Las luces de Broadway

THE LIGHTS OF OLD Broadway stars the great Marion Davies in a dual role. She plays a set of twins separated at birth. One becomes Anne, a society girl in New York; the other is Fely, an Irish toughie who somehow lands on the musical stage. She meets the suave Dirk (Conrad Nagel) who is Anne's half brother. Anne's family also owns the slum in which the Irish families live.

As with Davies' terrific LITTLE OLD NEW YORK, this story is also set against an historical background, involving the story of the coming of electricity to the city. So along with show biz figures like Tony Pastor, Weber and Fields, etc we also see Teddy Roosevelt and Thomas Edison. Anne's family has a lot of money in gas, but somehow Fely's father has stock in electricity. The snooty family tries to keep Nagel away from the low-born Fely.

Davies is terrific playing the blonde Fely (she does a few stage numbers) and the dark-haired Anne. Davies make a solid comic entrance as Fely (minus a tooth) balancing herself on a stack of tables and chairs and defying the mob the city kids.

Nagel is fine as the hero. Both Karl Dane and George K. Arthur show up in small parts.

In the amorphous era of the late 19th century, Miss Davies plays two twins separated at birth. One is adopted by a hoity-toity family, while the other goes to a shanty life in the part of Manhattan that is now Sutton Place. This version of Miss Davies works in the chorus at Tony Pastor's theater. There she meets Conrad Nagel, who happens to be her twin's step-brother; they fall in love. But his father objects to her because she is a show girl, and a Catholic Irish one at that, while her father objects because He's a rowdydow, and it helps the plot.

It's another in the string of historical showpieces that Hearst produced for Miss Davies, with a battle between the forces of progress, as exemplified by Conrad Nagel, and the regressive forces by his father, played by Frank Currier. There's a lot of Oirish slapstick going on, with Miss Davies' dad, Charles McHugh, doing all his thinking with a brick in his hand.

Given that Miss Davies plays two roles, twins separated by birth, there might have been a parallel story for her sister, who is now Nagel's sister, but nothing is made of it.... although Nagel falling in love with a girl who looks exactly like his stepsister is likely to raise some eyebrows.

It's certainly not one of Miss Davies' better vehicles, but it's clearly aimed at a 1920s audience. Which is hardly surprising given when it was made.

"Lights of Old Broadway" (1925) stars Marion Davies and Conrad Nagel. Davies plays twins whose mother dies on the way over to America on a ship, and now the twins are separated by being given to two different families, one a very poor Irish immigrating family and the other a very wealthy American banking family. Based on the stage play "The Merry Wives of Gotham", this is told in rip-snorting style, with Davies as the Irish lassie now a star in an earthy burlesque (not strip!) joint in a tough section of NYC around 1870. She's also (as her twin) the respectable, slightly uppity daughter of banker Frank Currier and his wife Julia Swayne Gordon. Eventually the two meet, of course, but do they ever figure out who they are? Is it necessary that they do? It's the DNA and how it makes the girls behave when together that counts!

Conrad Nagel plays the son of banker Currier, and he falls madly in love with the poor squatter, the Irish lass Fely O'Tandy. Of course this starts a rumpus which drives the wheels of the film; that, and the fact that Currier wishes to drive off the squatters, all the Irish and other immigrant souls who've squatted on a certain piece of land. Of course, too, the O'Tandy's live on that land.

Wonderful bit of hokum! It's loads of fun watching Davies and her Irish father, Charles McHugh, battle their way through all of the plotting before them. This new release from Kino-Lorber is superb! Tinted, with at least one handschiegl scene and Technicolor in a couple of others, this is an absolutely beautiful restoration. Very highly recommended!

For the record, you'll love seeing Teddy Roosevelt as a young boy, Tom Edison trying to market his "sound machine", and all the references to lighting the streets of the downtown city with electric arc lamps as opposed to gas. The last figures prominently in the plot of the film. Tony Pastor and Weber and Fields are also integrated into the plot. If you look closely, you'll see Karl Dane, George K. Arthur, and even Mary Gordon in small or insignificant parts. Matthew Betz has one scene as the leader of a plot against those who would move the squatters from their property.

It has been over 80 years since CITIZEN KANE did its hatchet job on the reputation of actress Marion Davies but thanks to releases like LIGHTS OF OLD BROADWAY, 21st century movie buffs now have the opportunity to see her at her best. The character of Susan Alexander Kane was long thought to have been based on Marion Davies who was the real life mistress and companion to newspaper tycoon William Randolph Hearst whom Orson Welles depicted as Charles Foster Kane. In that movie she is portrayed as a naive and untalented singer forced into projects she is incapable of doing. The real life Davies wasn't a singer but a dancer as well as a talented comedienne and actress who could perform dramatic roles as well.

The rehabilitation of her reputation began in the 1990s with the appearance on TCM of a number of her late 1920s and early 1930s movies like THE PATSY and SHOW PEOPLE as well as the documentary THE TRUE STORY OF MARION DAVIES. Most of them are now available on home video in quality editions. This new Kino Blu-ray is the best offering so far. It provides an ideal introduction to Davies as it contains a quality transfer including color tints, hand stenciling, and two strip-Technicolor in some scenes. There is also a quality background score provided by silent film specialist Robert Israel composed primarily of traditional Irish tunes that were popular at the turn of the 20th century.

The source material was a 1920s play called THE MERRY WIVES OF GOTHAM. The setting is 1882 New York City just before the city switched from gas to electric light. Davies plays two roles as the plot concerns twin sisters separated at birth. One goes to an upper crust NYC family while the other winds up with a poor Irish immigrant couple. When the son of the rich family falls for the poor Irish girl, class complications ensue but it all works in the end. As the rich twin Davies has little to do but she positively shines as Fely the Irish one including a marvelous scene where she dances an Irish jig. However the classic Irish stereotypes of hard drinking and brawling will not set well with some people today.

Although given an historic backdrop with characters such as Teddy Roosevelt and Thomas Edison, LIGHTS is essentially a knockabout comedy with elements of romance. It isn't a great movie by any means but it has no pretensions of being one. It is simply a vehicle to showcase the talents of Marion Davies and in that regard it succeeds admirably. The film was a huge hit in 1925 but like so many of Davies' movies it was unfairly forgotten after the release of CITIZEN KANE. Now it's back in a high quality restoration from The Library of Congress and The UCLA Film and Television Archive. If you've never seen Marion Davies before then this Kino Blu-ray of LIGHTS is an ideal place to start. It will leave you wanting more...For more reviews visit The Capsule Critic.