MORE ON CROTON'S GLORIA SWANSON IN THE LOST FILM, MADAME SANS-GENE

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We love tracking down ephemera on lost films--and for Croton's own Gloria Swanson especially (AND Croton's Lenore Ulric too, stay tuned).  Click on the photos and links.

So we were delighted to discover this vintage movie star Italian postcard from our friends behind EFSP for the 1925 film, MADAME SANS-GEN--and later a fabulous promo ad as well.  

For those who don't know, MADAME SANS-GENE (SOMETIMES SPELLED GEN) was an American silent romantic costume comedy-drama film directed by Léonce Perret and starring Gloria Swanson. Based on the play of the same name by Victorien Sardou and Émile Moreau, the film is now considered lost. 

It was produced and filmed in France, as Swanson was on extended vacation there. She soon became involved with Henri de la Falaise, hired by Paramount to be her translator, and who later became her third husband. Swanson plays a French washerwoman who becomes a duchess and a friend of Napoleon. 

NY TIMES REVIEW: Long before the hour fixed for the opening of the film, the streets in the neighborhood were all but blocked by a crowd of literally thousands of the curious eager to catch a fleeting glimpse of the new Marquise de la Coudray and her French husband, for it had been made known that Miss Swanson was to be present in person.

The throng was so dense that many of the guests of the producers, the Famous Players-Lasky Corporation, had to fight their way from their automobiles to the doors of the theatre. Policemen were kept busy escorting dazzling women and their escorts into the theatre and after the show there was a terrific crush on the carpeted pavement. Outside, the theatre was decorated with tricolor streamers, and Napoleonic soldiers stood stolidly on guard just outside two sentry-boxes."

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