Despite its title, this is not a musical and neither is it a comedy. What Blondie of the Follies is, is a well-made melodrama but not a mushy, over-acted, tooth dissolving silo of sentimentality as the term 'melodrama' might suggest. On the contrary, this is a very natural and realistic drama presented in a surprisingly modern way - this does not feel like one of those creaky old early talkies.
The film is about friendship, the close friendship between two young(ish) women who have known each other since childhood and how this friendship is strained when they both decide to change their lives. This film is the crystallization of the expression 'Art mirrors life' because its story is how these two young women decide that the only way to escape the humdrum of living on the breadline is to find a millionaire sugar-daddy who will make them rich and famous by putting them on the stage. That plot was used countless times by Warner Brothers in their musical comedies of the early thirties but this film handles this subject very differently - much more sensitively and, although always retaining a light mood, more seriously.
Art mirrors life indeed because these two friends are Marion Davies and Billie Dove. Dove was the mistress of Howard Hughes and Davies was course was the mistress of billionaire W R Hearst who plucked her from the chorus when she was 21 (and he was 58) and during the 20s he made her the biggest star in Hollywood. He didn't just put her in the movies, he made a whole multi-million dollar movie studio just for her so she would always be the star of the picture!
Because of the perceived very unfair fast-tracking to immediate superstardom (and maybe that her boyfriend build a massive castle for her to live in), her talent and her films are often overlooked. This itself is unfair because, as she so clearly demonstrates in this film, she was a pretty decent actress and better than many of her contemporaries. Also because of the millions Hearst threw at her career, her films are always of the highest quality with the most expensive talent money could afford. This for example boasts a story not just from one of Hollywood's top two female writers of the time but from both of them, a director straight from MGM's biggest hit of that year, Fox's most celebrated and imaginative cinematographer and of course Hearst's massive bankroll so there's nothing that could be improved on.
However it is like when members of old 70s rock bands used to get together to form 'super-bands' in the 80s - the result is pretty good but nothing unique, special or memorable. Nevertheless Blondie of the Follies is still entertaining.....much more entertaining that how The Follies themselves are portrayed in this - did people actually pay money to watch that!
The film is about friendship, the close friendship between two young(ish) women who have known each other since childhood and how this friendship is strained when they both decide to change their lives. This film is the crystallization of the expression 'Art mirrors life' because its story is how these two young women decide that the only way to escape the humdrum of living on the breadline is to find a millionaire sugar-daddy who will make them rich and famous by putting them on the stage. That plot was used countless times by Warner Brothers in their musical comedies of the early thirties but this film handles this subject very differently - much more sensitively and, although always retaining a light mood, more seriously.
Art mirrors life indeed because these two friends are Marion Davies and Billie Dove. Dove was the mistress of Howard Hughes and Davies was course was the mistress of billionaire W R Hearst who plucked her from the chorus when she was 21 (and he was 58) and during the 20s he made her the biggest star in Hollywood. He didn't just put her in the movies, he made a whole multi-million dollar movie studio just for her so she would always be the star of the picture!
Because of the perceived very unfair fast-tracking to immediate superstardom (and maybe that her boyfriend build a massive castle for her to live in), her talent and her films are often overlooked. This itself is unfair because, as she so clearly demonstrates in this film, she was a pretty decent actress and better than many of her contemporaries. Also because of the millions Hearst threw at her career, her films are always of the highest quality with the most expensive talent money could afford. This for example boasts a story not just from one of Hollywood's top two female writers of the time but from both of them, a director straight from MGM's biggest hit of that year, Fox's most celebrated and imaginative cinematographer and of course Hearst's massive bankroll so there's nothing that could be improved on.
However it is like when members of old 70s rock bands used to get together to form 'super-bands' in the 80s - the result is pretty good but nothing unique, special or memorable. Nevertheless Blondie of the Follies is still entertaining.....much more entertaining that how The Follies themselves are portrayed in this - did people actually pay money to watch that!