Marion Davies is a bundle of energy and this film has a lot of cute moments, many of which are forerunners of later screwball and romantic comedies. The story has her running around trying to get her big sister's boyfriend to notice her instead. She moons over him somewhat dementedly, which made the film take a while to grow on me, but it got there. Meanwhile, her sister (Jane Winton) looks to upgrade from the boyfriend (Orville Caldwell) to a more affluent man from the yacht club (Lawrence Gray), cracking the door open a bit for her.
It's an interesting family dynamic; Davies' character is bullied by her sister and not favored by her mother (Marie Dressler), but has a special relationship with her father (Dell Henderson). Her parents fall into the old trope of overbearing wife and henpecked husband, you know, that is until he's had enough. However, watching their relationship and the two sisters spar with little comments and gestures throughout the film is endearing. "If it wasn't for you, our family tree would die," says Davies. "What do you mean by that?," her sister asks. "You're the sap!" she answers. Director King Vidor opens with a clever overhead shot of the family all eating soup in sync with one another, and later has them scrambling around to get ready for an evening out, with the ladies jostling for position in front of the mirror. It's in these manic moments and Davies' hopeless love that the film has its charm. Vidor keeps things light, even though some of the little ways the characters manipulate one another venture from relative innocence (pretending someone else is interested to stoke jealousy) to what might otherwise be decidedly unfunny (faking the scene of an assault, and threatening divorce).
I didn't find any of the comedic elements to be laugh out loud funny, but I was often amused. At one point Davies gets a book on anecdotes (in order to "develop a personality"), and then begins rattling off one-liners (e.g. "A caterpillar is nothing but an upholstered worm.") They're quirky and offbeat, and more interesting for their window into the 1920's than anything else. To bother her sister who is with a man, she parades across a doorway wearing a succession of silly hats. However, easily the biggest highlight was her impressions of Mae Murray, Lillian Gish, and Pola Negri, which are fantastic. Each of them is preceded by a photo of the actress, and then we see Davies developing the impression, starting with expressions with her mouth, and then adding from there. It's a pretty simple little film, but watch it for moments like that.
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