Silk Legs

I viewed an incomplete and damaged print of 'Silk Legs'. The last reel and the third reel of this six-reel feature were missing, so I don't know how the movie ends. However, the last reel but one was intact, and I was able to follow enough of the plot to get a strong sense of the story line; based on what's here, I seriously doubt that the ending of the movie was especially clever or interesting.

Madge Bellamy is a saleswoman for the Blue Cross stockings company. Surely this is a terrible name for a company that makes silk stockings? It implies that women who wear Blue Cross stockings will appear to have blue veins in their legs. Anyway, I just work here.

Our Madge goes to a stockings convention in Atlantic City, where she meets handsome James Hall. He's a high-pressure salesman for Gold Point, a rival stockings company. Unaware of what Madge does for a living, but attracted by her looks, he takes her out on a date. Being an egomaniac, he brags about his success as a salesman, and gleefully tells Madge how he persuades the women buyers at department stores to order his stockings: "Flatter 'em, feed 'em and forget 'em." I guess that for audiences in 1927 this was meant as a sexual double-entendre.

Madge is smart enough to see what a shallow cad James is, but rather stupidly she's attracted to him anyway ... probably because of actor James Hall's extreme good looks. If some less attractive actor of this period (say, Walter Hiers) had been cast in the role, then this movie would have been completely implausible. What I saw here wasn't too plausible anyway. The photography in 'Silk Legs' is excellent, and the production design is above average for the period. As I viewed an incomplete print of 'Silk Legs', I shan't rate it ... but I wasn't impressed by most of what I saw.