The Show-Off

Wow! What a find! I saw this movie as part of a 'double feature' with Clara Bow's formulaic 'The Plastic Age,' (1925) and this is clearly the better film!

It stars Ford Sterling (Ford Sterling? Of the Keystone Kops?)-- yes! Ford Sterling -- who gives a bravura performance as Aubrey Perry, a boastful, lying, pompous, windbag blowhard. Today, it's easy for us to get quickly caught up in this kind of character's boastful story telling, because we watch 'George Costanza' every night on the TV sitcom 'Seinfeld,' waiting and hoping for him to get his comeuppance.

It's easy to play the character too broadly and make Perry unsympathetic and boring, but the good script and Malcolm St. Clair's tight direction keep Sterling under control. St. Clair is best remembered as the director of a wide load of forgotten films, but he did direct the best of the six (!?) Lum and Abner pictures, 'Two Weeks to Live' (1943).

Aubrey Perry is a big meaty role -- no wonder it's been done four times! This was the first version of the play "The Show Off," by George Kelly, the others featured Spencer Tracy as Perry in 1934, Red Skelton in 1946 and the Great One, Jackie Gleason himself, in the TV version in 1956. In all these versions we can easily imagine and hear how they would do the part. But here, in the 'quaint' Silent Era, Sterling knows how to makes full use of his mastery of mime, body language and facial expressions to bring the character to life, and he carries the whole film easily.

During the whole movie you need to do a lot of lip reading for dialog not in the intertitles, but it's worth it. When he is explaining how he wrecked his new car (which he won in a raffle, but says he bought by selling automobile stock given to him by his uncle -- and it wasn't Art Vandelay!), Perry's story telling and gestures look so effortless and natural.

This Paramount film has no stagy or herky-jerky motions that we associate with the films of Chaplin, Keaton, Lloyd, the Sennnett Keystone Kops or early films of the teen years. In fact, if you look at movies from the major studios of MGM or Paramount during the twenties, you won't see any -- just quality film making.

There's only one slapstick sequence, the clichéd out of control automobile (driven by Perry) careening wildly down a main street sending cops scurrying; it goes on a little too long, and seems out of place, given the mood and style of the rest of the film (of course, the scene wasn't in the play). Because of that I can only give the movie an 8. If you watch it either as an introduction to the glories of quality silent films, or to see Ford Sterling's best film performance, you won't be disappointed by picking this one. It's great!

Note: Also featured is Louise Brooks, with her trademark bangs, a few years before she made Pandora's Box (1929).

I also saw this on the DVD double in which it is paired with Clara Bow's "The Plastic Age". That is the one I mainly wanted to see, as I only recently became aware of the incredible talents of Bow in "It" and "Wings". But "The Show Off" was the better of the two, solely for the talent and charisma of Louise Brooks in a supporting role.

I thought of Bix Biederbeck, popular at the same time, the Jazz age of the '20s, in watching Louise in this rather trifling comedy. Bix played in some competent bands, but when he began playing his solo, it had the glitter of a diamond that still has the power to excite to this day and elevated the material to greatness. And Louise Brooks, playing the good and sensible girl next door, has that same brilliant quality in every gesture and expression, however subtle. She would of course go on to star in some much heavier films as a vamp or a "fallen woman" and is considered one of the great silent stars because of those roles, but her early performance here is just a joy to behold.

BTW, Clara Bow is also wonderful in "The Plastic Age". It's a shame that more of her films aren't available for viewing, she was a great actress and a groundbreaking star.

This is another good film to add to your Lulu collection. This is a screen adaptation of George Kelly's play "The Show Off - A transcript of life in three acts" by George Kelly in 1923. The title tells it all. A show-off Aubrey Piper, (Ford Sterling) through misleads, misdeeds a family into ruin.

Louise Brooks plays Clara, Joe's Girl.

This 82-minute film is backed up with a violin and piano score, directed and compiled by Timothy Brock. Timothy Brock is a composer of concert hall and film music, and the conductor/music director of the Olympia Chamber Orchestra in Olympia, Washington, USA.

You may notice one of the filming locations as Broad Street Station - Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA.

The chief reason to see Malcolm St. Clair's production of The Show-Off today is the presence of luminous Louise Brooks, who (as usual) lights up the screen with an intensity and beauty that far exceeds the requirements of her small "girl next door" role. Ford Sterling (best known as the chief of the Keystone Kops) plays the title part, and he does very little (until it is far too late) to make the character even remotely likable. His Aubrey Piper is such an insufferable blowhard that Brooks' vicious admonishment of his boorish behavior is one of the film's highlights.

It would appear that the 2000 Image DVD and the Amazon streams of these two titles are currently not available which is unfortunate as both movies have more to offer than simply Louise Brooks and Clara Bow. Both films are middle-of-the-road Paramount releases from the mid-1920s and are great examples of the type of everyday fare available to the audiences of that time. Both movies were directed by solid studio craftsmen who held no pretensions of creating high art, Malcolm St. Clair who would later work with Laurel & Hardy, and Wesley Ruggles (brother of character actor Charlie Ruggles) who went on to direct the Oscar winning adaptation of Edna Ferber's CIMMARON in 1931.

THE SHOW OFF was made in 1926 as a rare starring vehicle for Ford Sterling. Sterling began his career as a circus clown before drifting into movies around 1912. He is best remembered today as the harried Police Chief of the Keystone Kops. In this movie he plays an obnoxious braggart who, after nearly destroying his in-laws' lives, is given one last chance to prove himself. This was Louise Brooks' second supporting part for Paramount after IT'S THE OLD ARMY GAME with W. C. Fields. The plot hinges on her key scene with Sterling that leads to his redemption. An added bonus is the location shooting in Philadelphia showing the city as it was at that time. In his characterization, Sterling looks and comes across as a silent film version of Dan Ackroyd.

THE PLASTIC AGE dates from 1925 and was based on a best selling book about college students. As such it provides a fascinating time capsule of campus life back then. While the settings and fashions have certainly changed, the "party hearty' attitude of young people away from home has not. This was the role that landed Clara Bow her contract at Paramount where she would go on to make 19 films before the advent of sound in 1929. She naturally plays a party girl who diverts a Freshman athlete (Donald Keith) from his studies which nearly leads to his ruin. Also on hand are D. W. Griffith regulars Mary Alden and Henry B. Walthal as the concerned parents. A young, easily recognizable Clark Gable can be spotted as an extra in the locker room scenes.

The quality of the two prints utilized for this release could not be more different. THE SHOW OFF is in excellent condition, having been taken from an original 35mm print. THE PLASTIC AGE comes from a worn 16mm print that was originally part of the Killiam Collection. The Killiam Collection pioneered silent film preservation back in the 1960s. The movie follows the standard pattern of tinting day scenes sepia while night scenes are tinted blue. While it suffers in comparison to THE SHOW OFF, THE PLASTIC AGE is more than watchable and it preserves a quintessential Clara Bow performance. The idea of combining Louise Brooks and Clara Bow on a DVD double feature was inspired. Hopefully these movies will return to circulation soon...For more reviews visit The Capsule Critic.