Show People

Although perhaps not the hilarious comic masterpiece of repute, nevertheless a delightful look at silent Hollywood, in which Marion Davies (the mistress of William Randolph Hearst and thus the model for Susan Alexander in Citizen Kane) reveals her talents as a likeable parodist, playing a young hopeful who graduates from custard-pie target in slapstick comedies to Gloria Swanson-style grande dame. All twitchy lips and histrionic gestures, she manages to make credible the character's rise to fame, despite minimal talent, through her combination of glamour, seduction and acute ambition. A fine example of Hollywood gently satirising itself, with cameo appearances from many luminaries (including Fairbanks, Chaplin, William S Hart, John Gilbert and Elinor Glyn), plus Vidor himself during the final romantic reunion with her long-forgotten fiancé