The Flower of Doom
May 14, 2012
(Rex Ingram, United States, 1917, 35mm, 70 min)
New 35mm print!
Live Score by Jason Staczek and Ian Moore
Though he was given a modest budget for The Flower of Doom, Rex Ingram seized the chance to dig into his favorite setting—the shady urban jungle—which he worked into a Chinatown mystery. Journalist Harvey Pearson is sucked into a den of underground warfare and opium addiction when he sets out to rescue Neva Sacon, a cabaret singer kidnapped by gang lords. The fact that it’s a silent film is vastly overshadowed by Ingram’s attention to visual detail, which made him a legend, and The Flower of Doom shows the legend as he was coming into his own.