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Pretty Ladies

1925

 

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'Lucille LeSueur' MGM silent. 74 minutes (6 reels). US release: 7/15/25 (premiere); 9/6/25 (general).

Print survival status: From silentera.com: "Print exists (minus Technicolor sequences)"

Not available on VHS or DVD. (A 53-minute version is available on YouTube.)

Cast: ZaSu Pitts, Tom Moore, Ann Pennington, Lilyan Tashman, Bernard Randall, Helen D'Algy, Conrad Nagel, Norma Shearer, George K. Arthur, Lucille LeSueur (Joan as "Bobby"), Paul Ellis, Roy D'Arcy, Gwendolyn Lee, Dorothy Seastrom, Lew Harvey, Chad Huber, Walter Shumway, Dan Crimmins, Jimmy Quinn.

Credits: From the story "Hearts" by Adela Rogers St. Johns, which appeared in Cosmopolitan magazine. Adaptation: Alice D.G. Miller. Director: Monta Bell. Camera: Ira H. Morgan.

 

Plot Summary:

This comedy-drama about the Follies was written by veteran newspaper reporter and "sob sister" Adela Rogers St. John. Maggie (ZaSu Pitts) is the Follies comedienne, and she envies all the other girls in the show -- the pretty ladies with their sweethearts. She knows she's only there for the laughs, and that no one would ever give her a second look if not for her clowning. Things change when the accidentally falls into the orchestra and breaks the drums being played by Al Cassidy (Tom Moore). A friendship begins which blooms into romance, sparking the jealousy of Selma, the leading lady (Lilyan Tashman). Cassidy writes a hit for Maggie and sticks by her. Eventually they marry and start a family. Cassidy, who has become a renowned songwriter, is called to Atlantic City to prepare a new score for Selma. Finally he falls prey to her charms. A gossip informs Maggie of this fact, but when he returns home contrite she refuses to listen to him and pretends nothing has happened. Secretly, she prays it will never happen again. The supporting cast in this picture is impressive. It includes Norma Shearer, Conrad Nagel, and Ann Pennington as herself. In a bit part is an ambitious, up-and-coming young starlet by the name of Lucille LeSueur. It would be a mere matter of months before she became more well known as Joan Crawford. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide

 

Notes:

  • This is Joan's first credited film appearance. She is billed for the first, and only, time with her birth name of "Lucille LeSueur."
  • Joan appears as a chorus girl in several scenes (along with fellow screen newcomer Myrna Williams, later "Loy." The two struck up what would become a lifelong friendship). Joan also has two scenes alone with star Zasu Pitts, and appears in a later party scene.
  • From publicdomainmovie.net (this link also includes a 15-min film clip): ...the film was written by Alice D. G. Miller and featured intertitles by Joseph Farnham. Pretty Ladies originally featured musical color sequences, some in two-strip Technicolor. However, the color sequences are now considered lost.

 

American Film Institute page

IMDb page

Publicdomainmovie.net

silentera.com

Wikipedia page

 


 

Critics' Reviews:

 

"Sisk" in Variety (1925):

An expensive film devoted primarily to plugging the Follies, for it mentions that show by name several times....The fault with the film is that either [director] Bell or the producers have tried to mix a spectacle of New York's theatrical world with an absorbing human interest story. Most of the revue scenes are shown in color. Living chandeliers and undressed ladies, usual revue adjuncts, are to be seen.

 

New York Times (July 14, 1925):

Here is one of those "back-stage" photoplays with a very commonplace story, and yet it has been made a thoroughly worth-while film. The external evidence is all to the effect that the directing is what made it. Monta Bell is the director. He deserves the highest praise for this piece of work turned out of his studio.

 

The background of the play is the "Follies." It is so thinly disguised that direct imitations of Will Rogers, Frisco, Gallagher and Shean and Eddie Cantor appear before the curtain, while the character of Aaron Savage, the manager, is made up to look like Flo Ziegfeld. With a locale like this to exploit, many directors would have let it run away with them and we should have had another of those exhibitions which in the end get very tiresome. That was not allowed to happen in this case, however.

 

The "Follies" do get in, and some of the sequences occurring on their stage are made in colors and are very effective. But they are kept as a background, and a very fine one they make.What counts in the picture is that the merely conventional thing has been avoided. The director has kept the picture from being a stereotype. He has used brains and imagination. He keeps the interest unflagging throughout. One of his methods of doing this is to be constantly inventing little human touches. You get a vivid sense that all these people are real. You want to know and see more of their doings. No one has to drag you reluctant to the feast. In fact, if any one should get in your way you would be apt to push.

