Peg o' My Heart

Peg O' My Heart is really charming,due mainly to the wonderful Marion Davies. She also sings and dances in a few numbers quite delightfully! I saw this on the Turner Classic Movies cable station. A real boon to classic movie lovers!

Marion Davies is wonderful in her best film. She sings ("Sweetheart Darlin'") and dances and is perfect as the Irish country lass who inherits a fortune. She is sent to live with English relatives who take her money and treat her badly. Of course Peg doesn't know they are being paid to "educate" her.

Few star actresses of her day would have played the plain Irish girl who becomes a beautiful woman. A great stage hit for Laurette Taylor (who also starred in a silent version in 1922), the play was already dated when Davies made this film in 1933, but Davies was one of the best comics in Hollywood and creates a funny, charming heroine in Peg. And as in her work in the earlier MARIANNE, Davies proves she was one of the best with accents.

Hearst had pushed for Davies to win an Oscar nomination for this MGM film (there were only three nominee that year), and I think she was worthy. Always underrated and overlooked, Marion Davies was a total delight in every comedy film I've ever seen her in, and this is her best.

Also good is J. Farrell MacDonald as her doting father. Onslow Stevens is surprisingly good here as Gerald and is quite charming. Juliette Compton (as the mean Ethel), Robert Greig, Irene Browne, Alan Mowbray, Tyrrell Davis, Nora Cecil, and Doris Lloyd are all fine too. Michael the dog is fun.

Old fashioned? Sure. But charming and funny and a wonderful film all-round.

Marion Davies does surprisingly well as a girl from an Irish fishing village who must abandon her father and become a proper British lady to get a large inheritance. Of course, the accents, music and dance are American stage Irish rather than Irish Irish, but a very clever script and hard work all around pays off. And they forgot to credit 'Mutt' as Marion Davies' dog.

Also made in 1922 by King Vidor.

I recently saw this film on Turner Movie Classics and was surprised how charming the performance of Marion Davies was. This proves that she was indeed a fine performer when given the opportunity. Despite the fact she was in her mid 30's when this film was made, she is quite believable as a teenager.

While i agree with some that this isn't an 8.5/10 movie it's much better than a 3 or a 1. I've only seen Peg O' My Heart once, early last year on TCM, so i need at least one other more recent viewing to write a detailed opinion. What i do remember is that I really enjoyed this film and that Marion Davies was quite good, including her accent. The acting from the cast in general is good, especially from Miss Davies and J. Farrell MacDonald as her father. Miss Davies is a remarkable comedienne and, from what I've read, a kind and generous person who definitely did not deserve her portrayal as Susan Alexander in Citizen Kane. FYI, the play on which this film is based debuted in 1912 which is also the time period in which the film is set, not 1933.