Show People (1928)

Originally posted to Facebook on 7/27/2018

Show People was our third film from 1928. It was directed by King Vidor, and starred Marion Davies and William Haines, all of whom we've seen before during this project -- Marion Davies in 1922's When Knighthood was in Flower and 1927's The Red Mill, William Haines in 1926's Tell It to the Marines, and King Vidor as the director of 1925's The Big Parade.

This was another film with a Movietone soundtrack, signaling the incipient end of the silent era, and the kids were impressed that, for the first time, we heard the MGM lion roar. ("Whoa!" they said.) Until recently I had actually believed that the point of the MGM lion -- and its roar -- was to signal to audiences that they were watching a sound film -- but we've seen the lion roaring silently on films dating back a few years, so obviously that was incorrect.

Show People is a Hollywood movie about Hollywood, similar in some ways to 1923's The Extra Girl, but its humor is broader than that film, which is especially notable when you remember that a long sequence in the earlier film involved Mabel Normand not being able to tell the difference between a dog dressed up as a lion and a real lion. Marion Davies in this case plays the newcomer to Hollywood, and is eventually helped out by William Haines, who is a slapstick comedian at a minor studio. Haines, as we saw a few months ago, held his own against Lon Chaney in Tell It to the Marines, perhaps surprisingly. But he does less well up against Marion Davies in this picture. She is clearly the star of the film, and gives her normal charismatic performance, though she is a bit less charming and more self-centered than in previous films. In fact, the major arc of the film follows her rise up the Hollywood ladder, forgetting her friends along the way. But she is obnoxious not only on the way up, but also when she rights things at the end. Haines also is fairly obnoxious in his role, and never quite shows his character's core of seriousness as he did in Tell It to the Marines.

Neither The Extra Girl nor this film was intended as a brutal satire of Hollywood exactly, but this film has a little more of an insider feel than the earlier one, which gives it that much less bite. It reminded me of the phenomenon of celebrities who have been mocked on Saturday Night Live showing up in person, to signal that the mockery is all in good fun -- whether or not that is (or should be) the case. And there are a number of celebrity cameos throughout the movie, playing themselves, including William S. Hart, Douglas Fairbanks, and John Gilbert. Some show up only briefly in a single shot, but some, like Charlie Chaplin, are mentioned by name, and actually have a short scene with the lead characters. The Extra Girl had a few celebrity cameos as well, but nothing close to the star power of this film.

I think I would have preferred if this film had taken a stronger approach in one direction or another -- either to have been funnier, or to have had less two-dimensional characters, or to have been more scathing about Hollywood. But it was entertaining, and it was certainly interesting to see the impression Hollywood had or wanted to create for itself at this point in its history.

Next week we move on to The Crowd, our fourth film from 1928, which was also directed by King Vidor. The list, as always, is here: https://bit.ly/2lZtfmT.