Starring W.C. Fields, Carol Dempster and Alfred Lunt
Produced by Paramount Pictures
Sally is a circus performer who was raised believing that fellow carny "Professor Eustace McGargle" is her father. The two work together both on stage and off, protecting one another as they run afoul of both "rubes" and the law.
Of course, the professor isn't really her pop. Her mother was the daughter of Judge Foster who kicked her to the curb because she married a circus performer. After, giving birth to Sally, the woman died, entrusting her young child to McGargle.
McGargle is an honorable man (at least when it comes to Sally) and doesn't want the circus life for the girl. So the pair jump a train and ride to Green Meadows to try to reunite the girl with her grandparents. Unfortunately, while Judge Foster has regret, he still is deeply suspicious of circus folk. McGargle decides to keep Sally's parentage a secret.
Complicating matters, Sally falls for young socialite Peyton Lennox. His father is a friend of the Fosters do the judge contrives to have the carnies arrested.
Will love win out in the end? And will the secret of Sally's birth come out?
Sally of the Sawdust is silly, melodramatic and maudlin, but totally worth people's time for one reason:
W. C. Fields.
This is my first exposure to the vaudeville legend besides the parodies of the character you see in other movies and entertainment. But the man is a star. He commands the screen. His physical abilities and comic timing are great, but in the quiet moments of the film, he is brilliant. His every facial tic tells you exactly what he's thinking, but there's a subtlety to his craft.
As Sally, Carol Dempster is good. Her facial expressions and mannerisms are so different from other stars of the era. She also goes from goofy and comedic to dramatic and heartbroken as well as most. That said, she does occasionally contort her face a little too much. And, while the extras in the movie may love her dancing, I thought she looked she was having a seizure.
The rest of the cast is straight out of central casting and they work well enough. The one exception was Judge Foster's wife. There managed to be both too much of her and not enough of her. The camera lingers on her grief for uncomfortable stretches of the film. These scenes could have been edited down, but she's clearly the best actor besides Field in the film and could have had some other moments to shine. We never get a sense of how her relationship with the judge has evolved since the death of their daughter.
There are a number of great comedic moments throughout Sally of the Sawdust. in particular, I loved the big fight scene early on where some rubes who lost their money to McGargle come demanding their cash back. Soon, the entire circus, elephants and all, is engaged in the donnybrook. Fields physicality and facial expressions are perfect throughout.
I have not mentioned D.W. Griffith and that's because he is largely anonymous in the film. It's hard to draw much distinction between his direction here and the efforts of William Beaudine in Little Annie Rooney. The only real directorial flourish is the occasional close-up of the man Foster charged with following the carnies, but that's more distracting than purposeful. The rest of Hollywood has caught up to Griffith and he has no more tricks up his sleeve.
I didn't talk about the romance. That's because there's not much to it. Lennox and Sally see each other, they fall in love and then... Lennox is sent away by his father until the last frames.
There are elements that don't work (what happened to the criminals that kidnapped McGargle?), but Dempster and especially Fields propel the movie along with comic energy and pathos.
***1/2 out of *****
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