Ladies of Leisure

Elaine Hammerstein and Gertrude Short play the ladies in two meandering story lines here. Hammerstein plays Mamie, a paid companion to Short in a wealthy household where she is being romanced by the handsome son (Robert Ellis). He presses for marriage but she has a dark secret. She finally accepts a ring from him as a friendship ring but goes into hiding when her "husband" (Jim Mason) appears on the scene. It seems she was tricked into marrying him after her father was framed in a jewel robbery. He expects her to help rob the house so she escapes.

Short plays Marian, a perky little pest who's after a "confirmed bachelor" (T. Roy Barnes) who does everything he can to avoid her. But no matter how he and his butler (Tom Ricketts) lie to her, she always manages to sneak into his apartment. By today's standards,she a stalker.

The two stories come together when Hammerstein decides a jump off the Brooklyn Bridge is the only way out, but who should be driving by but Barnes. He talks her out of jumping and taker her home. About the same time, a detective has traced Hammerstein to Barnes' apartment, which sends Ellis into a fury since Barnes is his best friend.

Ellis shows up and threatens Barnes if Hammerstein (dressed in a dry robe) is in the apartment. But Short sneaks in again and bursts into the room (in a robe) and declares she is married to Barnes. Ellis backs off and Short tells him Hammerstein is back at the house waiting for him.

Ellis races home but what will he find? Barnes has been trapped into marrying the pesty Short. Will they find wedded bliss?

I watched this film last night from a DVD print I bought off of ebay, a really bad print, though watchable (only) with a grating musical score. I certainly would not rate the film at three stars, but it possibly deserves two to nearly two and a half. That is being generous. I found the mixture of comedy and melodrama disconcerting. The comedy is handled by Gertrude Short, Tom Ricketts, and T. Roy Barnes, although each also contributes a small portion towards the melodramatic part of the plot, too. Elaine Hammerstein, Jim Mason, and Robert Ellis supply the melodrama. The melodrama is interesting, a plot that is part of so many silent films; the comedy is cute, by now hackneyed, though it probably wasn't in 1926. The two plot editing is slightly disconcerting; the direction only marginal. The acting is very good and holds the attention.

It's too bad that a nice print is not available for sale because the one that is out there is really lousy. I wasn't sure if this film was a precursor to the Capra directed Stanwyck version of 1930 (a film I particularly like), but it's not. Don't confuse the two. This silent is directed by Tom Buckingham, a director of 50 films, but also a writer and cinematographer. He died in 1934 at the young age of 39.