WHEN KNIGHTHOOD WAS IN FLOWER (1922)

Old battle-lines are being drawn once more with the opening of David Fincher’s MANK/’20.  While mainly about Who Was Responsible for What in yet another telling of The Making of CITIZEN KANE (dozens of books, two feature films) and likely to be about as accurate to Orson Welles & scripter Herman Mankiewicz as AMADEUS was to Mozart & Salieri, just as much attention is being directed at an acclaimed perf from Amanda Seyfried as actress/Randolph Hearst mistress Marion Davies.  But while the portrait of Kane is very much a portrait of Hearst, the second wife in that film, Susan Alexander, isn’t at all like Marion.  Something Welles was oft at pains to point out!  Including his foreword to her (sort of) autobiography, THE TIMES WE HAD.  Accepted wisdom holds that this Ziegfeld Follies beauty was pushed by Hearst toward unsuitable dramatic vehicles but thrived when given a chance at lighthearted comedies.  And while it’s true that she doesn’t have much to offer in serious roles (the closer you get to her, the less she has to show), she really was only slightly better (let’s say more comfortable) being sassy/larky in her two best remembered laughers, THE PATSY and SHOW PEOPLE, 1928 silents from King Vidor who wisely surrounds her with stellar talent to play off of, knowing that her one true talent was playing hostess, either at Hearst’s fabulous San Simeon estate or in her fabulous studio lot trailer/bungalow.  Alas, this one leans toward drama, a stiff, overstuffed period piece (designed to impress by legendary FOLLIES art deco stage master Joseph Urban), with Davies as kid sister to Henry VIII.  He wants to marry her off to France’s aging King Louis XII; she wants to elope with a hunky British commoner leadenly played by Forest Stanley.  Marion certainly tries: dressing up as a boy, fencing for her life, throwing tantrums at Kings, aping Mary Pickford without the empathetic/communicative magic.  Hearst gave her a huge production (mostly filmed at Paramount’s Astoria lot), but director Robert Vignola rarely knows what to do with the thousands of extras and immense sets.  The idea of humanizing and dirtying up historical figures showing the influence of Ernst Lubitsch, specifically his own Tudor piece, ANNA BOLEYN/DECEPTION/’20 which he’d top next year with Mary Pickford in ROSITA/’23.  Still, worth a look for many reasons, most of them historical.  Look for a beautifully restored & scored edition out on UnderCrank Productions.

WATCH THIS, NOT THAT/LINK: For Davies at her rare best, Edmund Goulding’s BLONDIE OF THE FOLLIES/’32, from a Francis Marion story with Anita Loos dialogue.  Here’s a LINK to our WriteUp.  https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2019/09/blondie-of-follies-1932.html