User Reviews

Lucy Trevor is a cabaret singer. She gets involved with some sordid characters, and one of them is shot while trying to come on to her. Politician John McBride, who is interested in Lucy, believes she is guilty, but when he and Lucy struggle for the gun, it goes off and McBride is wounded. Lucy clears out and goes to a convent where her twin sister Janet is preparing for the nunnery. Lucy convinces Janet to trade places with her. Can they both pull off the deception?

This review will contain spoilers, which, if you are smart, will enable you to avoid this film. This movie is a misfire for many reasons. The director must have constantly told his performers "hey, you're not overacting enough." The situations are unbelievable, unrealistic, and unfathomable. After the first guy is shot, Lucy picks up the murder weapon (naturally) and is caught with it in her hand. Then McBride takes it from her. Guess these two never heard of preserving a crime scene. Next, there is no way someone preparing to be a nun would switch places with a twin who may have murdered someone. Sure, sacrifice can be a noble thing, but this is horse manure. Then when Janet (as Lucy) has to perform at the cabaret, I thought "how is she going to pull this off?" So she sings "Mother O' Mine," which impresses the crowd as a change of pace. Right. This would be like Cher singing "Ave Maria" ... and the crowd goes wild. In the climax, we discover that the guy who was supposed to have been murdered actually survived. Then Lucy (as Janet, in her nun garb) apparently decides she likes pretending to be a nun while Janet (as Lucy in her street clothes) ends up with McBride.

Adding to the mess are the unintentionally hilarious prints on YouTube, most of which run about two hours and twenty minutes - or so it seems. Actually, these prints contain stretches of paused scenes which go on for 10-15 minutes at a time, so thank goodness for fast forward. There is a shorter print running around 45 minutes, but I suspect this is a truncated version since the original was released at six reels. Now if someone would just truncate this down to zero minutes, I'd be satisfied.

By 1921 what with bad management and just putting her trust in the wrong people, Clara Kimball Young was watching her career die. Starting out as a wide eyed heroine in popular comedies her career went through various ups and downs as different managers tinkered with her screen personality. Her last husband, Harry Garson, took over as manager, director and boss and in spite of complaints from her friends that he would only bring her grief, she pushed on regardless. "The Worldly Madonna" is an example of the very complex scripts that Clara had to grapple with.

Sister Janet Trevor (Young) daily prays for the salvation of her wayward twin sister, Lucy, who dazzles members of the Cubist Café with her provocative singing. Among Lucy's many admirers are café owner Alan Graves, a politician McBride and a hunchback clown Ramez (George Hackathorne who must have been fed up with all the odd ball parts he was given) who takes her mocking and teasing very much to heart. Clara seemed a bit frumpy and "long in the tooth" to inspire so many admirers - she wasn't, only being in her early 30s, she just photographed old.

Graves is pedalling dope through his waiters and McBride, who sees a transaction, threatens him with exposure to the police if he doesn't stop. McBride is concerned that Lucy is being offered the drug - little realising she is a regular user!! When a waiter tries to get fresh with her, Ramez, who is behind the curtain, shoots him using Lucy's gun. Lucy flees to McBrides to proclaim her innocence but when she sees him trying to destroy the drugs she so desperately craves she grapples with him, the gun goes off and again a man is lying wounded.

Lucy heads to the convent where she quickly convinces Janet to change places with her - who knows why, perhaps to escape responsibility for her actions. Janet dons the disguise of cabaret singer and it is amazing how fast she blends into her surroundings, except that she sings "Mother O Mine" and has the whole cabaret in tears and Ramez is suspicious as the new Lucy treats him with dignity and respect. Surely the addiction of drugs would have been easy to spot then but Lucy who in the earlier scenes had struggled to secure drugs is now impersonating a nun!!! and for the rest of the movie shows no signs of addiction!! Talk about enough plot for several movies, it even gets ahead of the actors for in the next scene everyone seems to know that Janet is impersonating Lucy with Graves promising reporters the biggest scoop of the year if a "certain young lady doesn't show up by 10 pm"!!! Alls well that ends well because it turns out that .... but no, I don't want to spoil the ending!!

There are so many silent classics available it is interesting to view an average movie with the type of overladen plot that probably made up a big percentage of films shown at that time. Jean de Limur who played the oily waiter directed Jeanne Eagels last films "The Letter" and "Jealousy".

Recommended if only for the fantastic plot!!