Show People (1928)

A young lady from Georgia goes to Hollywood in the hopes of becoming an actress.

Director:

King Vidor

Writers:

Agnes Christine Johnston (treatment), Laurence Stallings (treatment)

Stars:

Marion Davies, William Haines, Dell Henderson

1 win.

Cast

Complete credited cast:
Marion Davies	...	Peggy Pepper
William Haines	...	Billy Boone
Dell Henderson	...	Colonel Pepper
Paul Ralli	...	Andre Telfair
Tenen Holtz	...	Casting Director
Harry Gribbon	...	Comedy Director
Sidney Bracey	...	Dramatic Director (as Sidney Bracy)
Polly Moran	...	The Maid
Albert Conti	...	Producer

Storyline

Colonel Pepper brings his daughter, Peggy, to Hollywood from Georgia to be an actress. There she meets Billy who gets her work at Comet Studio doing comedies with him. But Peggy is discovered by High Art Studio and she leaves Billy and Comet to work there. For her new image, she is now Patricia Pepoire and ignores Billy when he sees her on location. When she is not longer wanted by the little people who do not understand "ART", she plans to marry Andre to get a fake title. Billy will not let her go without a fight.

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Plot Keywords:

actress | hollywood | showbiz | love triangle | national film registry | 

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Genres:

Comedy | Romance

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Did You Know?

Trivia

Although loosely based on the career of Gloria Swanson, Marion Davies is clearly impersonating Mae Murray as the snooty Patricia Pepoire.

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Quotes

Title Card: To hopeful hundreds there is a golden spot on the map called - HOLLYWOOD.

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Alternate Versions

Kevin Brownlow led a 1982 restoration of Show People which used a new score composed and conducted by Carl Davis. In addition, a short outtake of Billy Boone showing Peggy how to put on makeup was added.

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Connections

Referenced in The Artist (2011)

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Soundtracks

You're In The Army Now
(uncredited)
Music by Isham Jones
Lyrics by Tell Taylor and Ole Olsen
Played after Mr. Vidor talks to the actors playing soldiers

User Reviews

Delightful silent comedy about Hollywood from King Vidor.

Another superb production from King Vidor (The Big Parade, The Crowd, The Citadel, The Champ, War and Peace, Northwest Passage, Our Daily Bread). Vidor's movies are always well directed (the way the camera tells the story can not be faulted), but sometimes the performances are not good (in Our Daily Bread, for example), or the movie as a whole is not good. But this is one of Vidor's really great ones. Remembered as one of the only occasions Marion Davies was allowed to play comedy by sugar-daddy and executive producer William Randolph Hearst (a.k.a Citizen Kane), also known as her best movie. She plays comedy wonderfully - which makes it a shame that Hearst thought that to be a "serious actress" meant costume dramas.

Which is actually what this movie is about. It has so many elements of Davies' own story, also told in rather comic-book fashion through Susan Alexander in Citizen Kane. Here, Peggy Pepper (Marion Davies) is brought to Hollywood by her fat, seemingly rich, hick father, in order to become a serious movie actress. She gets signed by a certain studio, without knowing they are a comedy studio similar to Mack Sennet's pie-throwing studio, and sort of falls into getting known as a comic actress, as well as falling in love with a kind clown named Billy Boone (William Haines). As in Vidor' The Citadel, she starts off doing the ideal thing (having fun and playing comedy), and gets seduced from this path by others. She is signed by the "High Arts" studio, where she is encouraged to act hoity-toity and associate with the "Hollywood elite," thereby ignoring all her old friends, including Billy Boone.

Show People is a really great comedy - really fun, really well made, well acted, written, and has the delightful value of featuring cameos from many silent legends including Chaplin, Fairbanks, Gilbert, cowboy William S Hart and others. Cameo value is also added by Vidor himself, who pokes fun at himself as a director of war movies when he appears doing just that in the final sequence, and as a director of "high art." At one point Peggy and Billy are at the movies having just seen their latest movie, which is to be followed by Vidor's production "Bardley's the Magnificent" (a real Vidor film from 2 years before). Peggy wants to stay and watch it, and Billy says in not so many words: what would you want to watch such pretensious rubbish for?

Details

Official Sites:

Instagram

Country:

USA

Release Date:

20 October 1928 (USA)

Also Known As:

Ce viseaza fetele

Filming Locations:

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios - 10202 W. Washington Blvd., Culver City, California, USA

Box Office

Gross USA:

$1,100,000

Company Credits

Production Co:

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM), Cosmopolitan Productions

Technical Specs

Runtime:

83 min (copyright length) 78 min (Turner Library Print)

Sound Mix:

Mono (musical score and sound effects) Silent

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.20 : 1