Mae Murray, one of the true superstar divas of the silent screen, returned to pictures for the first time in nearly twenty years with the filming of this little one-reel film history released as an episode for Columbia's long-running SCREEN SNAPSHOTS series ( Mae made several appearances in the series almost thirty years prior!). No, it's not a comeback on the level of Mae's erstwhile rival Gloria Swanson, who the same year captured one of the screen's most iconic femme roles, Norma Desmond in SUNSET BLVD, but it's good to see Mae once again. She was now in her sixties (some sources have her as 65 in 1950) but she's still a charming, endearing if a tad eccentric little butterfly, full of wistful sweetness with a gentle, slightly fragile voice full of fairytale romance. Host Ralph Staub just happens up what is supposed to be Mae's patio I guess, and she greets him with warmth and answers his question about the great matinee idols of the silver screen back in the day. This launches into a long clip fest of quite a number of silent movie heroes from their own movies, with Mae narrating about their appeal and successes. The lone talking heartthrob is at the end of the line, king of Hollywood, Clark Gable who is seen in candid footage with his late wife Carole Lombard. Mae Murray's life beyond the end of her screen career in 1931 was pretty hard so it's nice to see her get a little moment of glory on the screen one more time (she did do a couple of television interviews later on that are impossible to find now). This film can be purchased quite inexpensively on Ebay as Hearthrobs of Yesteryear (note the slightly different title) on a dvd with two other similar one-reel documentaries.
