Marianne (1929)

Directed by Robert Z. Leonard. Starring Marion Davies, Lawrence Gray, Cliff Edwards, Benny Rubin, Scott Kolk, Robert Edeson, George Baxter.

French farm girl Davies enchants American soldiers stationed in her town following the armistice of World War I. She starts to fall for doughboy Gray, but she’s conflicted because she’s been waiting for the return of her amour (Baxter), a French soldier taken prisoner during the war. Davies’ first full-length talkie, and she doesn’t enter the “world of sound” timidly, but her efforts are a decided mixed bag. For the sake of broad entertainment (but to little avail), she puts on a goofy French accent, impersonates Maurice Chevalier, even spends a segment of the story in drag—just who the heck did she think she was fooling in soldier’s garb and a big fake moustache? Meandering plot broken up by a few musical numbers, and with Cliff Edwards in the cast, no points for guessing some will be ukulele-based; alas, they don’t enliven the loose, lumpy flow so much as pad things out and encourage yawns. Originally shot as a silent film without the songs (obviously) and with an altered storyline and mostly different supporting cast.

52/100