Show People (1928) on Netflix
Peggy Pepper comes to Hollywood from Georgia hoping for dramatic roles. Billy Boone, met at the studio commissary, points her to a slapstick set and a seltzer spray.
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- Netflix4.2/5
- IMDb7.6/104,282 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes92%
Trailer
Plot summary
Peggy Pepper wants a career as a motion picture actress, and her father drives her from Georgia to Hollywood. Disillusioned at first, she meets Billy Boone at the studio commissary, and he invites her to his set if she wants work. A seltzer bottle sprays her in the face at her first entrance, and the job is slapstick comedy for Comet. Peggy is dismayed by the slapstick work but decides to take it on the chin, and when the comedy is previewed for test audiences she becomes a hit. The High Arts studio signs her, and she leaves Billy and the comedians behind.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Show People (1928)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- William Randolph Hearst objected when Show People's script called for Marion Davies to take a pie in the face, fearing for her dignity, so as a compromise the scene was changed without his knowledge to have her sprayed with seltzer instead.
- King Vidor wanted James Murray for the role of Billy Boone but he was unavailable, so Marion Davies cast close friend William Haines and agreed he would receive billing above the title with her, the only silent film in which Davies shared star billing.
- Peggy Pepper's reinvention as the self-important star Patricia Pepoire was based on silent divas Gloria Swanson and Mae Murray; Davies told each woman the character was based on the other, and Swanson did not care, having no wish to see the film.
- Lucille Ball repeatedly cited Marion Davies as a major comedic influence, and Ball's facial techniques and comic behaviors from I Love Lucy are apparent in Davies' performance in Show People.
