Les incomprises

This is the most depressing Marion Davies movie I have ever seen. Miss Davies was a natural light comedian, but her lover/producer, William Randolph Hearst, wanted her in Important Works, which meant large production values and serious plots. In this one, she and Ralph Cleland are in love, but they don't realize it, because they've been raised as sister and brother; so while he's off in Paris, she marries Carlyle Blackwell, becoming Mrs. Oswald Grismer. With a name like that, you know everyone is going to suffer.

Director Robert Z. Leonard doesn't do his actors any favors. He has everyone indicate their unhappiness by moving like they are arthritics stuck in molasses and glowering in reaction shots. My guess is that everyone knew this was not turning out well, because we are told characters' emotional states in baroquely overwritten titles.

There are some good bits. The "Ball of the Gods" in which the miserable would-be lovers are reunited is a splendid production number, but it comes too late to save the movie. Corinne Barker and Vivienne Osborne as an artist and her occasionally nude model are fairly lively.

I came to this film with high expectations, and that may have caused me to be harsher in this review than I would have been with an ordinary programmer with lesser talents. However, this one is clearly a misfire. A lot of movies can be saved in the editing room. It's clear that they tried. They also failed.