Aileen Pringle's cinematic preferences were heavily influenced by her favorite film, a 1920s silent movie based on a novel by Elinor Glyn, specifically "Three Weeks" (1924),a film that can be likened to a cinematic adaptation of "Lady Chatterly's Lover". In a telephone conversation with an interviewer in 1980, Aileen recalled that the film was made in good taste, although some people perceived the original book as being trashy.
Anita Loos, in her autobiography "A Girl Like I", recounted a conversation between vaudeville comic Joe Frisco and Elinor Glyn, in which Frisco humorously expressed his skepticism about Glyn's request to find a woman who didn't resemble a tramp to play the role of an English tramp in her film. This anecdote provides a glimpse into the creative process of the time.
Aileen Pringle's personal life was marked by a tumultuous marriage to Charles McKenzie Pringle, the son of Sir John Pringle, a Jamaican landowner and member of the Privy and Legislative Councils of Jamaica. Aileen spent her 20s in Jamaica before embarking on a stage career with George Arliss. In 1926, she initiated divorce proceedings against Pringle, leading Hollywood gossip columnists to speculate that she would marry H.L. Mencken. However, Aileen did not remarry until 1944, when she became the wife of James M. Cain, author of "The Postman Always Rings Twice".
During an interview in 1980, Aileen revealed that she had spent time reading correspondence between herself and Mencken at the New York Public Library. However, she noted that all of the letters had been destroyed, as Mencken had requested their return during his engagement to Sara Haardt. Aileen was the only woman to receive such a request from Mencken at that time.
The interviewer brought up a specific letter written by Mencken, urging Aileen to write a book, and asked if she had ever completed the project. Aileen responded that she had gotten married instead, and went on to mention a 1946 letter in which she wrote to Mencken, "If I had remained married to that psychotic Cain, I would be wearing a straitjacket instead of the New Look."
