Silent movies - Show People

For today I have a film from the end of the silent era starring Marion Davies whom I found so hilarious in "The Patsy".
It's "Show People" from 1928.

Public domain via Wikipedia

Ladies and gentlemen - the plot (with spoilers)!

"To hopeful hundreds there is a golden spot on the map called — Hollywood."

One of those hundreds is Miss Peggy Pepper from Georgia who is taken to Hollywood by her father, Colonel Pepper.

Overwhelmed by Hollywood

At the casting office, Peggy demonstrates her acting abilities, but it's not easy to actually be cast in a movie. Then, however, she and her father meet Billy Boone in the commissary who tells her to show up at his set.
What she doesn't know is that Billy does slapstick comedy while she aspires to be a dramatic actress. After she gets spritzed in the face with seltzer in her first scene, she breaks into tears, but Billy convinces her to go through with it by reminding her of what a thrill it's going to be for her to see herself in a theater.

Indeed Peggy becomes an instant success, and after making more films with Billy, she gets a contract by the High Arts Studio (the name says it all) which means she leaves the comedy troupe and Billy.
After her screen test, her new co-star Andre, who lets her know that he's really the Comte d'Avignon tells her she needs to change her personality and get new friends to become a star.
So Peggy Pepper turns into Patricia Pepoire and lets stardom get to her head.

Marion Davies's hilarious impersonation of Mae
Murray which we have already seen in "The Patsy".

One day she and Billy's comedy troupe have a shoot at the same location. Billy is happy to see her and tries to joke around with her, but she hurts him by calling him a cheap clown and running off.

Soon after, Peggy is fetched out of a studio luncheon. The producer shows her a bundle of telegrams all saying that the audience is not interested in "Miss Pepoire" anymore. He warns her that he wants to see the old Peggy again, but she's so full herself that she tells Andre producers don't recognize art when they see it.

Sometime later, it's the day of Peggy's and Andre's wedding.
Billy sneaks into the house with the delivery people and begs Peggy not to marry, but remember the old days instead.
To bring her to her senses, he spritzes her with Seltzer like in their first scene together. Peggy is so mad that she grabs a custard pie, but instead of Billy she hits Andre who's just opening the door in the face with it.
She starts crying and Billy walks out, but looking at Andre she can't help but laugh. Realizing that Billy is the only "real person" in her life (I think she's forgetting her father here), she calls off the wedding.

Peggy has a plan. She convinces her director King Vidor (playing himself) to cast Billy in a war movie without letting him know that she's in it.
Of course, Billy is surprised to see Peggy, but when she tells him he can't get out now because the camera's rolling already, he sweeps her into his arms. As the kiss written for the scene doesn't end, Vidor and the crew quietly leave the two alone on the set.

In short, that was FUN.
It's said the movie was influenced by the story of Gloria Swanson who went from comedy to big drama, but also by a novel (later turned into a play and (lost) movie) called "Merton of the Movies" in which a young man tries to make it in Hollywood.

I absolutely love Marion Davies in this. She goes through all stereotypes and tropes, makes the funniest faces, but is also appropriately dramatic for the times.
As mentioned in my blog post about "The Patsy", Davies was the mistress of William Randolph Hearst who wanted to see her in epic dramas, what a pity with her being such a wonderful comedian.
There's the scene in the casting office when the innocent and clueless Southern Belle is asked for photos and enthusiastically shows off her baby photo. On being asked if she can act, she presents her various moods, from meditation to joy.

This is of course "passion", what else?
Her father is proud of Peggy's acting skills.

That was a real thing, by the way.
Here are the moods of "The Biograph Girl" Florence Lawrence who is regarded as the first film star according to some sources.

I also like William Haines as Billy. He's charming and funny, but you can also feel his pain about Peggy treating him the way she did.
In one scene he's calling her to invite her for dinner with him and her father who also says that even he doesn't see much of her anymore. It's something I can really relate to. 
Yet he's so proud of her and her career and doesn't give up on trying to make her see that people want the old Peggy back.

Actually I like everyone, Peggy's lovable father (Dell Henderson who also played her father in "The Patsy"), the crazy comedy director who can't even control himself in the theater, the director at the "High Arts Studio" who does everything to make Peggy laugh or cry (a wonderful scene, and by the way, did you know there were actually so-called mood musicians on the set for that purpose, there's one great story here?), Andre as the "Comte" who really used to be a waiter at a spaghetti house, and Miss Pepoire's crazy maid.

I shouldn't miss to mention, however, that the film was full of cameos by important film people of the time.
There's for example Charlie Chaplin asking for Peggy's autograph after her first big movie. Peggy, annoyed by him being so insistent, asks Billy "Who is that little guy?". There are way more at the studio luncheon, for example Douglas Fairbanks.

Actually we even get a cameo from Davies herself, but ...

Peggy is not impressed with Marion.

While the movie has no spoken dialog, it has a music track which works very well.
I had so much fun that the 82 minutes went by like a breeze. This movie is so going into my favorites!


