Marion Davies was a little young to have been in the chorus of Florodora, a show that debuted in 1899 and was so successful it made its six leading chorines celebrities. She had, however, been a Ziegfeld girl, a job that first brought her to William Randolph Hearst's attention. That gave her experience to draw on for her third talkie, in which she plays a gay '90s chorus girl whose sisters in arms (or rather legs) encourage her to take up gold digging with a wealthy philanderer (Lawrence Gray). The film's historical re-creations are spotty at best. It shows Florodora with a neon sign years before they were used, and the stage on which the chorus girls perform "Tell Me, Pretty Lady" is mammoth compared to the show's original theatre, but Davies and a spirited cast -- including Walter Catlett as a stage door Johnny, Ilka Chase as a fellow chorus girl and Nance O'Neil as Gray's mother -- make it work. As usual, Hearst spared no expense. A beach scene is filmed in front of the palatial Santa Monica beach house he built for Davies and the final sequence is shot in two-strip Technicolor. The film opened Hollywood's Pantages Theatre and scored solid reviews. Unfortunately, MGM failed to obtain the rights to the music from Florodora, and its composer, Leslie Stuart, sued MGM for copyright infringement, which limited the picture's release, making it a box office failure.

By Frank Miller