The Rainbow Princess (1916)
Drama | 23 October 1916
The 2 September 1916 Motion Picture News noted that tiny "Ziegfeld Follies" dancer Ann Pennington was presently making her second motion picture, The Rainbow Princess, with director J. Searle Dawley at Famous Players' East Coast studios. That same week's issue of Moving Picture World reported that Dawley had hired a circus on Long Island and transported it to the studios in small units, because of a strict quarantine currently placed on itinerant people because of "the paralysis plague." Then "the tent was set up in a large vacant lot" and scenes were shot. Pennington's first film was Susie Snowflake (1916, see entry), which, like this film, was written for her by Shannon Fife.
According to the 7 October 1916 Motion Picture News, Pennington and her accompanying Hawaiian musicians from New York City's Amsterdam Theatre travelled to a specially built Hawaiian village in a vacant field near Scarsdale, NY, to perform the Hula Hula for Famous Players' camera. Earlier, the 16 September 1916 Motography had reported that "a number of circus freaks have been leased for The Rainbow Princess....among them one of the longest thin men that ever smelled sawdust. All efforts to induce little Miss Pennington who is four feet ten inches in height to pose with the tall one have been in vain."
In the 4 November 1916 Motography, reviewer George W. Graves praised Pennington's "grotesquely fascinating steps of the Hula Hula dance with which she captivated so many audiences at the 'Follies.' This diversion is as pleasing as is another novelty--a parachute descent from a large balloon, which was particularly ...
The 2 September 1916 Motion Picture News noted that tiny "Ziegfeld Follies" dancer Ann Pennington was presently making her second motion picture, The Rainbow Princess, with director J. Searle Dawley at Famous Players' East Coast studios. That same week's issue of Moving Picture World reported that Dawley had hired a circus on Long Island and transported it to the studios in small units, because of a strict quarantine currently placed on itinerant people because of "the paralysis plague." Then "the tent was set up in a large vacant lot" and scenes were shot. Pennington's first film was Susie Snowflake (1916, see entry), which, like this film, was written for her by Shannon Fife.
According to the 7 October 1916 Motion Picture News, Pennington and her accompanying Hawaiian musicians from New York City's Amsterdam Theatre travelled to a specially built Hawaiian village in a vacant field near Scarsdale, NY, to perform the Hula Hula for Famous Players' camera. Earlier, the 16 September 1916 Motography had reported that "a number of circus freaks have been leased for The Rainbow Princess....among them one of the longest thin men that ever smelled sawdust. All efforts to induce little Miss Pennington who is four feet ten inches in height to pose with the tall one have been in vain."
In the 4 November 1916 Motography, reviewer George W. Graves praised Pennington's "grotesquely fascinating steps of the Hula Hula dance with which she captivated so many audiences at the 'Follies.' This diversion is as pleasing as is another novelty--a parachute descent from a large balloon, which was particularly well performed and photographed. The jaunty circus atmosphere, the humorous as well as the sombre side of this life, is nicely delineated....There are some excellent types in the large cast, including the two circus midgets and the 'fat lady.'" Variety added, "The main background is a small traveling circus, and the producers have gone to the trouble and expense of engaging an itinerant tent show, with the side show freaks, balloon ascension, etc....[The film] furnishes a legitimate excuse for introducing the Hula Dance from 'Ziegfeld's Follies,' with the original girls led by the star." Pennington was later spotlighted in an interview in the January 1918 Motion Picture Magazine.
The November 1916 Film Fun ran a photograph of Ann Pennington with some of the entertainers from the circus. That same month's Photo-Play Journal ran a photo-illustrated short-story adaption of The Rainbow Princess. One photograph showed Miss Pennington in Hawaiian costume dancing in front of several musicians and other Hula Hula dancers.
The National Film Preservation Board (NFPB) included this film on its list of Lost U.S. Silent Feature Films as of February 2021.
Circus proprietor "Pop" Blodgett rigidly controls Hope's life, and advertises his star Hawaiian dancer as "The Rainbow Princess." She is also an "aeronaut" who parachutes from a balloon, and during one of these demonstrations she lands on the estate of wealthy Judge Daingerfield. Learning that Hope resembles the judge's daughter who disappeared many years earlier, Pop devises a plan in which he tells the Daingerfield that she is his long-lost granddaughter whom he has tried to locate for years. A thankful judge pays Pop a large fee for having acted as Hope's guardian, but Pop, not content with the amount, makes plans to rob the judge. During the heist, however, Pop is shot, and before he dies he confesses that he forced Hope to play the role of the judge's granddaughter. The judge has grown fond of Hope, however, and, determined to keep her in the family, convinces his adopted son, Warren Reynolds, to marry ...
Circus proprietor "Pop" Blodgett rigidly controls Hope's life, and advertises his star Hawaiian dancer as "The Rainbow Princess." She is also an "aeronaut" who parachutes from a balloon, and during one of these demonstrations she lands on the estate of wealthy Judge Daingerfield. Learning that Hope resembles the judge's daughter who disappeared many years earlier, Pop devises a plan in which he tells the Daingerfield that she is his long-lost granddaughter whom he has tried to locate for years. A thankful judge pays Pop a large fee for having acted as Hope's guardian, but Pop, not content with the amount, makes plans to rob the judge. During the heist, however, Pop is shot, and before he dies he confesses that he forced Hope to play the role of the judge's granddaughter. The judge has grown fond of Hope, however, and, determined to keep her in the family, convinces his adopted son, Warren Reynolds, to marry her.
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