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Running away to join the circus was a popular romantic sentiment in the 1920s for those wishing to escape life's drudgery. For wannabe actress Violet (Beatrice Lillie), it was joining a third-rate travelling actors troupe specializing in over-the-top melodramas of love and loss. Too plain to play the vampy vixen, she was relegated to the menial but necessary tasks to keep the show afloat. Known for her rubbery features and comic timing, Lillie taps her higher Chaplinesque qualities and deep humanist emotions in beguiling balance to the laughter. Violet's real-life drama rises far above the on-stage fiction, as with her tutoring and support of a handsome young recruit (Jack Pickford) who becomes the male lead, a man whom she falls in love with but withholds her heart. This silent classic is a riveting time capsule into a pre-Depression world that will fascinate, draw tears and ultimately... cheers.
Original Release
11/06/1926
US Release
11/06/1926
Cast
Name | Character |
---|
Beatrice Lillie | Violet |
Jack Pickford | Jimmy Marsh |
Doris Lloyd | Olga |
DeWitt Jennings | Orlando Wainwright |
Harry Myers | Jesse Watson |
Tenen Holtz | Tod Powell |
Louise Lorraine | Phyllis Tichnor / Phyllis |
Franklin Pangborn | Cecil Lovelace |
D'Arcy Corrigan | Macomber |
Charles K. French | Mr. Tichnor |
Directors
Writers
Sam Taylor, Marc Connelly, Tim Whelan, Joseph Farnham
Cast
Name | Character |
---|
Beatrice Lillie | Violet |
Jack Pickford | Jimmy Marsh |
Doris Lloyd | Olga |
DeWitt Jennings | Orlando Wainwright |
Harry Myers | Jesse Watson |
Tenen Holtz | Tod Powell |
Louise Lorraine | Phyllis Tichnor / Phyllis |
Franklin Pangborn | Cecil Lovelace |
D'Arcy Corrigan | Macomber |
Charles K. French | Mr. Tichnor |
Dwight Frye | Balcony Heckler |
William Gillespie | Jack Hastings |
Jimmy Humes | Audience Member |
Gus Leonard | Audience Member |
Andy MacLennan | Stagehand |
Kenneth McMillan | Audience Member |
Terence McMillan | Audience Member |
Carl Richards | Dave |
Carl 'Major' Roup | Young Boy in Audience |
Dorothea Wolbert | Anna |
Producers
Name | Role |
---|
Sam Taylor | Producer |