Event Overview:
This screening accompanies "Silent Movie Week 2025" film series.

The Museum of Modern Art presents the third annual Silent Movie Week, featuring seven recent silent film restorations screened over seven consecutive evenings.

Memory Lane. 1926. USA. Directed by John M. Stahl. Screenplay by Benjamin Glazer, based on the story by Eleanor Meherin. With Eleanor Boardman, Conrad Nagel, William Haines, John Steppling. 35mm. Restoration courtesy of the Library of Congress. New York restoration premiere. 70 min.

John M. Stahl’s nuanced marital drama employs a deceptively simple narrative—a young bride who remains emotionally attached to a former suitor—to explore the psychological complexity of romantic commitment. Eleanor Boardman brings remarkable subtlety to her portrayal of Mary, a newlywed whose chance reunion with her former flame (William Haines) threatens her marriage to devoted but unexciting Jimmy (Conrad Nagel). Stahl, who would later perfect his exploration of female desire in Pre-Code masterpieces like Back Street, demonstrates his gift for illuminating interior states through precisely observed domestic details and eloquent visual compositions. The film refuses easy moral judgments, acknowledging the persistent power of first love while respecting the quieter satisfactions of mature partnership. Stahl’s sophisticated approach to romantic ambivalence anticipates his later work while establishing him as a singular voice in American cinema’s exploration of marriage and desire.