Brownie's Little Venus

Brownie's Little Venus (1921)

14 Sep 1921 • Comedy, Short
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Baby Peggy, or, as she came to be known, Diana Serra Cary, was the oldest surviving silent film star until she died in 2020 at the age of 101. (Born into the so-called Spanish Flu to live until the beginning of the next "once in a century" pandemic, by the way.) I assume in celebration of what would be her upcoming 103rd birthday this 29 October 2021, the UCLA Film & Television Archive has uploaded a tribute with some of her films onto Vimeo. It's especially fortunate that the five short films and surviving fragments are all titles that I didn't see last time I watched some of Baby Peggy's films, as well as the informative documentary on her life and the perils of being a child star, "Baby Peggy, the Elephant in the Room" (2012).This particular short, "Brownie's Little Venus" is a particularly fun little film. Peggy is teamed up with a dog again, this one apparently named "Brownie," as her and a dog are also seen together in the surviving 2-minutes fragment of "The Flower Girl" (1924) shown first in the tribute. Watching Brownie help Peggy dress and undress, adjust the mirror for her, light and carry a candle and even join in bedside prayer is amusing and not merely cute.What I found most interesting about this film, though, besides seeing a very old movie starring Baby Peggy, is the bit about the family going to the theatre, although I'm not sure if it was the cinema or stage sort. Regardless, this theatre is closed for reasons of "Blue Sunday" laws. There are even policeman stationed outside the theatre doing supposed God's work by making sure nobody enjoys a show on the sabbath. Anyways, the family consequently returns home and promptly goes to bed. The clever bit here is that prevented from seeing a show, they end up, in a way, putting on their own, as a burglar breaks into the house and slapstick ensues, including far too much gunplay especially for a home with a child in it. Chekhov's safe, so to speak, also comes into play.There's also some nice tinting changes to represent lights being turned on and off. The film survives from a foreign nitrate print. It may be the most enjoyable Baby Peggy vehicle I've yet seen. It's certainly more comedically fun than the similarly burglary-themed, but melodramatically so, feature "The Family Secret" (1924).

Fred Hibbard
Director
Fred Hibbard
Writer
Baby Peggy, Brownie the Dog, Lillian Biron
Starring

Language: None, English
Awards:
Country: United States
Metacritic Score:
DVD Release Date:
Box Office Total:

(12 votes)
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