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Marianne (1929 silent film)

1929 silent film by Robert Zigler Leonard

Manuscripts, fine bindings, an engraving plate and preserved performance ephemera
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Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionFeb 20, 2026
Entity authorityQ3847730 ↗
Source-derived summary

Marianne is a 1929 American silent romantic-drama film about a French farm girl who, despite already having a French fiancé, falls in love with an American soldier during World War I. It was made first as a silent film, then as a musical with a different cast, but Marion Davies starred in both versions.

Plot summary

Cast

Marion Davies as Marianne

Oscar Shaw as Stagg

Fred Solm as André (as Robert Castle)

Robert Ames as Soapy

Scott Kolk as Lieutenant Frane

Émile Chautard as Père Joseph

Mack Swain as General

Oscar Apfel as Major

Production

In her 30th and final silent film, Marion Davies starred for director Robert Z. Leonard in this World War I story about a French girl who falls for an American soldier (Oscar Shaw). Davies was rushed into this project after production of the ill-fated The Five O'Clock Girl shuttered. The film was remade as a sound film. This silent version survives but was long thought lost. When Fred Lawrence Guiles wrote his biography of Davies in 1972, he stated the silent version was lost. The film offered Davies another chance to masquerade, this time as the aged army officer with a big mustache. By the time the decision was made to re-shoot the entire film as a sound film, Oscar Shaw was out and Lawrence Gray was signed as Davies' leading man.

Editorial summary

This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Marianne (1929 silent film)” as 1929 silent film by Robert Zigler Leonard. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.

Editorial reviewBest approached as a cultural-object dossier: authorship and date matter, but circulation and reception often explain the wider significance. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1929, 1972—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1929-01-01. The account is most persuasive where Marianne, silent and film can be independently traced.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The subject matters to the arts & letters register because the source frames it as 1929 silent film by Robert Zigler Leonard. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.

Evidence profile

Attribution, date and provenance are strongest when supported by the original work, a catalogue record and documented transmission. The source revision retrieved here is dated Feb 20, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q3847730. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1929 and 1972.

Critical limits

Rights, attribution and provenance may remain disputed even when a general reference summary presents a stable account. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Separate the work, its editions or performances, and its later reception. Catalogue records, publication histories and object files often preserve different parts of that story.

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  • Identifying works and editions
  • Tracing reception history
  • Finding collection records
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The original object or edition, catalogue raisonné, performance record, rights file and holding institution.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Marianne (1929 silent film)”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Marianne (1929 silent film) primary sources, Marianne (1929 silent film) archive and Marianne research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Marianne (1929 silent film)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.