"Lights of Old Broadway" (1925) stars Marion Davies and Conrad Nagel. Davies plays twins whose mother dies on the way over to America on a ship, and now the twins are separated by being given to two different families, one a very poor Irish immigrating family and the other a very wealthy American banking family. Based on the stage play "The Merry Wives of Gotham", this is told in rip-snorting style, with Davies as the Irish lassie now a star in an earthy burlesque (not strip!) joint in a tough section of NYC around 1870. She's also (as her twin) the respectable, slightly uppity daughter of banker Frank Currier and his wife Julia Swayne Gordon. Eventually the two meet, of course, but do they ever figure out who they are? Is it necessary that they do? It's the DNA and how it makes the girls behave when together that counts!
Conrad Nagel plays the son of banker Currier, and he falls madly in love with the poor squatter, the Irish lass Fely O'Tandy. Of course this starts a rumpus which drives the wheels of the film; that, and the fact that Currier wishes to drive off the squatters, all the Irish and other immigrant souls who've squatted on a certain piece of land. Of course, too, the O'Tandy's live on that land.
Wonderful bit of hokum! It's loads of fun watching Davies and her Irish father, Charles McHugh, battle their way through all of the plotting before them. This new release from Kino-Lorber is superb! Tinted, with at least one handschiegl scene and Technicolor in a couple of others, this is an absolutely beautiful restoration. Very highly recommended!
For the record, you'll love seeing Teddy Roosevelt as a young boy, Tom Edison trying to market his "sound machine", and all the references to lighting the streets of the downtown city with electric arc lamps as opposed to gas. The last figures prominently in the plot of the film. Tony Pastor and Weber and Fields are also integrated into the plot. If you look closely, you'll see Karl Dane, George K. Arthur, and even Mary Gordon in small or insignificant parts. Matthew Betz has one scene as the leader of a plot against those who would move the squatters from their property.
