BROKEN HEARTS OF HOLLYWOOD
starring Patsy Ruth Miller, Louise Dresser and Douglas Fairbanks, Jr.
PHOTOPLAY
December 1926

It's just as weepy and draggy as it sounds. This depicts the ups and downs of a gal breaking into pictures -- and if any little girl wants to be a movie star afer she sees this, she has an awful amount of courage. Patsy Ruth Miller is the girl who just must be a success in pictures. Louise Dresser is her mother, and Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., is the boyfriend.

BROKEN HEARTS OF HOLLYWOOD
starring Patsy Ruth Miller, Louise Dresser and Douglas Fairbanks, Jr.
HARRISON'S REPORTS
August 21, 1926

A powerful drama. It is a mother-love theme, like that of "The Blind Goddess, in which Miss Louise Dresser again is given the part of the self-sacrificing mother; she wanted to shield her daughter, whom she loved dearly, but who was unaware that the woman who shielded her was her mother. The scenes in which the mother for the first time since babyhood meets her daughter, are deeply pathetic; the mother's restraint stirs one's emotions to the very depths. The scenes, however, in which the mother, in order ot make her daughter act, tells her that she is her mother, are the most powerful ones; it will be hard for one to suppress one's emotions in those scenes. The courtroom scenes where the mother refuses to reveal to the court the name of the "other woman" who was present in the apartment of the murdered man, preferring to go to the electric chair rather than tell that the other woman was her daughter, also are pathetic. The plot has been founded on the story by Raymond Schrock and Edward Clark; it has been directed intelligently by Lloyd Bacon. Patsy Ruth Miller does good work as the heroine, but it is Louise Dresser, as the mother, who does the best work. Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., does good work but his looks do not help the picture at all.

The mother had left her husband and her baby daughter because she wanted a career to which her husband was opposed; she went to Hollywood and became an actress. Years later her daughter wins a popularity contest and goes to Hollywood. But the way to a job was a hard one. She meets the young hero, also a contest winner, who, too, had hard luck at finding a job. The hero injures himself in an effort to win fifty dollars by which he could bail out the heroine who was arrested during a raid on a cafe at which she was innocently present. She comes out of jail, and, in order to help save the life of the young hero, she goes to an actor who had a "sheik" reputation willing to "sacrifice" herself. But the sheik turns out to be a kind-hearted man. With his influence, she is given an opportnity to act in a leading role. Her mother, whom she did not know, is assigned to the mother's part. But the heroine could not act until the mother, having recognized her daughter, reveals her identity to her. The heroine then acted naturally to the great satisfction of the director. After the scene wsas over, the mother tells the daughter that her story was part of her scheme to make her act. The heroine is invited to the apartment of a vulture who preyed upon innocent victims under the pretense of conducting a school for acting. There he attempts to assault her. The mother, who through an overheard conversation knew that her daughter was in danger, goes to the apartment just in the nick of time. She shoots and kills the man and urges the heroine to go. She is arrested. But at the trial she refuse to divulge the name of the other woman preent at the murder scene until a clever ruse by the attorney for the defense makes her confess. She is acquitted. The heroine falls on her mother's neck. Hero and heroine marry.

It should prove a good picture for any theatre