Gloria Swanson tries to be amusing in this: she gets her bag emptied in the subway, loses her petticoat at a party, falls down multiple times, etc.
Swanon fans call this film great and her performance winning. There are no real happenings in this film, however. And the plot begs credulity: Frank Morgan's rich character, when he sees Swanson in a fancy dress "performing" at a party asks her if they have met before, maybe "in Petrograd?" Later he hires her to impersonate a Russian countess to serve rich lady customers tea at his exclusive dress salon. Soon thereafter a customer speaks to Swanson's character in Russian, which Swanson's character doesn't speak. Morgan's character then tells the customers not to bring up Russia to Swanson as it traumatizes her (this film was made not long after Lenin's Bolsheviks took over Russia, had the Russian Tsar machine gunned to death and then destroyed all other opponents in the Russian Civil War).
Why this film has Russian angle at all, however, befuddles me. Something more creative could have been used as a plot scenario to give Swanson's character a job. Besides, Morgan's character is shown to be an ace businessman so it is nonsensical that he would have hired a non-Russian speaker to impersonate a Russian.
Tom Moore is the male lead in this (and if you count how many films he made and how many his brothers Owen, Matt, and Joe, made it would be about 700 films!)
What happens to Moore's character or Swanson's in this, though, is never made intriguing; so that the viewer (unless a die-hard Swanson fan) is never made to care about these characters.
Swanon fans call this film great and her performance winning. There are no real happenings in this film, however. And the plot begs credulity: Frank Morgan's rich character, when he sees Swanson in a fancy dress "performing" at a party asks her if they have met before, maybe "in Petrograd?" Later he hires her to impersonate a Russian countess to serve rich lady customers tea at his exclusive dress salon. Soon thereafter a customer speaks to Swanson's character in Russian, which Swanson's character doesn't speak. Morgan's character then tells the customers not to bring up Russia to Swanson as it traumatizes her (this film was made not long after Lenin's Bolsheviks took over Russia, had the Russian Tsar machine gunned to death and then destroyed all other opponents in the Russian Civil War).
Why this film has Russian angle at all, however, befuddles me. Something more creative could have been used as a plot scenario to give Swanson's character a job. Besides, Morgan's character is shown to be an ace businessman so it is nonsensical that he would have hired a non-Russian speaker to impersonate a Russian.
Tom Moore is the male lead in this (and if you count how many films he made and how many his brothers Owen, Matt, and Joe, made it would be about 700 films!)
What happens to Moore's character or Swanson's in this, though, is never made intriguing; so that the viewer (unless a die-hard Swanson fan) is never made to care about these characters.