Show People

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09/18/2019 Show People is a hilarious film that has a number of great slapstick moments (and even some funny lines on the intertitles.) I found myself laughing a lot at the movie, particularly in the first act and the climax. There is a section in the middle where the plot takes a more serious turn, as the career of the main character also makes a transition to more dramatic work, but there are still some things to chuckle at in this act as well. I have to applaud the astounding performance of Marion Davies in the film, because her expressions alone are comedy gold. She starts eliciting laughter from her first scene and never stops. It’s also impressive how well she plays the clueless ingenue despite the fact that she had more than a decade of experience in the industry. William Haines is also quite good as her mentor and friend guiding her along the way. There were a handful of cameos in the movie, and for a movie historian who knew all those actors it would probably be pretty cool to see them all show up here. (I only knew Charlie Chaplin.) The plot itself is a familiar one, in fact it has a number of similarities to the oft-remade A Star is Born. I don’t typically enjoy movies that are focused on the corrupting influence of fame, because I get annoyed with the main character and start to lose investment in their story. However, Show People keeps me engaged because it does most of this with comedy sprinkled throughout. It’s not as hard to accept a cocky main character, when she’s acting silly the whole time. This movie also has a wonderful resolution to the story that made it all work much better for me than it has in similarly plotted films that I’ve seen. There are some challenges that come with this being a silent film, though. For one thing, when the story gets dialogue-heavy I do struggle with the quantity of intertitles they have to mix in, because it can hurt the rhythm and pacing of the scene. However, I rarely noticed that in Show People. This movie was all-around fun, and worth watching multiple times in the future, which I don’t think I’ve ever said about a silent film before. See more 02/04/2019 My favorite silent by far. A beautiful and classic tale that could not have been executed more wondrously. See more 01/26/2019 The best comedy movie ever made! See more 09/17/2016 A delightful silent comedy with my personal weakness: the "behind the scenes" workings of early Hollywood See more 09/12/2016 The film is more cute than funny now, but it's a wonderful time capsule of an era right before it was completely over. Marion Davies's performance is superb. It certainly anticipates Lucille Ball's "Lucy" in facial expressions. There's some cool cameo appearances from the likes of Chaplin, Fairbanks, Gilbert, Hart, and Vidor himself too. See more 07/19/2014 Interesting film about film at the dawn of talkies that provided the source material for Singing In The Rain. For historians only. See more Read all reviews

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