February 24, 1923 (Los Angeles)

Featured Cast: Pauline Garon, Elliott Dexter, Milton Sills

Producer-director: Cecil B. DeMille
Screenwriter: Jeanie Macpherson
Art director: Paul Iribe
Cinematographers: Alvin Wyckoff, L. Guy Wilky
Editor: Anne Bauchens

Theme

A girl called a “flapper” learns that young women in olden days had the same problems as she.

Reviews

“Cecil B. DeMille continues to be nothing if not popular and I venture to say that in this picture he will be nothing if not entertaining. Even if you’re a flapper, you’ll think it great. The theme is a brief for the girl of today and her dizzy eccentricities. I thought the DeMille flapper was great, perhaps because she’s a superflapper.”

– Edwin Schallert, “More Clever Than Usual,” Los Angeles Times, p. I19 (February 5, 1923)

Letters From Regional Theater Owners

“Everybody should see this. Perfect acting. Perfect production. Even the cornstalk boys, fresh from the acres, say it’s the best show ever brought to town.”

– George Rea, Colonial Theatre, Washington C.H., Ontario, Exhibitors Herald, Vol. XVI, No. 18 (April 28, 1923)

Artist Comment

“The 1920s were the era of, among other phenomena, the flapper. With her bobbed hair, her short skirts and her preference for the athletic Charleston over the sedate waltz, she became as much an obsession to the pointers-with-alarm as Hollywood itself. I decided to come to the defense of the flapper. The flashback to prehistoric times enabled her to show that bare legs, short skirts, and feminine resourcefulness were nothing new.”

– Cecil B. DeMille, Autobiography

Figures

Adam’s Rib cost $408,432.64 and grossed $881,206.75.
(These figures have not been adjusted for inflation nor do they include the considerable profits realized from reissues, television syndication, and home entertainment formats.)