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user\nThis film is available from David Shepard and Kino on the Before Hollywood There Was Fort Lee, NJ, although that is a shortened version with just the \"behind-the-scenes movie sections. I'm not sure if Blackhawk Films only had a film print of these parts, or they edited out the other scenes. The original Blackhawk version was retitled A Movie Romance. The complete feature does survive, but the preprint for this version had some nitrate decomposition, and a couple of sections looked bad, so that may be why Blackhawk's version was edited.
Directed by Maurice Tourneur, the film has Tourneur playing himself, or more likely a caricature of himself. Supposedly, director Emile Chautard and future director Joseph von Sternberg also can be spotted.
Country lass Mary (Doris Kenyon) longs for a romantic man to sweep her off her feet. She dreams of a troubadour that will woo her, but is constantly interrupted by the only available local boy, Johnny Applebloom.
Meanwhile, a film company from New York (actually New Jersey) is filming a western in the countryside. Mary sees an Indian (in full headdress) and raises an alarm -- spoiling a scene that the movie company is filming. She is immediately attracted to the dashing film star Kenneth Driscoll (Robert Warwick). He encourages her to leave her home and try to become an actress in the big city.
When she arrives at the studio, she discovers that everything about the movies is fake. The doors and walls are just flats that are hastily assembled for the set. That lanky walk of the western hero or the happy skip of the heroine are just acting too. The sets are on a big revolving stage, so the angle of the sun can even be manipulated. The black attendant at the studio signs all the movie stars' \"autographed\" photos. The signs on the wall say \"Positively No Smoking\", but everybody smokes anyway. Even the titles of the film (which are illustrated nicely) emphasize everything fake about the movie-making life.
Movie star Driscoll is just as disenchanted with the ho-hum of everyday film-making. He makes a temporary split from girlfriend Vivian (June Elvidge) to pursue this \"exciting\" country girl. His plans are dashed when Mary's screen-test is a stinker. We don't get to see the actual film, but only the audience's pained reactions to it.
Mary is devastated, but she doesn't want to admit to everyone back home that she was a failure, so she continues to see Driscoll and we she has lunch with him in the studio cafeteria along with other extras dressed as policemen, soldiers, cowboys, etc.
Mary decides to stay with Driscoll. At a party with their movie \"friends\", she agrees to marry him although there is not much love between them. Surprisingly, her mother appears, with a cake especially for Mary's birthday. This causes Mary to re-evaluate her future.
This film has all kinds of fascinating scenes of studios, movie sets, dressing rooms, editing rooms, etc. If you've always wondered what went on behind the scenes when a silent film was being made, this movie peeks behind the curtain.
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