Starring George O'Brien, Olive Borden, Phyllis Haver, George Beranger,
William Austin
Directed by Howard Hawks
Print: black/white
Runtime: 68 min.
Genre: comedy
Fig Leaves is historically important as the earliest extant film of director
Howard Hawks. A partial parody of the Cecil B. DeMille historical
spectacles, the film opens in the Garden of Eden, where Adam (George
O'Brien) tries to read his morning paper (a stone tablet, a la The
Flintstones) while Eve (Olive Borden) complains that she has nothing to
wear. As Adam goes to work on the 9:15 dinosaur, Eve is led down the
road to perdition by a friendly snake. Flash forward to 1926: Eve Smith
(Borden again) complains that she has no decent clothes, whereupon her
best friend Alice (the "snake" counterpart, played by Phyllis Haver)
suggests that the heroine take a job as fashion model, thereby securing
herself a free wardrobe. Catching his wife in a state of dishabille at a
fancy dress shop, Adam Smith (O'Brien again) angrily declares that he
never wants to see her again. Adam forgives Eve after witnessing a
cat-fight between his wife and the troublesome Alice. Critics in 1926 were
amused by the "prehistoric" contraptions in the opening scenes and
enthralled by the film's Technicolor fashion-show sequence.
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