Show People (1928) | A Goodbye To Silent Films

SHOW PEOPLE is an American synchronized sound comedy drama film directed by King Vidor. While the film has no audible dialog, it was released with a synchronized musical score. It was released on October 20, 1928.
NOTE: this film is a product of its time and has a scene with problematic views of suicide in it.

Colonel Pepper brings his daughter Peggy from Georgia to Hollywood to be an actress. There she meets Billy who gets her work at Comet Studio doing comedies with him. But Peggy is discovered by High Art Studio and she leaves Billy and Comet to work there. For her new image, she is now Patricia Pepoire and ignores Billy.

The film is a lighthearted look at Hollywood at the end of the silent film era since it was released the year after breakthrough talking picture The Jazz Singer.

In 2003, Show People was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant."

Directed by King Vidor
Written by Agnes Christine Johnston and Laurence Stallings (treatment), Wanda Tuchock (continuity), Ralph Spence (titles)
Cinematography by John Arnold
Edited by Hugh Wynn
Cast
Marion Davies as Peggy Pepper
William Haines as Billy Boone
Dell Henderson as General Marmaduke Oldfish Pepper
Paul Ralli as Andre Telfair
Tenen Holtz as casting director
Harry Gribbon as Jim, comedy director
Kalla Pasha as comic chef
Sidney Bracey as dramatic director
Polly Moran as Peggy's maid
Albert Conti as producer

Well known faces appearing in the film are Dorothy Sebastian, Louella Parsons, Estelle Taylor, Claire Windsor, Aileen Pringle, Karl Dane, George K. Arthur, Leatrice Joy, Renée Adorée, Rod La Rocque, Mae Murray, John Gilbert, Norma Talmadge, Douglas Fairbanks, Marion Davies, William S. Hart, and Charlie Chaplin.

This film is in the public domain meaning it has been identified as being free of known restrictions under copyright law, including all related and neighboring rights. You can copy, modify, distribute and perform the work, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission. Corporations lobbied Congress to get U.S. copyright laws extended by 20 years, twice! Because of that, it allows published works to be under copyright for almost a century and corporations to squeeze every last ounce of profit from them even long after the profitability has past. It keeps people from enjoying art, which is the purpose of art.

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