Themes: Filmmaking, Ladder to the Top, Actor's Life
Main Cast: Marion Davies, William Haines, Dell Henderson, Paul Ralli, Tenen Holtz
Release Year: 1928
Country: US
Run Time: 82 minutes
Plot
This Marion Davies vehicle was loosely inspired by the career of Gloria Swanson. Davies plays would-be starlet Peggy Pepper, who arrives at the gates of MGM Studios with her dad Colonel Pepper (Dell Henderson) in hopes of becoming a great dramatic actress. Instead, she a scores a hit as an ingenue in the slapstick comedies starring the effervescent Billy Boone (William Haines). As the audience rocks with laughter during the preview of Peggy's first film (no one is more enthusiastic than her director Harry Gribbon), she sits in sullen silence, insisting to Billy that some day she'll invoke tears instead of laughter. This doesn't seem likely, inasmuch as Peggy can't even cry on cue (her director is forced to peel onions outside of camera range to achieve the desired emotion), but the tenacious young actress finally manages to win favor in dramatic roles. Inevitably, this causes a strain on her budding romance with Billy, and the couple slowly drifts apart. Now the unchallenged Queen of the Cinema, Peggy -- billing herself as Patricia Pepoire -- prepares to marry her oily leading man Andre (Paul Ralli), but mischievous Billy disrupts her fancy wedding. She angrily tosses Billy out of the house, realizing only when it's too late that she's still in love with him. But in the final scene, the hero and heroine are accidentally reunited on the set of a WWI picture directed by King Vidor (who also directed Show People). Two versions of Show People are currently available for TV; the "stretch-framed" Kevin Brownlow-David Gill restoration, with a new orchestral score by Carl Davis, and the original MGM release version, outfitted with a lively music and sound-effects track. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Review
Although newspaper magnate and sometime film producer William Randolph Hearst generally liked to put his mistress, the lovely Marion Davies, in overproduced costume dramas, he enthusiastically embraced the idea of turning the stage comedy Polly Preferred into a satire about Hollywood stardom, and using it as a Davies vehicle. Hearst had a bit of an agenda -- he found the airs put on by some female stars -- and their marriages into semi-royalty -- completely ludicrous. Davies had already proven on screen that she had a flair for comedy; so far her talent for impersonation was common knowledge only amongst her friends. The story to Show People was very loosely modeled on the rise of Gloria Swanson: in one particular scene where she is being interviewed as dramatic actress "Patricia Pepoire," Davies makes it baldy obvious by wickedly vamping the haughty star. Filmgoers of the day knew perfectly well the origin of Davies' quirky mannerisms. That's the beauty -- and also the conundrum -- of Show People today: its spot-on in jokes. To really appreciate the gags to their utmost, you didn't have to be there, but you better have read up on the era. Only those who are extremely familiar with silent films -- and today that means a small group of vintage film fans -- will recognize all the faces seated at the commissary's "star table." Director King Vidor adds a few topical zingers of his own. When Davies' fledgling actress is attending a premiere of her new comedy two-reeler with her co-star Billy Boone (William Haines), the next film shown is Bardelys the Magnificent -- a real Vidor film from 1926. And Vidor also plays himself in the end scene, in which Davies and Haines are reunited on the set of a film about the World War, which is obviously supposed to be Vidor's smash hit The Big Parade. Nevertheless, even those who are only vaguely familiar with film history can enjoy most of Show People because some things remain constant and the mad desire for stardom is one of them. In that way Hollywood really hasn't changed at all, even if the scenery is different. And stars nowadays often make public fools of themselves just as much as Davies' character does here. Perhaps the most ironic statement made by Show People is Peggy Pepper's yearning to become a serious dramatic actress. Later when a film mogul calls her 'on the carpet' because her pompous films are losing her fans, she is dressed in the kind of overblown period costume that Davies could very well have worn in one of her earlier pictures. And, many decades later, history has proven that it wasn't the supposedly "artistic" dramatic films of the silent era that had staying power -- it was the comedies that were eternal. Not surprisingly, most critics agree that Show People is Marion Davies' best film. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide
Show People is a 1928comedysilent film directed by King Vidor. The movie was a starring vehicle for actress Marion Davies and actor William Haines and included notable cameo appearances by many of the great film stars of the day, including Charlie Chaplin, Douglas Fairbanks, William S. Hart, and John Gilbert. Vidor also appears in a cameo as himself. The film is a comedic satire of the early days of film in Hollywood, and is considered Davies' best role. The film was re-released in the 1980s, with a new orchestral score by Carl Davis.
In 2003, Show People was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".
Peggy Pepper (Marion Davies) arrives in Hollywood from Georgia, accompanied by her father, General Marmaduke Oldfish Pepper (Dell Henderson), who is pushing his daughter to become an actress. She meets Billy Boone (William Haines) at a local buffet where studio employees frequently lunch. He helps her get work at Comet Studio doing comedies with him. After receiving a cream pie in the face, she is quite disconcerted, but her 'acting' gets a lot of laughs from the cast and crew. Peggy, however, has her eyes set on doing what she considers 'serious' acting, in other words, drama.
High Art Studio soon discovers her and she leaves Billy and Comet to work there. For her new image, the company gives her the name Patricia Pepoire and she does her best to play the part, on and off screen. One day in a nearby canyon, she is working on location in a costumed dramatic picture, Billy simultaneously on a comic short. They encounter, but "Patricia" ignores him and Billy is hurt. Her performances, in the meantime, start to estrange some of her audience, who neither understand or appreciate her "Art". She plans to marry co-star "Count" Andre Telefair (Paul Ralli) for the fake title and the publicity. Billy, still taken with the old Pepper, is determined to bring her back to him and, moreover, to herself.
Show People offers an entertaining inside look at 1920s Hollywood and reflects on the actual acting career of starlet Marion Davies. Though one of the great comic talents of her day, featured in many of the decade's successful comedies, such as Tillie the Toiler (1927), she too often appeared in extravagant, costly period romance films at the behest of her newspaper tycoon lover William Randolph Hearst, who supposedly enjoyed seeing his mistress in fancy costume. For example: Janice Meredith (1924), Yolanda (1924), Bride's Play (1922) and the infamously expensive When Knighthood Was in Flower (1922), all financially backed by Hearst's Hollywood film company, Cosmopolitan Productions. Lucille Ball frequently cited Davies as a major comedic influence and all of Ball's facial techniques and comic behaviors evident in I Love Lucy are startlingly apparent in Davies' performance in this film.
The film has a remarkable number of cameo appearances from some of the top stars of the day, including Charlie Chaplin, Douglas Fairbanks, William S. Hart, and others. Many agreed to appear out of friendship with Davies, Hearst, and director Vidor, but the positive publicity value of cooperating with Hearst and MGM also played a factor.
Originally the script called for Peggy to get hit in the face with a pie after being pressed into the comedy movie shoot. William Randolph Hearst objected to this, fearing for Marion Davies' dignity, and as a compromise the scene was changed to have Peggy soaked with spray from a seltzer bottle.[1]
Davies' peculiar lip pucker after she becomes "Patricia Pepoire" was an imitation of Mae Murray. Peggy's story was inspired in part by that of Gloria Swanson, who got her start as a Bathing Beauty at Mack Sennett'sKeystone Studios before hitting it big as a dramatic actress, and who later married a French nobleman. The character of Andre was seen at the time as a satire of John Gilbert.[2] The closing scene on the set of a war movie may be a nod to King Vidor's smash hit of three years before, The Big Parade.
