Exit Smiling

Beatrice Lillie was totally captivating.

I have just finished watching this movie for the first time on TCM. I loved it. The realistic depiction of life in a traveling troupe of actors is great. The filming was light years beyond my expectations for a 1926 film. The cast is really great. But what makes the movie is the performance of the fabulous Beatrice Lillie, unknown to me before now.

The plot is thin, but provides enough tension through a couple of subplots to maintain interest at a high level. However, Ms. Lillie glows with such beauty, charm and charisma that she could easily maintain your interest through a much lesser film. Her acting style will knock you out. Perhaps due to her stage training, her acting is so nuanced and subtle you might think that she was an actress from the last half of the 20th century instead of the first half. I roared with laughter, and yet I felt her character's yearning - both for the love of her life and for the elusive acting opportunity. When life hands her the great opportunity that the stage has denied, she seizes it with abandon. Here the slapstick is hilarious and never clichéd. Yet this film is much more than slapstick. Other humor and irony abound.

But the film is not just a comedy, either. Several scenes are not comical, but serve to advance what is a dramatic plot underlying the comedy. And Ms. Lillie shows a wide range of emotions. While the ending may not fulfill some viewer's wishes, it is also far from the pat ending that might be expected in a pure comedy. Even though it strikes a different emotional chord from the comic character of most of the film, clear ground work has been laid for the ending; so it is not really unpredictable or a great plot twist. I suspect audiences in 1926 would have preferred a pat ending, but modern movie-goers are more likely to embrace this one.

The greatest of clowns, such as Chaplin, give us characters that are not merely funny, but also are filled with pathos. Beatrice Lillie has this gift. She shows us the soul of her comic character so that we see her longings and disappointments - her angst. That is why we root for her poor troupe flunky, are delighted by this wonderful gem of a movie, and find ourselves feeling very ambivalent about the ending. I feel blessed for having finally been introduced to this incredible actress, and I regret that she did not leave a legacy of many more films for us to enjoy today.

Beatrice Lillie is eminently likeable as the plain actress in a traveling theater troupe who plays the maid and is a servant to the others off the stage, but dreams of being a star. Jack Pickford plays a bank clerk on the run after being framed for embezzlement, and naturally he falls in with the company, and Lillie falls for him. There is a real sweetness to this film, and Lillie's comic moments are a clear forerunner to those of Carol Burnett, especially in the wonderful final 15 minutes where she assumes the role of vamp (seriously, watch those and tell me you don't see Burnett). Pickford holds up his end despite the wild life he was leading off the screen, and it's interesting seeing him in his penultimate film, seven years before his early death. The ending is quite touching and very well done too.

Despite everything the film had going for it, the reason I didn't rate it higher was the first half of the film, where the humor was cute but rather dated, e.g. Whacking ketchup out of a bottle all over a guy, or leaving an iron on a shirt too long and burning it. Offsetting some of that was Franklin Pangborn in his feature film debut, in an effeminate character type he made a career out of, even if it is stereotypical. Anyway, if you're struggling to enjoy the film as much as you like Lillie, I suggest sticking with it, as it finishes strongly.

In her only silent film and only one of 7 or 8 films, Lillie is wonderful as the lousy actress in a travelling troupe playing "Flaming Women." She gets involved with a runaway bank employee (Jack Pickford) who joins the company as the leading man. Subtle little comedy about the theatre and young love, Lillie could have had a major career in films but never felt comfortable in from of a camera. A consummate stage actress, Lillie worked for decades with an occasional film appearance, and like pal Gertrude Lawrence, never quite got the hang of film acting. Exit Smiling is not a major film but it is interesting to see the young Lillie at her prime. Billed as the "funniest woman in the world," Lillie enchanted generations of theatre goers. Jack Pickford seems a little pale and shaky, Doris Lloyd is good as the vamp, and Franklin Pangborn is fun as the swishy actor. Lillie is best remembered for her 40s film, On Approval, and her 60s hit, Thoroughly Modern Millie (as Mrs. Meers). Exit Smiling is certainly worth seeing.

This marvelous film stars one of the funniest women who ever lived, as a theatre slavey who plays both male and female roles in the play to help the love of her life-whom she does NOT ride off with to live Happily Ever After. Perhaps the 'no happy ending' of this particular Cinderella story doomed it to failure at the time of its original release, but it's a delight that should amuse today's comedy fans...please, could we just see it once more? Beatrice Lillie is lovely and extremely funny. I will never forget the sight of her tossing a long fur boa over her shoulder as she 'vamps' the villain...and getting it caught in an electric fan...

... in that this is authentic and fresh, and from what Buster Keaton has said about MGM in the 20s and 30s, they really never got comedy at all and often overstructured and poll tested their comedies. This one flopped in its original release, but has aged well and is charming today at least partly because MGM didn't seem to overthink it.

It's a backstage comedy with a big dose of pathos. Beatrice Lillie is Violet - or Vi - the drudge of a traveling vaudeville troupe that is currently featuring "Flaming Women", a play about a hissable villain and a Mary Pickford like heroine who disguises herself as a vamp to save her lover - a production whose plot would have seemed aged in the Civil War, and of course the corniness of it is intentional as far as the larger film goes. Vi plays bit parts, but is mainly the maid for the troupe. She dreams of playing the vamp role in Flaming Women, and gets close one night but then the actual lead actress shows up at the last minute, although with a hangover.

Vi befriends Jimmy (Jack Pickford) and coaches him on how to get a job with the troupe, and finds that she is falling in love with him. But then the troupe pulls into East Farnham and Jack cannot appear here because he is running from a charge of embezzlement. He was a teller at the town's bank when 5000 dollars disappeared. When he panicked and ran it was assumed he took the money. Complications and hilarity ensue.

Lillie gives a Chaplinesque performance as she does plenty of physical comedy, and I think this silent has always been one of my favorites as Lillie's goofy facial expressions and pantomime remind me of my late mother when she was goofing around and trying to make us kids laugh.

The supporting cast includes Franklin Pangborn doing his trademark effeminate dandy act in his feature film debut and had a voice that translated nicely in sound films. Doris Lloyd plays the lead actress of the troupe and also has a long career as a character actress in sound film. Beatrice Lillie did not do that many films because she preferred stage roles, but her next feature role after this one was in Warner Brothers' Show of Shows. That was a sound film revue to show off the studio's talent in talking films and has Lillie doing a short recitation. Unlike many films from 1929, it's still around and, like this one, is readily available via the Warner Archive.

There are quite a few backstage silent comedies, and Exit Smiling ranks with the best.