A great still from the 1932 production Blondie of the Follies. Blondie, the stern looking one on the left with the incredibly tall hat, was played by none other than Susan Alexander Marion Davies. Her friend Lurline, the other stern looking one, on the right, was played by Billie Dove.
Blondie joins the cast of Lurline's stage show and quickly gets the attention of Lurline's man, Larry Aydlette Belmont, played by Robert Montgomery. I've never seen it but I assume hijinks ensue. Perhaps even madcap hijinks. Oh, that's probably chasing too big a dream, I'm sure it's just ordinary hijinks. Nevertheless, I really like the still, scanned from A Pictorial History of Film Musicals by John Kobal, published in 1972.
I have seen the other movie done in 1932 by Blondie's director Edmund Goulding, Grand Hotel. Goulding himself was never nominated for Best Director (no, not even for Grand Hotel) and does not have much of rep as far as cinephiles are concerned but he did tackle Dark Victory, The Great Lie, The Razor's Edge and Nightmare Alley, the last one considered one of the finest noirs ever made.
Still, I'd like to see Blondie of the Follies. I have a fascination with the early sound period and the ever so slight musicals the period produced. I'm positive that it's no match for the other films listed above but we're talking hijinks here folks, hijinks. And there's just no substitute for hijinks.
*****
Click above picture to enlarge.
