a very serious actress
by Douglas Messerli
Agnes
Christine Johnston and Laurence Stallings (treatment), Wanda Tuchock (continuity), Ralph
Spence (titles), King Vidor (director) Show
People / 1928 / the showing I witnessed as at The Academy of Motion Picture
Arts and Sciences’ Samuel Goldwyn Theater, on Thursday, November 1, 2012

Kevin Browlow, involved with the
restoration of this film (as well as Abel Gance’s Napolean) reassured the audience that Swanson never saw this film, but
surely she knew about it; Billy Wilder later invited Haines to play a crony of
Nora Desmond in another, much darker, Hollywood satire, Sunset Boulevard; noted, by that time, for his interior decoration,
Haines turned the role down. Brownlow noted that of all the people he
interviewed, Haines was the only one who refused to talk about Show People and other movies of the day.
While there were several successful Davies
works before this, including Vidor’s The
Patsy, Davies’ career playing in costume epics such as When Knighthood Was in Flower had tarnished her screen image, and,
just as Peggy is no longer a screen favorite once she becomes a “serious
actress” in the film, Davies was no longer at her peak—probably the source of
the myth, played out in Citizen Kane, that
Hearst’s
mistress was untalented. Anyone seeing Show
People, however, will realize how mistaken that notion is, for Davies as
the naïve Georgia belle is a natural comic, wonderful in her abilities to
imitate the pretentions of Hollywood movie stars. That toothy smile and
fluttering eyes are enough to send a large audience (in attendance at the
Academy’s Samuel Goldwyn Theater on Thursday night) into laughter (see the
picture of Mae Murray, whom Davies’ imitates, above).
William Haines, playing, as usual, a
likeable, attractive, and masculine lead, stands his ground, reminding Peggy
ultimately, of her roots, and, thus, saving her from the mistake of marriage to
Andre. The fact that Haines was a
relatively open homosexual was unthinkable, surely, to his legions of his women
fans. But only five years later, when Haines arrested for having sex with a
sailor at the Pershing Square YMCA, Louis Mayer gave the actor an ultimatum to
enter into a “lavender” marriage (a fake relationship which helped to hide the
individual’s sexuality from the public) and give up his relationship with his
companion, Jimmie Shields. Haines refused, retiring from the screen despite his
continued popularity. Haines remained with Shields until his death in 1973.
Vidor’s comedy is no masterpiece, but it
does amiably take its audience along for one last slightly hysterical, silent
ride through images of light and darkness.
Los Angeles,
November 3, 2012
No comments:
Post a Comment