My Lady of Whims (1925)
** (out of 4)
This was the last of fifteen movies Clara Bow released in 1925 so one can understand why she and her screenwriters would be tired. Originally this ran seven reels but the only version available today is a Kodascope version running 42-minutes. In the film Bow plays Prudence Severn, a rich girl who runs off to Greenwich Village so that her writing can have more spirit to it. Her rich father fears that she's up to no good by partying too much so he hires a man (Donald Keith) to keep an eye on her and bring her home. He eventually falls in love not knowing that she knows who hired him. This so-called comedy is very short on laughs and it's not charming, sweet or very entertaining. At just 42-minutes there's really nothing overly awful about it but at the same time there's really nothing to recommend in it. As with most of these films I'm sure the main reason people are going to tune in is for Bow and she's pretty much what you'd expect. She's certainly lively enough and you can easily see why men would be drooling all over her but at the same time her performance really isn't anything to write home about. Yes, she's decent enough playing the party girl but I just never really felt anything else from her. I certainly never laughed at any of her actions. Keith is pretty bland here as he doesn't have a bit of energy in him and not once did I ever feel any chemistry between him and Bow. Lee Moran steals the film with the few scenes that he's in. The screenplay is pretty much by the numbers and there's not a single thing that happens that makes you like the characters or feel for them. Perhaps something was lost in this shortened version but apparently reviews of the original weren't that good either.