 

Even in handling his spectacular effects the director shows originality. A Japanese scene changes in the twinkling of an eye to a snow-covered section of the Alps, the chorus costumes changing with it. There is a fly ballet in which the scene is the top of a kitchen table, with the human beings in size proportionate to an insect perspective. The story itself is very thin, and when you stop to analyze how thin it is, you get a measure of the director's skill in having kept things moving so satisfactorily by other means. Al Cassidy (Tom Moore) is a drummer in the theatre orchestra. Maggie Keenan (Zasu Pitts) is the show's comedienne, who dreams of love but never experiences it. The drummer finally writes a song for her, she "makes" it and him, and they marry. He has an episode with Selma Larson (Lilyan Tashman), who wants him to use his talents for her benefit, and "vamps" him. Maggie learns and forgives. That's all there is.


It is a pleasure to see so fine an actress as Zasu Pitts in a rôle worthy of her gifts. She leads this cast both on the program and on the screen. Tom Moore is excellent in a part which is not rich in opportunities. The others are all as gay and colorful and beautiful as they should be. But the picture is a triumph first of all for the director.

Thoroughly Worth While. PRETTY LADIES, with Zasu Pitts, Tom Moore, Lilyan Tashman, Conrad Nagel, Norma Shearer, Bernard Randall and others, adapted from the story by Adela Rogers St. John, directed by Monta Bell; Albert Rappaport, tenor; "The Beach After Dark," a Robert C. Bruce scenic; "An Hawaiian Night," with singing and dancing: Mme. Gambarelli, assisted by Frank Moulan in "A Fantasy." At the Capitol Theatre.

New York American (1925):

If the footlights hold a glamour for you, don't stay away from this picture. Pretty Ladies starts off with a rattling good story by Adela Rogers St. Johns. It's not just a hoked-up plot to keep some high-salaried actress at work. ...And Alice D.G. Miller has adapted it splendidly.... The cast is much too long and too good to describe in detail, but ZaSu Pitts, Tom Moore and Lilyan Tashman deserve special praise.

 

 


 

Our Reviews:

If you've seen Pretty Ladies and would like to share your review here, please e-mail me. Include a picture of yourself or avatar to accompany your review, as well as a star-rating (with 5 stars the best) and any of your favorite lines from the film.

 

 

Stephanie Jones, site creator.Stephanie Jones  (January 2022)

Rating:  star02_pink_1.gifstar02_pink_1.gifstar02_pink_1.gif- 1/2 of 5

 

What a good, and honest, backstage story!

Zasu Pitts is Maggey, the comedic star of a Follies show, envied by Selma (Lilyan Tashman, playing the show's "beauty" and girlfriend of the show's producer) because Maggey gets all of the laughs and attention. Maggey's big hit number in the show is about wanting a man: "
To kiss me and miss me --- / To beat me and cheat me --- / I WANT A MAN!!" (The literal spotlight is then shone on various male audience members, to the delight of the entire audience.)

 

Selma throws fits because she thinks Maggey is stealing her scenes, and the producer-boyfriend suggests to Maggey that she should perhaps postpone her entrance in order to help out Selma's performance...

 

Thus is the sad Maggey's life: Talented, but unappreciated and love-lorn, she watches other couples pair off after the show, then sadly goes home alone, where she fantasizes about a Dream Man (a cameo by Conrad Nagel, who, in a bit of trick photography, dines with her and kisses her, though he doesn't exist).

The next day, pre-show, Maggey accidentally stumbles off the stage and onto the drums of Al (Tom Moore), a disheveled band member of the show. After she buys him a new drum, he gratefully writes a new show-tune for her ("The House Fly Blues"). As they leave the show that evening (Selma: "
Who's that man with Maggey?" Decrepit state manager: "That ain't a man...it's the drummer!"), Maggey pretends she doesn't have her own car waiting and takes the bus with Al in order to discuss his new song. (Funnily, her confused driver follows alongside the bus while she shoos him away.)

 

Once home, Maggey pushes the Dream Man into a closet as she guides Al to her table... His "House Fly Blues" later appears as a clever show number: On the backdrop of a kitchen table, Maggey is a buzzing, crawling fly...

