Posters and Lobby Cards

The ravishing lobby card from Don't Call It Love

Once again our Nita plays a femme fatale as the mesmerizing opera diva, Rita Coventry, in William DeMille's 1924 production of Don't Call It Love. A comedy/romance, the exotic, tempestuous Nita lures confirmed New York bachelor, Richard Parrish (Jack Holt), away from his true-blue sweetheart, little Alice Meldrum from Cleveland (Agnes Ayres). Cavalierly shooing Alice home to Ohio for a week, Richard steals away with Rita for a hot weekend at a Babylonic hotel, replete with "spiderweb entrance," on the Atlantic City Boardwalk. Richard's star wavers, however, in the supernova brilliance of young composer, Patrick Dulaney (Rod La Rocque). After returning to New York, spellbound by the charms of the elusive Rita, Richard soon finds his life a living hell. Nita summons Patrick to New York to launch his music at the Opera with a total disregard for Richard's frenetic jealousy. The tables turned, our ex-cavalier rushes to Cleveland to beg the long-suffering Alice, who is aware of his florid peccadillos with the singing vampire, to marry him! And Rita? If you can believe what you read, here are the headlines: DIVA MARRIES COMPOSER SHE MADE FAMOUS. SINGER'S ASSERTION SHE WOULD NEVER WED RECALLED! She is quoted as saying "....though a singer, I am also a woman, and a woman has a right to change her mind."

Unfortunately, this is another of Nita's lost films. But the 1922 novel by Julian Street, Rita Coventry, can be enjoyed in the photoplay edition giving us the storyline and 4 scene stills. Three out of the four photos feature Nita but, alas, she is missing from the dust jacket.

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