Sources:

1. Fritzi Kramer: Show People (1928) - A Silent Film. On: Movies Silently, June 29, 2013
2. Thomas Doherty: FROM THE ARCHIVES: Show People. On: Cineaste, Fall 2012

Silent movies - The Patsy

Last week was very dramatic, so it's time for a bit of fun again this week, but not as short as the last one.
Interestingly enough, I stumbled upon this movie thanks to a review of last week's movie, but we'll come to that later.
I present "The Patsy" from 1928.

Public domain via Wikimedia Commons

First the plot (with spoilers):

Meet the Harringtons. We have the father who has a hard time standing up to the imperious mother, and we have two daughters, Grace, the older one, and Pat(ricia), the younger one.
Grace is always favored by the mother and although the father is on Pat's side and sometimes tries to help her, Pat never wins. To make things even worse, she's hopelessly in love with Grace's suitor Tony which is obvious to anyone but him.
At a dinner held at the Yacht Club, Grace is noticed by local playboy Billy. He charms her until she leaves the dinner with him in his speed boat. Pat sees her chance to get Tony's attention. She asks him for suggestions regarding a man she's in love with. Tony, who still doesn't understand that he's said man, advises her to develop a personality and thus attract him.
With the help of books, Pat practices witticisms which convinces her mother and sister that she's gone mad, but her father tells her to keep going on like that.
Tony is annoyed about Grace and Billy and turns his attention to Pat which makes Grace decide she wants Tony after all.
So Pat and her father hatch a plan in which Pat goes to Billy's house faking an attack to make Tony come and rescue her. Billy, however, is so hung over that he doesn't even notice her no matter what she tries.
Pat arranges the place to look as if there was a fight, locks herself up in Billy's bedroom and calls Tony. The plan backfires when Tony picks her up and scolds her for even going to the house of a man like Billy by herself. Let's be honest, it was a stupid plan and not fair towards Billy.
Seeing her so down, her father finally takes heart and tells the mother and Grace off for the way they are behaving towards Pat and himself. To scare them, he announces he'll be leaving and goes to hide outside in the bushes for a while until Ma is ready to promise him to be good.
In the end, Tony comes back demanding to know of Pat if Billy is the man she had been talking about and she admits that it is not Billy, but he. They kiss.

"The Patsy" was adapted from a successful Broadway comedy by Barry Conners which got 245 performances between 1925 and 1926.

The plot itself isn't really that important here, though.
I just enjoyed the performance of Marion Davies so much. I had never heard of her before (no surprise there, there are of course so many people from the silent film era I don't know) and didn't know that she moved between drama and comedy.
There was a reason for that. Davies was the mistress of newspaper publisher William Randolph Hearst - for 35 years until his death - and Hearst wanted to see her in big dramatic and epic films (although I read reviews saying Davies would have become a star without having been promoted by Hearst).
Director King Vidor said that he had experienced Davies as a very funny person in private who, for example, entertained friends with impersonations of colleagues. He wasn't keen on working with her on one of her usual films.

It was the right decision. Davies was indeed very funny in this movie, supported very well by the rest of the cast.
For Marie Dressler and Dell Henderson who played Ma and Pa Harrington, "The Patsy" was a comeback after years off-screen. It was amazing how I actually seemed to be able to hear especially Ma in some scenes 🤣

Although I laughed throughout the movie, the following scene was the funniest to me.
When Pat is at Billy's house (a terrible plan, by the way, and not very fair towards him), she looks at the pictures of his favorite actresses standing around. To make him notice her in his hung over state, she impersonates all three of them and it's absolutely hilarious.

The first one is Mae Murray who was also called "The Girl with the Bee-Stung Lips" for the way she wore her lipstick. 

The second one is Lillian Gish from last week's movie.
In one blog, this "mockery" is mentioned and that's how I found "The Patsy".
Even having seen just one of Gish's films so far, it looked really good to me.

The last one is Pola Negri.

The ending of the movie seemed a bit rushed to me, however. It's nice that the father got his chance, but there's not much going on between Pat and Tony anymore. Despite the kiss, that was a bit of an anticlimax.

This was probably my film with the most intertitles so far. There were a lot and sometimes that disturbed the flow of the movie a bit, but a lot of the intertitles were quite funny, so I think they were probably taken from the play and they didn't just want to drop that.
The witticisms really made me laugh, not because they were extremely witty, but because they could be right off Facebook or other social media.
"Don't cry over spilt milk - there's enough water in it already." "What is a hot dog? A hamburger in tights." "If it wasn't for the rain there wouldn't be any hay to make when the sun shines."
Oh, how far we have come in almost 100 years.

I watched the movie on YouTube. The channel owner wrote this: "Another lovable silent uploaded to YouTube with a great catalogue of amazing jazz tunes prior 1929 ..." and I have to say that they worked really well and added to the fun of the movie.
This is definitely going on my re-watch list!


Sources:

1. Fritzi Kramer: The Patsy (1928) - A silent film review. On: Movies Silently, April 30, 2015
2. The Patsy (1928). On: Obscure Hollywood
3. Thomas Gladysz: The Patsy. Essay. On: Silent San Francisco Film Festival 2013
4. David Kiehn: The Patsy. Essay. On: Silent San Francisco Film Festival 2008