 

Aside from the surface Maggey-and-Al love story, the film includes many realistic (and cleverly done) behind-the-scenes looks at the Follies life, including a dirty-old-man stage manager looking up the girls' skirts as they ascend a staircase. And a panned shot across the showgirls, including Joan, getting ready in the dressing room (this shot is featured in the "Ultimate Star" bio of Joan). And then there's the chorus girl who, somewhat shockingly to today's eyes, keeps her baby in a basket below the dressing table; she takes a swig of liquor, then adds it to the kid's milk-bottle, saying, "Here, you little pie-faced mutt." (This same girl later has an offer from a Stage-Door Johnny to take her out: She accepts his offer of a cab, then gets in the cab with her baby and shuts the door on the man.)

RE Joan appearances:  
Whenever the chorus appears, Joan is part of it. Joan also has two scenes alone with Zasu Pitts: The first is a minute-long scene (@9:30 - 10:30) in which Joan, dressed in 18th-century French wig and costume, commiserates with Maggey's man-troubles: "
Men are all alike...if they ain't fresh they're rotten." But then Joan also meanly adds: "What do you know about love?"
Around 32:15 of the film, Joan enters in street clothes and invites Maggey to a party. From 33:15 on, Joan is shown at the party, specifically at 39:50 when George K. Arthur pesters her while she's making out.


RE the film's cameos: The initial credits say "Impersonation of Frances White by Norma Shearer"---I don't know who "Frances White" is (and couldn't find out after a Google search), and I didn't spot Norma Shearer anywhere in the film. RE comic actor George K. Arthur: At a party (attended by Maggey and also Al/Selma), Arthur shows up after Maggey dons blackface to try to entertain the guests after seeing her man Al and Selma together. When Maggey and Arthur hug, she inadvertently wipes some of her blackface paint onto his face. He then spends the next 10 minutes of the film telling party guests AND the fire department: "
MAGGEY'S ALL BLACK!!" A pretty dull, repetitive, too-long sequence. (When Maggey leaves the party in humiliation after being abandoned by Al, and still wearing her smear of blackface, the best part is the funny look she gets from her actually black driver.)

After the party, Al is repentent and proposes marriage. Cut to him in a happy family scene with Maggey and baby in front of a Christmas tree and fireplace. But then a telegram arrives, offering Al a chance to write new song numbers in Atlantic City. And he goes! And he messes up! (I wasn't expecting any of this! I thought the film had ended at the happy-family Christmas scene!) Maggey's reaction is... appropriate to her imaginative and kind nature shown in earlier parts of the film...

 

An interesing, honest, well-shot and edited film, aside from being Joan's first film credit as "Lucille LeSueur."

 


 

Tom C. (July 2021)

Rating: star02_pink_1.gifstar02_pink_1.gifstar02_pink_1.gifstar02_pink_1.gif of 5

I think this may be the best JC film from 1925. Not that Joan is in it very much, but she gets more face time than most of the extant films from her first year in Hollywood, with perhaps the exception of Sally, Irene, and Mary.

There is a great cast and I think that's one of the things that attracts me to Pretty Ladies, along with its blend of laughs and more serious fare. ZaSu Pitts---fresh off a masterful turn in Greed, 1924---stars as a Follies comedienne, Maggie. Tom Moore co-stars as Al, drummer in the Follies orchestra and aspiring songwriter (Moore was a major star in the early '20s and had a notable co-starring role in Manhandled with Gloria Swanson, 1924). Moore is likewise very good as a bored drummer with bigger show business dreams. Lilyan Tashman is Selma, Follies diva; she does a great job as the bad egg (had Tashman not died young, I think she would have been a big star). Other stars like Norma Shearer and Ann Pennington are listed in the credits, but not seen in the available copy. Reputedly, Myrna Loy and Carole Lombard appear as chorus girls in the dance numbers. Conrad Nagel---the distinguished gent who introduced Joan in her first talking role, her song and dance number in Hollywood Revue---is Maggie's dream lover.

The story revolves around a romance between ZaSu Pitts' character, Maggie, and Al, with Selma as antagonist. The latter, upset that comic Maggie's entrances ruin her applause, decides to subvert the budding romance and eventual marriage between Maggie and Al. When Al writes a hit song for Maggie, Selma asks him over to her place to write a tune for him, eventually setting the stage for his seduction.

