There are three women behind The Red Kimona, a compact social problem drama about the dangers of prostitution and the perils of subjugation. The first is producer Dorothy Davenport Reid – going by “Mrs. Wallace Reid” in honor of her late husband – who not only su­pervised the production but also appears onscreen at the beginning and end to solemnly address the (female) spectator. Reid, who began as a film actress and would later direct, had already produced two other “social conscious” morality tales, on the dangers of drug addiction (Human Wreckage, 1923) and pa­rental overindulgence (Broken Laws, 1924). The second is Adela Rogers St. Johns, to whom the story is credited. Best re­membered as a writer and reporter, and a keen observer of early Hollywood, St. Johns drew directly from a sensation­al real-life incident in which a young woman was tried and acquitted for the murder of the man responsible for her “fall from grace.”

Dorothy Arzner, an established editor and screenwriter who would soon make her directorial debut, adapted St. Johns’s story for the screen. Arzner’s screenplay hews closely to the original, retaining the murder and the trial as well as the superficial philanthropist who exploits the young woman for her own ends upon her acquittal. However, whereas St. Johns concludes with the heroine, unable to find reputable work in California, buying a train ticket back to New Or­leans (and, presumably, to her old life), Arzner takes the plot further, offering a glimmer of redemptive hope against the backdrop of World War I.

At times heavy handed and sancti­monious, The Red Kimona is also full of engaging visual flourishes – from the titular garment to a joyful rollercoast­er ride. Upon its release, the woman who inspired St. Johns’s magazine story, whose real name was kept in Arzner’s script, sued Reid for using her identity and life story without her permission – for her right to privacy – an ironic twist of fate for a film that pleads for the reha­bilitation of women like her.

Kate Saccone