There's something going on in Hollywood
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| German title | There's something going on in Hollywood |
| Original title | Show people |
| Country of production | United States |
| original language | English |
| Publishing year | 1928 |
| length | 82 minutes |
| Rod | |
| Director | King Vidor |
| script |
Agnes Christine Johnston Ralph Spence Laurence Stallings Wanda Tuchock |
| production | Cosmopolitan Productions on loan from MGM |
| music | Carl Davis ( 1982 ) |
| camera | John Arnold |
| cut | Hugh Wynn |
| occupation | |
| |
There is something going on in Hollywood (OT: Show People ) is an American film from 1928. The silent film by King Vidor portrays the rise of an unknown female comedian to a great star and her descent. The satire is loosely based on the life story of Gloria Swanson .
action
Young Peggy Pepper came to Hollywood with her father from rural Georgia to become a movie star. However, she first has to go the arduous way through the casting office . In the studio canteen, she meets the comedy actor Billy Boone. He wants to get her a job in front of the camera. The next day she should come to the Comet Studios and introduce herself. While she thinks she'll be hired as a great character actress, the studios all specialize in cheap, fast-made comedies. And so Peggy is pretty horrified when, instead of saying a meaningful sentence, she first gets a load of soda in her face. But Billy builds it up again and she comes to terms with her fate of having to start at the bottom.
During a test screening of her first film, it was a great success and Peggy was even asked for an autograph by Charlie Chaplin. However, she does not recognize him in her naivete and faints when Billy tells her who it was. But she attracts attention with her film and gets a contract with the renowned High Arts Studio , which is tarnished by the fact that she has to leave Billy and the others behind at Comet. At High Arts, Peggy gets André Telfair, who specializes in romantic lover roles, who calls himself André de Bergerac, but initially fails when she tries in vain to burst into tears on command during test shoots.
But over time she has great success, but forgets her origins and gives herself starry airs , with Patricia Pepoire a new name and a fictional biography that negates her origins from small circumstances and her beginnings as a slapstick actress. Billy, who has meanwhile carried on as before and has befriended Peggy's father, receives a rebuff from her when he tries to invite her to his house for dinner. She has an appointment with her new film partner, which is part of the business.
One day when Ms Pepoire and her team were out of the studio for scenes from a historic adventure film, they were shooting outdoor scenes in the same area for a Comet Studios slapstick comedy. Billy takes the opportunity to intercept his old girlfriend during a break in filming. However, she is terribly embarrassed about the meeting and she is reluctant to enter into a conversation with him. Only when Billy exposes her film partner André as a former waiter, although he had introduced himself to her as of noble descent, does she humiliate and insult Billy, so that he sneaks away sadly.
Patricia's success fades when the audience no longer wants to see the arrogant, unnatural manner of Patricia Pepoire. However, she does not want to admit it and dismisses the warnings of her producer. When she finally wants to marry André, Billy intercepts her in the dining room. He tries to remind her of her old days with a load of soda water, which she acknowledges with a cake, which ends up in Andrés face instead of Billy's when he enters the room. Because Ms Pepoire turns away from Billy anyway, he believes he has lost and leaves the field. But when Peggy then sees André's face covered with cream, she starts to laugh out loud. She has come to her senses and cancels the wedding.
Billy gets a role in a war film directed by King Vidor through Peggy. However, he doesn't know who he owes his luck to and can't believe his eyes when he sees his film partner in front of the camera for the first time. In the end, they embrace each other in accordance with the script, but they still kiss when the director has long since called "cut" and has left the location with his team.
background
Marion Davies, who ran its own film company under the MGM umbrella, was one of the most popular comedians of the silent film era alongside Constance Talmadge . Together with King Vidor, she had a great success with The Patsy last year, both at the box office and with the critics. They praised their talent for imitating well-known screen stars. Marion played Mae Murray and Pola Negri in the film . In this respect, it was agreed that Vidor would direct Davies' next flick.
The film, which has also been referred to as "an almost documentary look inside Hollywood's dream factory" , was released in US cinemas on November 11, 1928, and in German cinemas in 1930. The film was one of the last great successes of a silent film. The scene in which all the Hollywood celebrities of the time meet over lunch in Peggy's fictional studio : Douglas Fairbanks , Mae Murray , Norma Talmadge , Leatrice Joy and John Gilbert, among others , became famous . Several other stars like Mary Pickford , Charles Chaplin and Gloria Swanson also appeared as themselves and even King Vidor was seen in a scene towards the end as King Vidor .
Although the film was loosely based on the rise of Gloria Swanson, the plot also had an analogue in the lead actress' career. Davies was dating the publisher William Randolph Hearst . Hearst saw Davies primarily as the actress of opulent dramas like When Knighthood Was in Flower from 1922, which cost over $ 800,000 and featured Davies as a Tudor princess. However, as mentioned above, her real talent was in the field of comedy.
The scenes set in the fictional Comet Studios were filmed at Keystone Studios after its founder Mack Sennett founded a major film company. The Keystone Studios had been a stepping stone for many stars of the silent film era, who had left it over time, partly because of insufficient pay.
Marion Davies, who stuttered easily, nevertheless made a successful switch to talkies in the musical Marianne the following year , in which she played a French woman who spoke only broken English. With Vidor she shot the comedy Not So Dumb , which was based on a popular comic strip.
Davies had a long friendship with William Haines, which also lasted when Haines was dropped from MGM in 1932 and a new career as an interior designer began.
Film music
William Axt and David Mendoza wrote the title song Cross Roads for the film , to which Raymond Klages wrote the words. It was played on gramophone records by various American bands, e. B. for the label banner of Mike Markel and his Society Favorites , for which Irving Kaufman sang the refrain as “George Beaver”.
Awards
The film was honored with an entry in the National Film Registry in 2003 .
Reviews
- Lexicon of international film : “A well-acted and lovingly staged homage to the great time of slapstick comedies by producer Mack Sennett” The online version, on the other hand, means: “Brilliant (silent film) satire on the dream factory, which is self-ironic with a good deal of self-irony condensed from an early form of media criticism and, through a series of spicy allusions, becomes a mirror of Hollywood business at the end of the 1920s. "
- the daily newspaper : "Not every silent film ages as well as" Show People "by King Vidor. It is not a pure cream cake comedy, but something like a satirical reflection on the slapstick films, the star system and Hollywood in general. "
Re-performance
The municipal film house cinema in Nuremberg showed Show People on Saturday, May 19, 2018 at 6 p.m. in a 35 mm copy from the Library Of Congress . “Germany's longest-serving silent film musician”, the pianist and composer Joachim Bärenz from Essen, accompanied the piano.
swell
- ↑ a b http://www.taz.de/pt/2003/10/30/a0028.1/text.ges,1
- ↑ http://www.kino-db.de/filmanbeispiel.php?filmid=Show%20people
- ↑ http://german.imdb.com/title/tt0019379/trivia
- ↑ cf. Banner 6244-A (mx. 1941-2) Markel's Society Favorites, vocal chorus by George Beaver.
- ^ Lexicon of International Films . Reinbek near Hamburg: Rowohlt 1995, vol. S, p. 5072.
- ^ Show People. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed August 25, 2017 .
- ↑ so in the article "Film critic award is awarded to silent film pianist Joachim Bärenz" at filmundmediennrw.de on November 10, 2003
- ↑ cf. kunstkulturquartier.de/filmhaus
Web links
- Something's happening in Hollywood in the Internet Movie Database (English)