LADY OF THE NIGHT (1925)

Very young (23) and very pretty (especially sans make-up), Norma Shearer doubles up to play Good Girl & Bad Girl, each falling for the same swell guy in this modest charmer.*  Neatly helmed by Monta Bell (an Ernst Lubitsch manqué who didn’t survive the transition to sound), there’s just a bit of double-exposure trickery (plus a hug between the two Normas achieved with a quick cut to a double) in a parallel storyline that uses matching dissolves to join the stories of Rich Motherless Private School Norma to Orphaned Reform School Norma as one matriculates into Society’s Swirl while the other gets coarsely done-up for her nightly rounds at the Dance Hall.  That’s blandly handsome Malcolm McGregor as the inventor both girls covet, but will he sell his patented safe-cracking technology to robbers or store owners?  Bad Norma pushes him toward the high road, but since no good deed goes unpunished, watches helplessly as she starts losing him to Good Norma, daughter of a rich banker who buys the system.  Only problem, Good Norma sees the heartbreak in Bad Norma’s eyes, in spite of clueless/classless longtime steady George K. Arthur, and refuses McGregor's marriage proposal.  Cue renunciation scene.  Shearer chews the scenery a bit more than necessary, but generally carries it off.  (She’d briefly hit her full potential working with Ernst Lubitsch for real in THE STUDENT PRINCE/’27.  LINK: https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2020/03/the-student-prince-in-old-heidelberg.html)  But this film knows what it’s up to and puts it over in confident late-silent fashion.  Excellent tinted elements in a nicely scored & restored TCM edition.

DOUBLE-BILL: *Mary Pickford set the standard for this setup playing a wealthy sheltered invalid and an orphaned scrub girl on the invalid's estate who both fall for the same gentleman caller in STELLA MARIS/’18.  It lacks the polish of this late 1925 silent, but Pickford is something of an astonishment.  Miss an early title card and you might not realize she’s playing both roles.

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY: Odd that physical similarities between the two Normas play no part in the storyline.  Perhaps scripter Adela Rogers St. John didn’t write it specifically for one actress to play both roles.  BTW, Rogers St. John, William Randolph Hearst’s favorite ‘girl reporter,’ was the role model for just about every girl reporter in all those ‘30s & ‘40s newspaper pics, hard-boiled, but soft underneath.  She’s Jean Arthur in MR. DEEDS/’36, scores more.