IRENE
starring Colleen Moore and Lloyd Hughes
PHOTOPLAY
April, 1926
This picture is entertaining hokum in a beautiful setting. Colleen Moore is a poor little Irish tad who gets befriended by a young fellow, part owner of a modiste shop. Does he make her the head mannequin? You guessed it.
The story begins in Philadelphia where Irene is a member of the shanty Irish aristocracy. Mom takes in washing and Pop takes in anything containing one percent alcohol. Irene is constitutionally unsuited for remunerative work. As a window demonstrator of the resiliency of somebody-or-other's patent bed spring, she takes a terrible flop. Then she tries salamanding with a girl friend, and is obliged to skate home.
Next Irene runs away from New York, meets the nice fella and goes to work in Madame Lucy's gown shop. She is not exactly Madame Lucy's idea of a mannequin, but the boss likes her, so there you are. Mom and Pope and the kids soon follow to live off Irene's swell job.
Comes the fashion show. In color. The four seasons are represented by beautiful girls in beautiful gowns and handsome settings. Of course, there isn't a stitch that you could ask you local dressmaker to copy, but what a feast for the optics! And Colleen looking like a rose petal, leading the show.
Everybody in the picture is funny except that terribly earnest
young man, Lloyd Hughes. Colleen's pantomimic talents are hampered
here and there by unnecessary subtitles. George K. Arthur's characterization
of Madame Lucy is well thought out and decidedly clever. His work
is one of the outstanding points of the picture.
The direction leaves something to be desired.