A Society Scandal is a 1924 American silent drama film directed by Allan Dwan, and starring Gloria Swanson and Rod La Rocque. Distributed by Paramount Pictures, the film is based on a 1922 play The Laughing Lady, by Alfred Sutro which starred Ethel Barrymore in 1923 on Broadway and originally in 1922 with Edith Evans in UK.
Paramount remade the story in 1929 as The Laughing Lady an early talkie for Ruth Chatterton.
A scandal can be broadly defined as the strong social reactions of outrage, anger, or surprise, when accusations or rumours circulate or appear for some reason, regarding a person or persons who are perceived to have transgressed, in some way, a social norm. These reactions are usually noisy and may be conflicting, and they often have negative effects on the status and credibility of the persons or organizations involved.
Society is scandalized when it becomes aware of breaches of moral norms or legal requirements, often when these have remained undiscovered or been concealed for some time. Such breaches have typically erupted from greed, lust, or the abuse of power. Scandals may be regarded as political, sexual, moral, literary, or artistic, but often spread from one realm into another. The basis of a scandal may be factual or false, or a combination of both. In contemporary times, exposure of a scandalous situation is often made by mass media.
The Laughing Lady is a 1929 American sound film melodrama directed by Victor Schertzinger, starring Ruth Chatterton and produced and released by Paramount Famous Lasky Corporation. It is based on a 1922 British play, The Laughing Lady, by Alfred Sutro. The play was brought to New York in 1923 and put on Broadway starring Ethel Barrymore. The film "deal[s] with rape , divorce and hypocrisy in New York's high society".
A 1924 Paramount silent film retitled A Society Scandal starred Gloria Swanson, now lost, was the first adaptation of the play.