The Moth was the first film with Norma Talmadge released as a Select Picture; her films from earlier in 1917 were distributed by Lewis J. Selznick Productions. In the late summer of that year, Adolph Zukor bought 50 percent of Selznick Productions, and the name was changed to Select. It was rumored at the time that Zukor had ousted Selznick from the company, but if that was Zukor’s intention, he was unsuccessful, since Selznick clearly remained in charge of Select until 1923. The main effect the change had on the Talmadges was that the deal with Zukor made the former Morosco Studio in Los Angeles, owned by Famous-Players Lasky since 1916, available to Select, and at the end of 1917 Constance Talmadge moved to Los Angeles to make Selznick pictures there for Select release.
The Moth is adapted from the novel of the same name by William Dana Orcutt. Talmadge’s previous picture, Poppy, was also adapted from a novel. On the release of The Moth, she announced that “in the future all of her scenarios will be written from books.” Nevertheless, the majority of her later films are adaptations of plays, as were most of her other features in the 1910s.
Orcutt’s novel has a main plot, tracing Lucy Spencer’s development from a naïve madcap indifferent to her husband Vallie’s neglect to a devoted mother divorcing her husband in favor of a lover, and a subplot dealing with the Boston District Attorney’s investigation of a murder. The two are brought together when it transpires that the murder suspect is Vallie’s mistress, and the threat to reveal this thwarts his plan to cite the D.A. as the co-respondent in a divorce from his wife. The subplot is fairly underdeveloped; once it has served to ease Lucy’s divorce, it fizzles – we never learn who was really guilty, or the fate of Vallie’s mistress. The filmmakers clearly found this unsatisfactory. They substituted a more dramatic ending, where the mistress commits suicide and Vallie tries unsuccessfully to suggest that Captain Auchester, Lucy’s lover, killed her. (This is gleaned from contemporary reviews and summaries, since the surviving print lacks the last reels.)
All the reviews emphasize that this is a “society” picture, with Talmadge playing a wealthy young woman, with appropriate clothes and furnishings, where her previous Schenck-produced features had her in more exotic or less well-heeled milieux. One of the locations for the film was Talmadge’s own summer estate at Beechurst, Long Island. As usual with contemporary subjects, Talmadge selected her own costumes for the picture (designed by Lucile and Henri Bendel), and discussed her choices in 1918 in an interview in Motion Picture Magazine (April 1918): “The Moth, in my opinion, is a striking example of the psychology of color […] You know that there was much that was fine in the character of Lucy Gillam, but during the early part of the picture it is completely concealed under the frivolous, heartless exterior of the society girl whose soul has never emerged from its chrysalis. In gowning Lucy, it was necessary to use soft pinks and shades without too definite a character, but with a note of coldness. One of my evening gowns was of gold cloth and another of black net. An afternoon frock was of lavender with straight, soft folds. Later, when Lucy found her mother heart I wore gowns with positive colors.” Of course, she knew she was making a black & white film, so the emphasis on the colors of her clothes suggests she was more concerned with their effect on herself and her fellow actors than that on the eventual film spectators.
Several contemporary sources suggest that the 5-year-old child actress Lorna Volare appeared in The Moth. It is hard to see what part she could have played, even as an extra, and it is noteworthy that none of these sources is a direct discussion of the film; rather, they include The Moth in a list of previous performances while discussing a later film in which she appeared, or in a directory entry on her.

Ben Brewster, Lea Jacobs