Stranded

Shirley Mason and William Collier Jr. Are in love and engaged, but Hollywood is calling -- or so Miss Mason imagines. So with her mother, Florence Turner's savings she heads out to sunny California. But the road to movie stardom is harder than she though, and her first chance at being more than a background extra is a disaster. She can't tell the people back home, so she goes from poor to broke and thrown out of her rooming house. Then comes the telegram from home saying her mother needs an operation to save her sight; send $500. So she appeal to Hollywood wolf John Miljan, who makes it clear that he doesn't want her to pay it back in money.

Hollywood was making a lot of movies about how tough it is to make it in Hollywood about this time, but this one is pretty much a melodrama, with Gale Henry to push the plot forward and wield a soda siphon when needed. With a script credited to Anita Loos, I was expecting something frothier, but it isn't here.

Miss Mason was the youngest of the three Flugrath sisters. The eldest, Edna, became a star in British pictures and retired form the screen in 1923. The second, Viola Dana, was a big star in the late 1910s, and largely retired from the screen in 1929, when Miss Mason did. Someone should do a book about the three of them.

This is the 25th dvd issued by Ed Lorusso, financed via Kickstarter. The print was in great shape, the score by David Drazin is lively, and there's even a bonus short offered, a Mary Pickford movie from 1911.

Shirley Mason stars in this tale of a small-town girl who leaves Iowa and her boyfriend (William Collier, Jr.) to become a star in Hollywood. But she's very naive ... and she can't act.

The story has been done before but this one deals with the perils and heartache rather than striking it rich and becoming a star as in movies like Marion Davies' SHOW PEOPLE or GOING HOLLYWOOD.

As Sally Simpson, Mason grabs her mother's savings and heads west. She is lucky right off and lands a $7.50 per day job as an extra and meets Lucile LaRue (Gale Henry) who takes her under her wing.

She also meets Betty Beverly (Shannon Day), another would-be star, who introduces her to the lecherous Grant Payne (John Miljan) who's specialty is preying on vulnerable girls in town.

On the set, Mason gets a chance to act when the director picks her for a featured bit. Will she be up to the task and make the best of her big chance?

Co-stars include Florence Turner as the mother, Lucy Beaumont as the grandmother, and Rosa Gore as the landlady.

Mason is quite good as the would-be star. She bravely deals with the down-side of Hollywood and even endures working as a waitress in a beanery while she waits for her break. Collier is also very good as the cast-aside boyfriend who of course ultimately comes to her rescue.

Henry is terrific as the wise-cracking friend who knows all about the perils of Hollywood but who keeps giving it another try. Turner and Beaumont are also solid as the Iowa women. And Miljan is a fine swine.

There's a brief bit where one of the extras looks an awful lot like Barbara Stanwyck. Could it be?