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The Matinee Idol (1928)
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Overview
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Release Date:
14 March 1928 (USA)
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Plot:
A Broadway matinee idol famous for his black-face portrayals anonymously joins an amateur acting troupe and falls in love with the leading lady. full summary | add synopsis
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A genuine masterpiece.
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Cast
(Complete credited cast) | Bessie Love | ... | Ginger Bolivar |
| Johnnie Walker | ... | Don Wilson - aka Harry Mann |
| Ernest Hilliard | ... | Arnold Wingate |
| Lionel Belmore | ... | Jasper Bolivar |
| David Mir | ... | Eric Barrymaine |
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Runtime:
66 min (copyright length) (24 fps) | USA:56 min (1997 alternate version)
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This restored version runs 57 minutes but is still missing about 5 minutes. The restoration was a joint venture of the Cinematheque Francais, the Motion Picture Academy, and Sony Entertainment.
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Broadway - a street that runs north, south, and wild!
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Featured in The Lady with the Torch (1999)
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THE MATINEE IDOL is a superb comedy, and much much more. In a way that suggests his later masterpieces, Frank Capra masterfully mixes comedy and drama in a unique way. And the result is the creation of genuinely real characters in a very real world - a world that can be loving and cruel.
A bunch of Broadway theatre producers stumble on a country theatrical troupe, who are really quite bad. So they decide to put the troupe into a Broadway show - so that they can be laughed at by the sophisticated New York audience. The results are funny for us too, but Capra manages to make us feel for the players as they work their hearts out to stop the audience laughing at their drama. Stunning stuff.
And the magnificent performance of Bessie Love is key to the success of this comic-tragic feel. Johnnie Walker is also excellent as the Broadway star who falls in love with her. And Capra displays, in this early film, the attention to detail and an understanding of humanity that would characterise all his later work. Just watch the country audience - the characters he captures so beautifully without being condescending. They might be funny people, but they are also real. Of course we can see this in the work he did with Harry Langdon too.
Capra was certainly a master - and this wonderful silent film is a testimony to his genius. Make sure you see it.