In this film George Arliss instead of doing one of his own stage successes took a play that had starred William Gillette on Broadway during the 1917 season for 144 performances. Gillette had trouble getting folks to see him as anything else other than Sherlock Holmes, but Arliss suffered no such handicap and does make the role his own in the film adaption of A Successful Calamity.
Once again Arliss plays a tycoon who even has himself a second and trophy wife though that term was decades away from its coining and in the film the wife is played by Mary Astor. Astor and his kids from the first marriage William Janney and Evelyn Knapp are driving him to distraction with their spendthrift ways.
So Arliss decides to let out the rumor that they're broke. It couldn't have hit them harder than Eugene Palette's announcement to the Bulloch family in My Man Godfrey. Brings them all up short a bit.
Arliss who was one of the great actors of the English speaking world of the stage apparently instinctively knew the value of underplaying in his sound feature films. His little tricks during closeups rivet your attention to him. He's supported well by his cast which also includes Randolph Scott in a small role as Evelyn Knapp's true love. William Janney seemed to have taken a patent out on playing callow youths who get into jackpots during the early talkie period as he does yet play another here.
Though it's old fashioned and the acting style all around is I think you can still enjoy A Successful Calamity.
Once again Arliss plays a tycoon who even has himself a second and trophy wife though that term was decades away from its coining and in the film the wife is played by Mary Astor. Astor and his kids from the first marriage William Janney and Evelyn Knapp are driving him to distraction with their spendthrift ways.
So Arliss decides to let out the rumor that they're broke. It couldn't have hit them harder than Eugene Palette's announcement to the Bulloch family in My Man Godfrey. Brings them all up short a bit.
Arliss who was one of the great actors of the English speaking world of the stage apparently instinctively knew the value of underplaying in his sound feature films. His little tricks during closeups rivet your attention to him. He's supported well by his cast which also includes Randolph Scott in a small role as Evelyn Knapp's true love. William Janney seemed to have taken a patent out on playing callow youths who get into jackpots during the early talkie period as he does yet play another here.
Though it's old fashioned and the acting style all around is I think you can still enjoy A Successful Calamity.