The Patsy

King Vidor, 1928, Marion Davies as the overlooked sister who studies a book of famous men to become interesting. Marie Dressler is the mother; Orville Caldwell is the boyfriend who belongs to the other sister. MGM, silent, Davies doing what Hearst's press said she couldn't: timing. The mock-seduction, the fall in the pond, the face that keeps almost being pretty. It is a comedy about trying on a personality, and Davies is better at the trying than at the personality.