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"To those who command our laughter, our tears, our dreams—to actresses!" Gloria Swanson in Technicolor close-up drinks in the applause, Salome is seen amid her modalities to plant a seed in Billy Wilder's mind. The reverie dissolves to the monochrome of a teeming greasy spoon, where the heroine precariously balances a vast tray while her necklace snaps into a customer's plate. "What's the idea—glass beads in my soup!" "Whatcha expect for a nickle? Diamonds?" Secretly she pines for the flapjack-flipper (Lawrence Gray), whose room is plastered with pictures of starlets. (She puts a finger under her chin to imitate the poses on the snapshots, but changes her mind when she notices a half-dressed portrait.) A small West Virginia town, all aflutter by the arrival of the troupe on the show boat, particularly the glamorous leading lady (Gertrude Astor). Theatrical flights and quotidian pratfalls, a model of freshness by Allan Dwan. "Two is good morning but three is good night," the triangle rolls along on a riverside picnic, the couple move toward oblique affection while shelling peas in the kitchen. A study of the art, "a dignified perfession," boiled down to making faces before a bulging mirror. The great spectacle mixes boxing and poetry, the heroine debuts as "the Masked Marvel" with gimlet eyes peering out of holes in a stocking. (Verses are intoned after the strapping rival goes down, the audience enjoys the show mightily.) "I just did it to be funny" is the byword, Swanson's goony elegance carries it all the way to the main characters' declaration of love, he up to his neck in water and she dangling from an anchor. Capra in The Matinee Idol shares the rambunctious spirit. With Ford Sterling, Oliver Sandys, Carrie Scott, and Emil Hoch. In black and white.
--- Fernando F. Croce |