Chatterbox

Chatterbox is a really innocent film that could actually use an update today in the sense that some things that were done in the Thirties might seem as camp to us now as Anne Shirley's mother's favorite role from the Victorian Age.

Anne Shirley a devoted daughter to her late mother who was a prominent stage actress during the Victorian Era dreams of success on the stage much to the dismay of her down to earth father Edward Ellis. He wishes she'd just settle down and marry a responsible young man which doesn't include their farm hand George Offerman or Phillips Holmes, a rich kid who'd rather paint than make money. Holmes is as much a trial to his father Granville Bates as Shirley is to Ellis.

Anyway when a small theater company wants to revive the play, Anne eagerly wants the part and gets it of course on the strength of her name. But with changing public taste what was great Victorian melodrama back in the day is now high camp and played absolutely straight might bring down the house.

We hear about many of the stage legends of the past and the names come down to us, but you never see the works revived because public tastes have changed. With film you can measure the changing tastes of the public and when reviewing items for this forum you always have to try and watch it through the eyes of the public of the time as well as through your own. Sometimes films are hopelessly dated and you must say so.

However Chatterbox is an interesting film because it deals with the phenomenon of changing public tastes in a gentle manner. I daresay it could be remade today and some of the work that was done on the stage then would be camp today.

Not everything lasts forever.