Flaming Youth is a 1923 American silent drama film directed by John Francis Dillon and starring Colleen Moore and Milton Sills, based on the novel of the same name by Samuel Hopkins Adams.

Patricia tempts fate with her wild ways, nearly loses her virtue to a musician aboard an ocean-going boat, and is saved in time by Cary.

[9] He lamented that its runaway success prompted "Hollywood hacks" to create a number of similar but less daring films and to run "the theme into its cinematographic grave.

He added that "throughout the production, scarcely a single admirable character appears, and the audience is regaled with the antics of a lot of childish adults and adulterated children.

"[12] A reviewer for the Indiana Star wrote, "In spite of an awkward story, Miss Moore contributes much merriment to the occasion and Elliott Dexter and Milton Sills lend the frontier element of the film a certain degree of stability.

But after her awkward trip downstairs in exotic pajamas—which are not really graceful—she lives the part of a pert young thing, whose hair is cut with a bang on the forehead, whose eyes are full of mischief and whose arms are long and slender."

"[13] Biographer Jeanine Basinger in Silent Stars (1999) reports that "the movie flapper really came into focus in 1923, when Colleen Moore"—heretofore playing ingenues "with no distinctive traits"—appeared in Flaming Youth, and "she more than anyone became the prototype.

[16] Basinger insists that the Dutch Boy was popularized by Colleen Moore, and not by her contemporary Louise Brooks, whose hairdo appropriates the "trademark" flapper cut.

[18] When Flaming Youth debuted in Québec cinemas in January 1924,[19] Judge Philippe-Auguste Choquette was petitioned by a delegation of Montreal women to ban the motion picture.