Young Desire. 1930. USA. Directed by Lewis D. Collins. Screenplay by Winifred Reeve, based on a play by William R. Doyle. With Mary Nolan, William Janney, Mae Busch. 35mm. 68 min.
Mary Nolan may be the least-known name in this series—with the most tragic personal life. After a scandal-plagued stint as a Ziegfeld dancer, Imogene “Bubbles” Wilson left for Europe in 1924 and acted in German films for two years under the name Imogene Robertson. She made her way to Hollywood, where she was eventually rechristened Mary Nolan and did impressive work for Tod Browning in West of Zanzibar (1928) and opposite John Gilbert in Desert Nights (1929). In Young Desire, a Universal talkie that should have led to bigger things for her, Nolan plays a carnival “hooch” dancer who falls in love with a rich boy. The familiar lines of the story offer no hint of the film’s intensity, much less the shock of the fadeout. Nolan’s acting was strikingly modern—unfiltered, unstudied, with an edgy fascination that was unique to her. But by this time she was already in the grip of the drug addiction that would eventually help to kill her, and Young Desire would be her last role at a major studio. By 1933 Nolan had made her last film, and 15 years later she was dead.