Kiki

Report from Cinesation 2006: KIKI (****) As Jeanine Basinger says in her book on Silent Stars, perhaps the biggest hole in our understanding of silent stardom is the career of Norma Talmadge-- she likens it to knowing talkies without ever seeing Bette Davis. This sparkling new Library of Congress restoration of a 1926 Parisian showbiz farce is atypical for the grande dame roles Talmadge usually played, but as with Marion Davies and Show People, it wouldn't be the worst fate for a star to be known mainly to history for a first-class comedy.

Talmadge, at thirtysomething more game than gamine, is a plucky street gal who weasels her way into producer Ronald Colman's chorus line, his home, and his heart. Because a number of folks present had seen it just a month before at Cinecon, I was prepped for the idea that it was something of a screwball comedy with neither lead behaving in any way that real humans would. (The word "stalker" was used on alt.movies.silent, and aptly so.) But taken as kind of a silent Twentieth Century or Bringing Up Baby, it had lots of laughs, and Talmadge pulls off the comedy beautifully (as does George K. Arthur, as her archrival among Colman's servants).

This Clarence Brown comedy featuring Norma Talmadge and Ronald Colman starts fast but is unable to maintain it's dizzying pace Into the final reels as the title character's zany ways become tiresome, the situation fatigued.

Piaf like waif Kiki pushes newspapers on the streets of Paris and has dreams of becoming a stage sensation. By way of a fortuitous mix up she gets an audition and the attention of producer Walter Renal (Colman) who is being two timed by a diva. Kiki works her way into the chorus, creates a calamity on stage and becomes a sensation much to the consternation of Renal's headliner squeeze.

Talmadge ( A Woman of Paris ) whose career tanked with sound was a fine silent dramatic actress and in Kiki she displays the same aptitude for comedy with some hilarious mugging. Colman without benefit of his mellifluous voice still conveys suave sophistication and at times a surprising frustrated stridency seldom seen in his sound work. Brown and cameraman give Kiki a good look but he and Talamdge ultimately are unable to sustain the lack of Kiki's character depth seventy minutes in and the last half hour grinds slowly and unimaginatively.

(1926) Kiki SILENT ROMANTIC COMEDY

Kiki (Norma Talmadge) acts like a kook who is naturally clumsy, with it's goal was it to live and marry the typical wealthy owner of a stage show. It happens to be the Ronald Coleman character as he plays, Victor Renal. Which if you can get past the first 30 minutes, since the other slapstick stuff was routinely old fashioned and rather predictable, than you might be able to make it the rest of the way. As some of the comedy bits is similar to other comedy stuff of that era, even though comedic giants such as Chaplin, Keaton and Harold Lloyd and other shorts...had done some of those comedic scenes better. The only difference with this movie as opposed to the others is that there is a story to be told here, with the slapstick serving nothing more but a backdrop.

This is a delightful and very funny film starring Norma Talmadge, possibly at her best. She was a natural and vivacious comedienne, although she often played serious roles. As I pointed out in my review of THE SOCIAL SECRETARY (1916), she was a fine actress, and she played two roles instead of only one in THE FORBIDDEN CITY (1918, see my review). Immediately after this film, she switched tempo entirely and played the tragic Marguerite Gautier in the silent version of Dumas's CAMILLE, a role to be made famous later in the sound version with Greta Garbo. I wonder whether Talmadge's performance here as Kiki may have been inspired by the many performances of Clara Bow, who had made 32 films by this time. If so, the inspiration worked, and the Bow was successfully tied in a double knot just this once. Ronald Colman is superb and very much 'the Ronald Colman we know' in this film, despite not being able to hear his mellifluous voice. It needs to be stressed that this is not a film about the famous Kiki de Montparnasse of that era, even though it is set in Paris and this Kiki is, like the real Kiki, a lively scamp who came from total poverty as a waif. The film is based on the successful play KIKI, which did well on both Broadway and in London, by André Picard. Picard probably decided to call attention to his play by calling his character Kiki, knowing that it would arouse curiosity because of the notoriety of the real Kiki, and this worked. The film was remade in sound in 1931 with Mary Pickford in the lead, and she 'bombed', so they say, though I have never seen that version. It was remade again twice in 1932, in both cases with Anny Ondra in the lead, with two different directors, one filming in French and the other filming in German, but these films seem to be lost, and in any case there are no IMDb reviews of them. So Picard's amusing play was filmed four times in six years, and in three languages. In this version, George K. Arthur is very amusing as Ronald Colman's valet and butler, Adolphe. This film was directed by Clarence Brown, who later made such famous films as NATIONAL VELVET with Elizabeth Taylor (1944) and several films with Greta Garbo including ANNA KARENINA (1935) and MARIE WALEWSKA (1937). Earlier than those, he made ANNA Christie with Garbo in 1930, the same year made the terrible ROMANCE with Garbo, from which he wisely had his name removed, and he also made INSPIRATION with Garbo in 1931. That was three Garbo films in a row over those two years. The film he made just before KIKI was THE EAGLE (1925) with Valentino and immediately after KIKI, he made the famous FLESH AND THE DEVIL with Garbo and John Gilbert, which was when they began their famous love affair. Brown was one of the Hollywood Greats. It is thus not at all surprising that this film is lively, and often wonderfully funny. It was a First National Picture and has been restored from an old print, the negative obviously having been lost. This is a silent classic to be treasured.

If anyone has a complete version of this out there, I would love to get in touch with you. My copy is missing a couple of reels. So, I don't know exactly HOW Ronald and Norma met in the movie.

Despite the missing reels, I thoroughly enjoyed this little movie. Despite the picture quality not being very good, it was fun and playful and Norma Talmadge was a hoot - especially where she is "comatose"! Ronald Colman was also young, chipper, and handsome - and of course, there's the evil "other woman" in his life.

If you can find a copy of this film, even incomplete, do see it. It's not a masterpiece, but it is fun to watch, and I think anyone would be amused.