Johnny Mack Brown & "A Lady of Chance" (5)

This post is the fifth and final part of a look at A Lady of Chance, the 1928 silent film starring Johnny Mack Brown and Norma Shearer. Part one is here, part two is here, part three is here and part four is here.

My comments on the film are at the end of this post. 

Once the police arrive and take Gwen and Brad into custody, Dolly confesses everything and begs forgiveness. 

Steve doesn't want to give her up, but Dolly says he needs a "nice girl."

The police are ready to break up the love birds and take "Angel Face" to jail. 

Dolly and Steve share a final kiss. 

Some time later Dolly is brought into a meeting room in the prison. 

Dolly is suddenly hopeful. Not only will she be freed, but Steve still loves her. 

So this tale of the big city con woman and the Alabama small businessman ends happily!

Brown in his football days at UA

Source: Encyclopedia of Alabama

A comic book series featuring Brown appeared in nine issues from October 1950 until September 1952.

Source: ComicBookPlus

I really enjoyed watching A Lady of Chance; the film showed up on Turner Classic Movies a few months ago. I've seen a number of silent films over the years, so watching this one was nothing unusual. Shearer and Brown were both excellent in their roles, although Shearer was obviously the more experienced actor. Brown's inexperience worked fine for the earnest, humble character he played. I haven't seen many of Shearer's films, but she is a delight to watch in this one. The film has both humor and genuine emotion and despite its flaws an interesting story. 

Watching silent films and other older movies set in the period they were made allows us to enter another world--the past. Although fictionalized, the films are time capsules of the minutia of daily life at the time--cars and other transportation, clothing, furniture, the way people related to each other. We get to peer inside businesses and dentist offices, operating rooms, and people's homes. The experience brings plenty of visual delights and exciting stories if we leave behind our modern film expectations of rapid action, lots of special effects, and color. Silent films had all those things, but not in the quantity of today's movies.

Historical dramas from these early periods of commercial film can also be fascinating to watch. We can see another era's views of historical figures and events made for a popular audience. That's something we could only get from fiction and poetry before the movies came along.

A good place to start on the silents is the Movies Silently blog. And TCM is a constant source of riches on both silent and "classic" movies and even the shorts that filled out programs at early movie houses. 

The End

Johnny Mack Brown & "A Lady of Chance" (4)

This post is part four of a look at A Lady of Chance the 1928 silent film starring Johnny Mack Brown and Norma Shearer. Part one is here, part two is here and part three is here.

Dolly's old pals Gwen and Brad have managed to track her down and are surprised to find her living where and the way she is. They have presented themselves to the Crandalls as Dolly's cousins and are invited to stay. 

Dolly tells them she's fallen for a man of no wealth, but they don't take her seriously. Dolly gives them the $10,000 in hopes they will leave.

Steve gets a telegram offering him $100,000 for the rights to his cement formula. He shares this good news with everyone, and suddenly Brad has a business investment back in New York he wants to talk about. 

Everyone here is pretty happy except poor, poor Dolly.

She pours out her heart to Gwen, trying to convince her that she and Steve are really in love. 

Dolly produces a gun to emphasize her feelings to Gwen.

Unfortunately Brad and Gwen are seeing a big payoff and insist they proceed to New York so Steve can sign the "investment" contract. They threaten to reveal Dolly's past if she doesn't go along.

Steve and Dolly are briefly happy as they settle into their hotel suite in the Big Apple. 

Brad and Steve go over the contract by which he plans to separate Steve and his money. 

Dolly has had enough. She can't bear to watch Steve get taken and calls the police. 

Then she proceeds to blow the whole scam wide open. 

I think we can safely say Steve is surprised. 

To Be Continued

Johnny Mack Brown & "A Lady of Chance" (3)

This post is part three of a look at A Lady of Chance the 1928 silent film starring Johnny Mack Brown and Norma Shearer. Part one is here and part two is here.

Steve is trying to overcome Dolly's disappointment at having married a man who's not wealthy like she assumed. 

Ma Crandall and Dolly are gazing out a window at the cement "factory". 

Of course, Dolly has a cynical city woman's observation.

Now Dolly is in a jam. She's stuck in Alabama married to a man who's not wealthy like she assumed. What does a girl do? 

She decides to take her $10,000 in ill-gotten gains and head back north. Even Steve's reminder of the sharecroppers singing on the plantation next door doesn't help.

Steve takes Dolly to the train station to see her off. 

The next morning Steve returns home and finds Dolly in his bedroom. She realized she loves him too much to leave, and they reconcile. However, she tells him nothing about her past. 

The whole family is celebrating. 

Steve's Enduro cement is supposed to last a looong time.

But two new arrivals in town mean trouble. 

To Be Continued

Film Actresses from Alabama Before 1960 (3): Dorothy Sebastian

Dorothy Sebastian's film career flamed briefly in the late 1920's and early 1930's and then just as quickly burned out. During that period she did appear in major roles in several high-profile films with other stars of the time.

She was born in Birmingham on April 26, 1903, one of five children of Robert and Stell Sabiston. Robert was a minister and the couple had served as foreign missionaries before settling in Birmingham. Stell was a painter, and Dorothy and her mother operated a small shop selling portraits and needlepoint creations. 

Dorothy eloped with her high school sweetheart, but the marriage ended in 1924. At this point she headed to New York and what she hoped would be a dance and acting career. She played a chorus girl that year on Broadway in George White's Scandals which opened in June and ran for 196 performances. She appeared in that show with her new last name.

Sebastian managed to get a screen test with United Artists and appeared in her first five films in 1925. In 1927 she was the female lead in a Tom Mix western, The Arizona Wildcat. The next year she played along with Joan Crawford and fellow Alabama native John Mack Brown in the drama Our Dancing Daughters. 

Her acting career continued into the early sound era. In 1929 she appeared in Spite Marriage with Buster Keaton, who was her lover at the time. She also had an affair with director Clarence Brown. Interestingly, Brown had operated an auto dealership in Birmingham before World War I.

In the early 1930's Sebastian asked for a raise in her MGM contract, but the studio refused and dropped her from its roster. She appeared in a few more films before she married William Boyd, better known as cowboy hero Hopalong Cassidy. That marriage ended in 1936 in a bitter divorce. 

Sebastian continued to appear in a few small roles until her final film appearance in 1948. During World War II she worked in a defense factory where she met her future third husband, businessman Herman Shapiro. She died of cancer in April 1957.

A lengthy biography can be found at the Internet Movie Database along with a complete list of her films. A web site devoted to Sebastian can be found here. 

Unless otherwise noted, images are from the Lantern media history digital library.

Dorothy Sebastian

Source: Wikipedia 

Source: BhamWiki

Picture-Play Magazine 1926

Photoplay 1927

Screenland 1928

Motion Picture Classic 1928

The 1928 silent film Our Dancing Daughters starred two Alabama natives, Sebastian and Johnny Mack Brown, who was a football great at the University of Alabama before heading to Hollywood.

Dorothy Sebastian, Joan Crawford, and Anita Page in a publicity still for OUR DANCING DAUGHTERS (1928):

Source: The Hollywood Revue blog