The Garden of Allah (1927 film)

1927 film by Rex Ingram

September 2, 1927 (1927-09-02)

Running time

96 minutesCountryUnited StatesLanguagesSilent Version
Sound (Synchronized)
English intertitlesBox office$634,450 (USA Gross Total)

The Garden of Allah is a 1927 American silent romantic drama film directed by Rex Ingram, his final film for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. The film stars Ingram’s wife, actress Alice Terry and Iván Petrovich. Due to the public's apathy towards silent films, a sound version was prepared and released in 1928. While the sound version has no audible dialog, it features a synchronized musical score with sound effects. The film was released in both sound-on-disc and sound-on-film formats.

This film was the second version of the Robert Hichens 1904 British novel of the same name, which had been filmed by the Selig Polyscope Company in 1916 with Helen Ware and would be filmed again in 1936 with Marlene Dietrich and Charles Boyer.^[1]

An incomplete print of The Garden of Allah still exists and is preserved at the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer/United Artists film archive.^[2]

Plot

Father Adrien (Iván Petrovich), a monk at the Trappist monastery of Notre Dame d'Afrique in Algeria, abandons his vows and escapes to the desert, where he meets and rescues Domini (Alice Terry).

Cast

Alice Terry as Domini Enfilden
Iván Petrovich as Father Adrien
Marcel Vibert as Count Anteoni
H.H. Wright as Lord Rens
Pâquerette as Suzanne (Credited as Madame Paquerette)
Gerald Fielding as Batouch
Armand Dutertre as The Priest of Beni-Mora
Ben Sadour as The Sand Diviner
Claude Fielding as Hadj
Rehba Bent Salah as Ayesha
Michael Powell as A Tourist

Music

The sound version featured a theme song entitled “Only God and I Know What Is In My Heart” which was composed by William Axt, David Mendoza and Edward Bowes.

Production

The film was shot at a studio in Nice, France, and the desert exteriors were filmed in Biskra, Algeria and Morocco.^[3]

References

^ Teo, Hsu-Ming Teo (2012). Desert Passions: Orientalism and Romance Novels. University of Texas Press. p. 69. ISBN 978-0-292-73940-6.
^ "Garden of Allah (1927)". silentera.com. Retrieved April 28, 2018.
^ American Film Institute (1997). Munden White, Kenneth (ed.). The American Film Institute Catalog of Motion Pictures Produced in the United States, Part 1. University of California Press. p. 281. ISBN 0-520-20969-9.