Introduced by Anthony Slide

Neil Brand on Piano

Marshall Neilan and Blanche Sweet may not have enjoyed the happiest of marriages, but as director and star theirs was a successful partnership. The Sporting Venus is a romantic melodrama, a genre for which Sweet is admirably suited, and dates from the couple's time in Britain, when they shot the "lost" Tess of the D'Urbervilles and Sweet tried, unsuccessfully, to film Rebecca West's Return of the Soldier. The exteriors were filmed in Europe, but interiors for The Sporting Venus were shot in Los Angeles. Sweet borrowed Lillian Gish's leading man, Ronald Colman, and while dubious as to his abilities as an onscreen lover, she had nothing but praise for his legs as displayed in a kilt.