The Girl in the Red Velvet Swing (1955) on Netflix
Approved19551h 49mBiographyCrimeDrama
In 1906 New York, chorus girl Evelyn Nesbit draws two admirers: the architect Stanford White, who is married, and the multimillionaire Harry Thaw. Thaw sends presents to her whole chorus.
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- IMDb6.4/101,327 votes
- Rotten TomatoesNot available
Trailer
Plot summary
In June 1906 New York City, Harry Thaw arrives almost two hours late for dinner and finds his table given to Stanford White, the architect he regards as his rival; White had also kept him out of an exclusive club. A magazine feature on White's buildings carries a cover drawing of Evelyn Nesbit. Evelyn and her mother, Mrs. Evelyn McKenzie Nesbit, sew costumes for a theater production while Evelyn adds five-dollar modeling fees, and a stage manager puts her in the chorus of Florodora. Thaw brings gifts for the whole chorus and invites the cast to be his guests, singling Evelyn out. Through another Florodora girl, Gwen Arden, Evelyn meets White instead. He pays a dentist to repair her chipped tooth, and her mother forbids her to see the married man again.
Cast
- James Lorimeras McCaleb
Show all 20 cast
- Helen Van Tuylas Mrs. Jennings (uncredited)
- Gordon Carvethas Juror (uncredited)
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about The Girl in the Red Velvet Swing (1955)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- 20th Century-Fox originally planned to put Marilyn Monroe in the title role, then suspended her when she refused to do the film. Terry Moore and Debra Paget also tested for the part.
- The real Stanford White was married and 32 years older than Evelyn Nesbit, and became her lover when she was 15 or 16, after allegedly giving her champagne and drugging and raping her in September 1901.
- The filmmakers tracked down the real Evelyn Nesbit for permission to make the film, and she agreed in exchange for money, though she was reluctant to do publicity for it.
- Writer Walter Reisch claimed the film was his idea, saying Fox was keen partly because producer Charles Brackett had known the real Stanford White as a boy; Reisch called the film 70% fact and 30% fictionalized.
- The title came from Charles Samuels' 1953 biography of Evelyn Nesbit, which she herself called sensationalist, and contemporary reporting suggested Fox bought the book's film rights only to use its title.
- The film portrays Stanford White and Nesbit's mother in a more positive light than Nesbit described in court and in her memoir, and brings Harry Thaw into her story earlier than he appeared in life.
