Diana - The Huntress - Charles W. Allen


Co-makers: Charles W. Allen and Francis Trevelyan Miller
Production: Pluragraph Company
Original format: 35mm silent film 1.33:1
Featuring Paul Swan, Baronese Von DeWitz née Valkyrien, Lionell Branhan, Lieut. Percy Richards, and Florence Fleming Noyes and Her Dancing Pupils.
New music: Donald Sosin
Courtesy: The Library of Congress

Diana the Huntress is an early example of aesthetic dancing performed by both men and women. Although female dancers like Ruth St. Denis had made the form famous, few men had embraced the style. Paul Swan, who played Pan and Apollo, was an exception. Known internationally as "the most beautiful man in the world," Paul Swan was cited in 1914 as "America's premier dancer" by Arthur Hammerstein. Swan is also remembered for his appearances in Andy Warhol's sixties' movies [such as Paul Swan (1965) and Camp (1965)]. He was a gifted painter and sculptor whose works are owned by The Ringling Museum of Art. -Janis Londraville

Theatrical producer-manager, Charles W. Allen, who was the president and treasurer of Plurograph and Unity Sales Film Corporation, ventured into the motion picture business in 1916 to produce and direct Diana the Huntress. -Paul Spehr

Francis Trevelyan Miller (1877-1959) was a historian who wrote and edited Life of Abraham Lincoln Told from Original Photographs (1910) and the monumental, ten-volume The Photographic Study of the Civil War (1911). His role as "adapter" of Diana the Huntress appears to be his only contact with cinema, except perhaps for his book, Thomas A. Edison, Benefactor of Mankind (1932). -Bruce Posner