Manhandled

I just saw this film at the Silent Movie theater in LA. The print was original, from 1924 and in remarkable shape. The music was live organ played by a man who has been accompanying silents for more than 70 years. It was fantastic. Not only does Gloria Swanson really shine, but Alan Dwan makes a hilarious picture out of a paper thin plot. Every character is shown to the fullest, each moment is packed with nuance (usually by Swanson) but also for the other characters. You can't help but feel the director at work there, sculpting each scene until it plays just so, a laugh a minute, but also so human. Terrific.

ABE LEVY

As one reviewer noted, the high spots are not evenly dispersed within the film. Also, my copy is also abridged, which probably accounts for the lack of transitions between many scenes. However, the seller seems to have had access to a fairly clear print. For me, the subway scene by itself was worth buying the tape. Swanson had a real gift for comedy, as seen in her varied expressions as she is shoved, loses her hat, and has to edge her way both onto and out of the subway car. Undoubtedly, the director deliberately chose tall or burly men for the scene, since they contrast so sharply with Swanson's diminutive stature. I happen to have viewed this film only a coupole of weeks after having seen Sadie Thompson. In my review of that film, I noted that she managed to infuse even the shady character of Sadie with some humor. The plot of Manhandled is, of course, much weaker, and it is difficult to remember any of the other performances. Swanson was a true star, one who could shine even in the midst of a mediocre plot, as she does here. If we think of "Bette Davis eyes", we can also think of the "Gloria Swanson facial expression" that she could vary to meet a diversity of emotions. As one who knew her first from Sunset Boulevard, it is interesting to note in her silent films, the anticipation of her performance there, with its wide range of emotions required from the star. When Norma Desmond laments the loss of faces in sound film, Swanson must ruefully have her own experience in mind. Without her, the stale plot of Manhandled would have gone the way of all B-flicks. That's what a star does.

Gloria Swanson tries to be amusing in this: she gets her bag emptied in the subway, loses her petticoat at a party, falls down multiple times, etc.

Swanon fans call this film great and her performance winning. There are no real happenings in this film, however. And the plot begs credulity: Frank Morgan's rich character, when he sees Swanson in a fancy dress "performing" at a party asks her if they have met before, maybe "in Petrograd?" Later he hires her to impersonate a Russian countess to serve rich lady customers tea at his exclusive dress salon. Soon thereafter a customer speaks to Swanson's character in Russian, which Swanson's character doesn't speak. Morgan's character then tells the customers not to bring up Russia to Swanson as it traumatizes her (this film was made not long after Lenin's Bolsheviks took over Russia, had the Russian Tsar machine gunned to death and then destroyed all other opponents in the Russian Civil War).

Why this film has Russian angle at all, however, befuddles me. Something more creative could have been used as a plot scenario to give Swanson's character a job. Besides, Morgan's character is shown to be an ace businessman so it is nonsensical that he would have hired a non-Russian speaker to impersonate a Russian.

Tom Moore is the male lead in this (and if you count how many films he made and how many his brothers Owen, Matt, and Joe, made it would be about 700 films!)

What happens to Moore's character or Swanson's in this, though, is never made intriguing; so that the viewer (unless a die-hard Swanson fan) is never made to care about these characters.

Gloria Swanson did everything in films from Mack Sennett comedies with Charlie Chaplin to the high drama of Queen Kelly and Sunset Boulevard. Manhandled is a drama with comedy. Shop girl Swanson works at a department store and lives in the same tenement as boyfriend Tom Moore, a mechanic with big ideas. By chance she is spotted by the store owner (Arthur Housman) and invited to a party along with pal (Lilyan Tashman). A chorus girl (Ann Pennington) does a snazzy dance so Swanson does her impersonation of it, losing her underwear. Later she impersonates a Russian Countess. The owner of a ritzy store (Frank Morgan) offers her a job as a fake Countess to lure customers and Swanson is on her way to big money and big parties. She poses for a famous artist (Ian Keith) but he gets fresh and she keeps getting "manhandled." Meanwhile the boyfriend has gone off to Detroit to sell his new engine part. There is a happy ending.

Swanson is just wonderful as the gum-chewing shop girl, especially in the amazing subway scene. The print I saw did NOT include her famous impersonation of Chaplin (the inspiration for her similar scene in Sunset Boulevard), so that was a disappointment. But it's still a nice little morality tale. And Swanson was an excellent comic actress. It's easy to picture Marion Davies or Carole Lombard in this same role. The male co-stars are all OK but nothing special. Real-life showgirl Ann Pennington appears as herself in the party scene with Brooke Johns.

Originally 75 minutes, but it seems the longest version to survive runs about 69 minutes and is missing that Chaplin impersonation.

Not much plot here as Gloria, the shop girl, attempts to enter high society, only to discover that high society men want only one thing.

Swanson's performance is the only remarkable thing about this ordinary morality tale. She shines - especially in the justifiably renowned subway scene (where she is manhandled in a very different way) and when she impersonates a Russian countess. Gloria learnt more with Mack Sennett than she may have thought - her comic abilities are very strong.

My comments here are based on viewing a very poor print, with a terrible music score, from Nostalgia Family Video. It only ran 50 minutes so I suspect it was cut. Are there better prints around?