Reviews

Romance set in Old Mexico. Success in its time which raises the mystery of how the passing of years renders a popular film of the time into a work today's audience will wonder where our grandparents' found its appeal. Proof of how popular culture struggles to endure. This is by no means a bad movie, in fact a typical silent programmer, well acted, directed, art directed. But only for scholars and Murray fans today. Mae (as a brunette) looks great, changes into elaborate costumes several times and works in a high quality dance number -- each being standard Murray film trademarks.

Throughout most of her career, superstar beauty Mae Murray collaborated with director Robert Z. Leonard, her husband, creating a long string of silent successes. She often earned writing credit and participated in other aspects of production as well as acting.

This very early work is an amazingly imitative exercise in the "art film" category before Mae was reinvented, utilizing her true talent and personality, as the glamorous "girl with the bee stung lips."

Here, Mae is a pure and simple Mary Pickford imitator as were so many stars of the earliest silent era, and the film itself is a patent imitation -- although lacking the brilliance -- of D.W. Griffith conception and directorial excellence.

Please look to plot summary contributed elsewhere.

"High Stakes" is Mae Murray's final starring performance, an early talkie. The film has little to offer today's viewer,light comic fluff distinguished only by the fine performance of the under-rated actor Lowell Sherman. Mae, for the first time in her lengthy career as a screen beauty, is finally beginning to show her age. The print available for my viewing was poor indeed. Recommended for die-hard Murray, Sherman fans and scholars of early talkies.

Mae Murray proves, unlike so many silent superstars, that she can speak on screen in her first of two sound pictures. A pleasant light comedy co-starring Lowell Sherman as a sophisticated roue and a very young Irene Dunne stealing the film from the titular star.

Exquisite comedy starring Marian Davies (with the affable William Haines). Young Peggy arrives in Hollywood seeking stardom. Cameo performances showcase "all the stars in MGM's heaven" in the famous commissary scene, plus lots of vintage film making detail for the scholar. Pic also captures for posterity Davies' famous, wickedly sarcastic impersonations of the top stars of the day (her Swanson is a beaut!).

"Peggy," even catches herself as she encounters the famous star Marian Davies at tennis, turns up her nose and comments, "Ohh, I don't like her!"

My print was perfect. Story, direction, acting an authentic charm and a must for all silent afficinados.