Raggedy Rose (1926)

Director:

Richard Wallace

Writers:

Carl Harbaugh (writer)
Stan Laurel (writer)

Release Date:

7 November 1926 (USA)

Genre:

Short | Comedy

Plot:

Rose, who works for a penny-pinching junk dealer, dreams of romance with wealthy bachelor Ted Tudor. |

Cast

  (Credited cast)

Mabel Normand	...	Raggedy Rose
Carl Miller	...	Ted Tudor
Max Davidson	...	Moe Ginsberg
James Finlayson	...	Simpson Sniffle
Anita Garvin	...	Janice
Laura La Varnie	...	Janice's Mother
Jerry Mandy	...	The Chauffeur

Runtime:

56 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.33 : 1

Sound Mix:

Silent

Company:

Hal Roach Studios

Trivia:

Oliver Hardy was originally part of the cast, but was forced to withdraw during the filming after injuring himself in a kitchen accident. While cooking a leg of lamb, Hardy spilled a pan of hot grease on himself, badly burning his hand and wrist. In his gyrations of pain that followed, he managed to fall out the back door of his house and twisted one leg.

Charming Mabel Normand

Charming comedy stars Mabel Normand as a poor girl working for a ragman (Max Davidson) and dreaming of her prince. Through a series of events she fakes an auto accident and is taken to a mansion (she thinks it's a hospital) and meets her prince.

Normand was attempting a comeback after her film career smashed in the early 20s because of her connection to William Desmond Taylor. She was not involved with his murder at all but her affair with him was made public. Normand also suffered from poor health and addictions. After a flop comeback attempt on Broadway, she headed back to Hollywood where Hal Roach, Stan Laurel, and others helped her relaunch her career. But it was too late.

Her short features from this period are uneven but Normand was still a terrific comic actress and in RAGGEDY ROSE shows she still had the stuff.

There's a funny bit where the millionaire (Carl Miller) can't sleep because two cats are fighting on a fence. All the neighbors are throwing boots and shoes and whatever at the cats, but they prove to be fakes, manipulated by Normand and Davidson, who gather up all the loot tossed at the cats. The big fight between Normand and the fake fiancée (Anita Garvin) and her mother (who might be a man) is also hilarious when the feathers start to fly--literally.

James Finlayson has a good role and the loony butler. Laura La Varnie is the mother.

Normand made 5 films in 1926 and 1927 but they all flopped. She died in 1930 at the age of 37.