Pitts is great as Maggie, playing the lonely clown with comedy and pathos. There is a small, easily overlooked scene about 15 minutes into the movie. An old, haggard cleaning woman at the theater (who I'd bet a nickel is played by Bodil Rosing) shows Maggie the press clippings from when she, Rossing's character, was a star on Broadway 30 years before. This poignant exchange between the erstwhile and current Broadway stars is a reminder that fame can be fleeting, and serves as a catalyst for Maggie to take a chance on romance with Al.

What of JC? She plays Bobby, a dancer, and is billed for the only time as Lucille LeSueur. She has a nice scene at the start in Maggie's dressing room in which the latter helps JC smooth over a lovers' quarrel. JC also gets what is likely her first line in a movie when she utters the gem, "Men are all alike, if they ain't fresh, they're rotten!" : ) JC has a few scenes later on, playing a party guest, which seems to be a recurring role for her in 1925.

There's a lot going on for an hour-long movie, but it moves along nicely. The story ends with Maggie forgiving Al for his transgression. It's a tad abrupt, though, as far as endings go, but this may be due to the missing footage. JC gets quality screen time for what she considered her first movie.

I give this 4 stars. I would have gone higher if the missing reels had popped up, if the ending was a little better, and---of course---if there had been more Joan Crawford in it!

 

 


 

Shane Estes.Shane Estes  (June 2011)

Rating:  star02_pink.gifstar02_pink.gifstar02_pink.gif - 1/2  of 5

 

I found Pretty Ladies from a man in Slovenia who happened to see a YouTube video I had posted of Twelve Miles Out. Very random and very lucky! I never thought I would see this film. The quality is much better than I anticipated. It has the look of a 35mm projector being recorded by a camcorder. You can see the flashing light of the projector and there is no music or anything. Truly a silent film.

 

This is the film that Joan Crawford counted as “film number one.” It is her first significant role in a film. Most sources say that this is the first and only time that Joan Crawford was billed by her real name, Lucille LeSueur, but I’m not so sure about that. The more I learn about Joan Crawford, the more I realize how many facts people got wrong, especially about the early years. There is no screen credit given to her in the print that I found. Not in the beginning, not in the end, and not during the film (as was done in many silent films). There is a Technicolor part missing from the film, so it’s possible she was given credit in that. The print I have is 54 minutes and the film is said to be 74 minutes. I would LOVE to see the Technicolor parts! Such a pity. It was probably a choreographed dancing act like other parts of the film.

An actual title shot from 'Pretty Ladies,' spoken by Joan's character.The film has many famous faces in it, including Zasu Pitts, Lilyan Tashman, Conrad Nagel, Norma Shearer, and our beloved Joan Crawford, of course. Joan is a presence throughout the film, playing the role of a showgirl (according to sources, her name was Bobby, but I never saw that name used in my print). She is seen in a dancing bit in the beginning, talking to Pitts backstage in 2 scenes, dancing at a party, making out with some guy on the floor, and playing cards. She even has a few lines here and there. She seems at ease and very professional in such an early role. It looks very natural for her. Her best line in the film is “Men are all alike; if they ain’t fresh, they’re rotten."

The plot of the film is actually kind of strange. Maggie (Pitts) is part of the Ziegfeld Follies, along with many other showgirls. Her stage persona is that of a comedian and she is one of the stars, but in real life she is depressed and longs for true love. She envies the other showgirls’ exploits with men. She finally meets a man who writes a successful part in the show for her, and they fall in love and start a family, but another showgirl becomes jealous and has him write her a part in the show and ultimately gets him to commit adultery. Maggie finds out about it but refuses to acknowledge it. She remains with him, and the film ends with her praying to god that it doesn’t happen again. How sad! Such a tragic ending for such an upbeat film! You really want her to find love, and she does, but it’s not perfect love, and she doesn’t care… She says “I believe in God and God wouldn’t let this happen to me.” I’m not sure if there is a statement being made here or not.

 

By and large I enjoyed the film a lot. The fashion and the art direction alone are worth the watch. I found a small train scene in the rain particularly enjoyable. The film was a good start to an amazing career of an amazing woman that didn’t really come to an end until 1972.

 

 

 


 

Movie Posters:

        

The top third of a US 3-sheet.      German poster.

 

 


 

Misc. Images:

Above:  A lantern slide.  Below:  A 4-page theater  program from July 12, 1925

 

Above:  A U.S. trade ad.

 

Below: Newspaper ads and review.

Newspaper ad.

        Newspaper ad.     Newspaper promo.

 

Below: A Durham, North Carolina, standee. And a San Francisco billboard.


  

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