Julia Deep works at the exchange desk of Timothy Black's department store by day, but her evenings are spent in the library of Terry Hartridge, a fellow resident in Mrs. Turner's boardinghouse. Terry has never seen Julia, since he is too busy squandering his inheritance on easy living and showgirl Lottie Driscoll, but the two meet when Terry, having learned that he has spent his last cent, enters the room with a gun. Julia prevents him from shooting himself and they become fast friends. Black gives Terry a job, and the young man adopts a renewed and more sober interest in life. Lottie later reappears but Terry convinces Julia that the actress means nothing to him, and the young couple pool their resources and settle down. -AFI
This was the first AFC title to be offered by Pathe via a special arrangement with American. The film was available for booking on August 24th but with no specified release date. Corporate records show the release date as Saturday, September 21st.
Being the first film under Samuel S. Hutchinson’s plan to sell directly to exhibitors through Pathe, the picture had an intricate promotional plan which included a “Campaign Book for Exhibitors”. In this book, exhibitors, who were invited to seek out personal representatives of American at their nearest Pathe exchange for booking, received advertisement suggestions including posters, proposed catch lines, display templates, and a detailed Music Plot created by Ernst Lutz. The music plot, made adaptable for several instrument types, listed a description of the music style per scene, included suggested existing musical numbers, cues to stop each number, and operator cues for dissolving reels.
Set as the first of an eight 5-reel picture deal for Mary Miles Minter, a large part of American’s advertising strategy for the film was to heavily rely on Minter’s star power. Strategies for promotion were also featured in Trade Magazines, which suggested featuring Minter as the attraction first, and detailed innovative gimmicks such as poking holes through the eyes of a face drawn on a box containing stills of the film so that the viewer could “see” through Julia’s eyes.
The tinting plan plotted out tints for the entire length of the film, with a shot-for-shot list on a shooting script that contained notes detailing the length of tints by feet. On the printed plan, tints alternated between amber and “moon”, but handwritten notes on the document show that there were scenes in which sepia, blue, “sepia pink”, and other tones were specified as well.
- Yael Wasserman, FAMST 151FA, September, 2024