A poll in Moving Picture World in 1921, placed Norma
and Constance Talmadge as the first and second most popular movie actresses in
the USA and their success endured through most of the silent period.
Of all the superstars of silent film, Norma is perhaps
the one modern audiences are most ambivalent about. Maybe this is because we don’t
see her very best films that often (Smiling Through, the brace with
Borgaze, Kiki et al) and because her, highly skilled, performances are in
melodramas that just don’t translate that well. For me she is the finest actor of
her family though with middle sister Natalie very limited in comparison – just good
enough in her husband Buster’s Our Hospitality (1923) – and the youngest,
Constance, excelling mostly in comedies requiring a different skill set. It is
for this very reason that it may well be that she is now the Top Talmadge a
century on from being overshadowed by Norma’s range.
Their mother thought Constance looked like a little Dutch
boy (nope, me neither….) and that nickname stuck with the actress, who’s energy and
sense of fun now leap out of screenings in ways that strike the same chords as
Pickford, Normand and, indeed Fairbanks, with whom she starred in The Matrimaniac
(1916). She was one of the brightest things in Griffiths’ sprawling Intolerance,
running wild as the Mountain Girl fighting against oppression, riding chariots…
but found her niche with the kind of social comedy of which A Pair of Silk
Stockings is a fair example. She has an almost unconscious natural exuberance
that combines with her expressiveness – huge eyes alive with feeling – to draw our
response and convince with even the creakiest comedy.
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| Constance Talmadge and Harrison Ford |
She’s another “time traveller” someone with a modern look
and who is not burdened by over exposure as a silent icon; sneaking her persona
through under the cover of her sister’s ubiquity. There are fewer
preconceptions with Constance and we are simply left with what we find;
interpreting her as something fresh.
Anita Loos was in a position to form an opinion though and
the festival’s excellent compere, Lucy Porter, quoted from her autobiography, A
Girl Like I, in which the writer expressed her admiration for “…one of
the few genuine femme fatales I have ever known… Not to be in love with her
would almost make a man seem abnormal, but no woman could be too jealous of
Dutch because she had a sense of humour about sex that made her laugh off the
majority of her suitors.”
And this we can see throughout Stockings, a very
British type of farce set in an English country mansion and based on the play
of the same name by Hendon-born Cyril Harcourt (originally named Cyril Worsley
Perkins) which spawned further film as Silk Stockings in 1927 with Laura
La Plante and John Harron. By this time Constance effectively had her own
production company courtesy of her sister Norma’s husband, Joseph Schenck, and her
choice of roles and crew working with screenwriter Edith Kennedy and director Walter
Edwards on a number of projects including Mrs. Leffingwell's Boots
(1918) and Romance and Arabella (1919).
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| Constance not looking at all as if she's a boy from Holland |
Since it has dawned on him that he was a neglected
husband, Sam’s grouch has grown daily until it is too big to swallow…
These films co-stared Harrison Ford as does A Pair of
Silk Stockings and he has good chemistry with Constance, keeping a straight
face and stubbornly struggling on digging when male pride leaves his character –
described as “the husband of Mrs Sam Thornhill” - in a hole of increasing
depth. Kennedy’s script makes the most of Sam’s discomfort and poor judgement
as his insecurity gets the better of him with his wife Molly (Dutch) far too
smart and alive for him to pin down.
Their row erupts or rather spirals into polite disagreement
only the English could manage, over what car they should buy; Molly wants a new
roadster and Sam thinks only a sensible touring car will do. He decides to test
his wife by giving her the money for the car fully expecting that she’ll think
twice and buy him what he wants but he’s picked the wrong spouse for that old
ploy as Molly gets the sportier model. Miffed in the most passive aggressive of
ways – Kennedy’s title cards are merciless – Sam decides to up the stakes just
as Molly decides to trade for the tourer.
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| Sylvia Ashton disapproves |
He sends a very expensive fur wrap to actress Maudie Plantagenet
(Florence Carpenter), makes sure she sits next to him and Molly at the theatre,
flirts ostentatiously and then makes sure that Molly sees the bill for the unfaithful
fur. We then see what he expects to happen – wife contrite and desperate to win
him back – and then what actually happens – wife in a fury and straight off to
a divorce lawyer.
But their separation is only the set up for the main
event which happens a month later at a house party given by Sir John Gower (Thomas
Persse) and his wife played by the very stern and impressive Sylvia Ashton; the
supporting players are all good here but as Lucy Porter says, she does stand
out! Sam the Divorced is the “official killjoy” at the party where all their
mutual friends have to tread on eggshells as he mopes about having failed to
explain himself in court where he lost “hands down and thumbs up”. Fear not dear
fellow, redemption lurks in even the darkest of nights…
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| TFW your divorced friends both turn up at the same party... |
Molly arrives by surprise after her car breaks down interrupting
the guests’ rehearsal of an Ibsen play (of course…), her old beau Captain Jack
Bagnal (Louis Willoughby) is there, along with his young fiancé Pamela Bristowe
(Wanda Hawley) and their friend Irene (Vera Doria) together with the Gowers
they try to keep her and Sam apart… but life’s obviously not that simple. Add a
beard for Ibsen, a burglar, the titular stockings and some heroically daft twists
and turns and you can imagine how complicated this evening is going to get!
Accompanist John Sweeney drew a comparison with PG Wodehouse plays and he worked that comparison to superb effect with a seemingly effortless flow of peppy lines that wove amusingly around the sights and script. It’s just a shame we weren’t there as an audience to appreciate the performative whole but sat at our screens across the lockdown world we laughed and smiled in unison; knocked out by Dutch’s smile and Sweeney’s improvised comedic concerto!
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| Louis Willoughby and Dutch |
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| Edith Kennedy's title cards are a hoot! |
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| Sam's cunning plan... |
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| He thought I was buying a tourer!? |
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