L'école des mendiants

This is a fairly pedestrian melodrama. However, it does showcase the talents of an otherwise forgotten English born performer, Percy Marmont (as Easy Money Charlie) and his engaging ward/'daughter', Mary Brian (as Fancy Vanhern).

The story has a political message - the end of the Great War had led to the return of a great many servicemen, many of whom became unemployed when the postwar boom turned sour (in 1920-21). A number of these were wounded. However, because of America's comparatively brief participation in the war effort, there were many more able bodied unemployed ex-soldiers than there were disabled (certainly the ratio of able bodied to disabled was far greater than in France, Britain or Germany). Public sympathy for returned soldiers was rather limited, and this caused a great deal of bitterness. This meant that able bodied ex-servicemen had sometimes to resort to impostures, and over time these had the effect of increasing public suspicion of any form of mendicancy by disabled people - whether or not they suffered from any real disability. This story plays with that theme, although the war is never mentioned.

There is the usual interesting 1920s exterior footage - here we get the chance to see what I imagine to be a genuine New York Easter Parade from St. Patrick's Cathedral.

This film is only remembered today because it marks the Paramount screen debut of Louise Brooks (credited as a 'moll'). She had impressed executives Walter Wanger and Townsend Martin by her performances at the Ziegfeld Follies and encouraged her to have a go in this picture, directed by the autocratic, but very capable Herbert Brenon. However, her appearance is not especially impressive.

Even so, Marmont, Brian and John Harrington (as Bridgeport White-Eye, a phoney whose imposture becomes a reality) play well together and with feeling. It may not be to the taste of an audience that has long sloughed off any sympathy for outright sentimentality, but if the viewer makes any attempt to reconstruct the mentality of the average cinema attendee of 1925, s/he will find this film rewarding.