Credits

Studio: A Famous Players-Lasky Production
A Paramount Picture
Released: September 25, 1921

Featured Cast: Gloria Swanson, Wallace Reid, Elliott Dexter, Agnes Ayres, Theodore Roberts, Bebe Daniels

Producer-director: Cecil B. DeMille
Screenwriters: Jeanie Macpherson, Beulah Marie Dix, Lorna Moon, Elmer Harris
Source: the Arthur Schnitzler play Anatol
Art director: Wilfred Buckland
Cinematographers: Alvin Wyckoff, Karl Struss
Costumes: Clare West
Editor: Anne Bauchens

Theme

Disillusioned by his marriage, a young socialite embarks on a series of romances.

Production Quotes

“Cecil B. DeMille’s next picture, The Affairs of Anatol, is to be an all-star production. You have seen other all-star productions, ‘tis true, but never anything so wonderful as this will be. All of its players graduated to individual stardom under the magic touch of DeMille—and I cannot imagine a greater treat than to see them all together.”

– Hazel Simpson Naylor, “California Chatter,” Motion Picture Vol. XXI, No. 1 (February 1921)

Reviews

“As a box-office magnet this picture can not fail. It will please audiences from a dozen different angles. If ever a picture was sure-fire for big cities and little towns alike, this is one. The man who doesn’t sell out for every performance of a double run should turn his show shop into a Quaker meeting-house.”

– J. S. Dickerson, Motion Picture News, September 24, 1921

Letters From Regional Theater Owners

“It’s a box-office knockout! I played this for three big days in a town where two-day pictures are the exception, and we got one fourth of the population in spite of a fifteen-cent increase in admission—and the competition of a medicine show giving a three-hour entertainment for just ten cents!”

– W. Ray Erne, Arcade Theatre, Charlotte, Michigan, Exhibitors Herald, Vol. XIII, No. 18 (November 5, 1921)

Artist Comment

“The appeal of softly scented women, the rich textures of silken robes, and velvety rose petals—that is what I spend thousands of dollars to bring to the silver sheet. I have my costumes designed to create an impression. I want to make my audience feel what I am telling.”

– Cecil B. DeMille in Hazel Simpson Naylor, “Cecil B. DeMille, the Master of Mystery,” Motion Picture 18, No. 10 (November 1919)

Figures

The Affairs of Anatol cost $176,508.08 and grossed $1,191,789.19.
(These figures have not been adjusted for inflation nor do they include the considerable profits realized from reissues, television syndication, and home entertainment formats.)