A total delight! This famous flop for Mary Pickford is VERY funny and totally fun.
Pickford plays a French chorus girl in New York trying to make good and survive. Pickford's French accent may not be as good as Marion Davies' in "Marianne" but she's wonderfully funny in this role. It's a talkie extension of all the great comic parts she played in silent films.
Pickford was a great comic and proves she had what it takes to make it in talkies. KIKI is a terrific comedy and she's better in this than in her other three talkies. KIKI was based on the Norma Talmadge silent film which was based on the Broadway play. Oddly I just read in the Valentino biography that he had seen Lenore Ulric in New York and then Gladys Cooper in London in the stage versions.
The film opens with a LONG panning shot of backstage doings all in time to the song the chorus girls are stomping away to. Pickford gets fired but insinuates her way back into the chorus via the producer (Reginald Denny). On opening night she makes a shambles of the big number starring Margaret Livingston as the vain star. Pickford is hysterically funny.
Not realistic at all but great fun. Co-stars include Joseph Cawthorn, Phil Tead (funny as the butler), Edwin Maxwell, and Fred Walton.
The sets for the apartment are atrociously ugly. Not to be believed! An explosion of Victoriana and Art Deco.
Mary Pickford was definitely one of the greats!
Pickford plays a French chorus girl in New York trying to make good and survive. Pickford's French accent may not be as good as Marion Davies' in "Marianne" but she's wonderfully funny in this role. It's a talkie extension of all the great comic parts she played in silent films.
Pickford was a great comic and proves she had what it takes to make it in talkies. KIKI is a terrific comedy and she's better in this than in her other three talkies. KIKI was based on the Norma Talmadge silent film which was based on the Broadway play. Oddly I just read in the Valentino biography that he had seen Lenore Ulric in New York and then Gladys Cooper in London in the stage versions.
The film opens with a LONG panning shot of backstage doings all in time to the song the chorus girls are stomping away to. Pickford gets fired but insinuates her way back into the chorus via the producer (Reginald Denny). On opening night she makes a shambles of the big number starring Margaret Livingston as the vain star. Pickford is hysterically funny.
Not realistic at all but great fun. Co-stars include Joseph Cawthorn, Phil Tead (funny as the butler), Edwin Maxwell, and Fred Walton.
The sets for the apartment are atrociously ugly. Not to be believed! An explosion of Victoriana and Art Deco.
Mary Pickford was definitely one of the greats!