Loading
King Vidor, MGM, 1928. Marion Davies as Peggy Pepper, a Georgia girl who arrives in Hollywood, does slapstick for Comet, then turns grand at High Arts; William Haines is the slapstick lead who knew her first. Vidor shoots the lots as workplaces: extras, lunch wagons, a pie. Davies, Hearst's star, plays a climber who has to be talked back to comedy. Cameos include Chaplin, Fairbanks, and Vidor himself. AFI notes the film as a studio satire made inside the studio, with Davies doing the pratfalls her public image was not supposed to allow.
In one programme
The comedy about comedy. Davies arrives wanting drama, gets a pie in the face, gets good at it, and then goes grand. Watch her try to cry on cue. Vidor shoots the studio as a workplace and lets Chaplin walk through the frame.
Cast & crew
Further reading
Also streaming
Loading films
