CHICAGO
starring Phyllis Haver, Victor Varconi and Robert Edeson
PHOTOPLAY
February 1928
The story of a girl, Roxie Hart (played by Phyllis Haver), who was all wrong . . . not a redeeming characteritstic. Briefly, the story of a married woman who is not satisfied with what her husband can give her and selects herself a man on the side to furnish the luxuries. When this man tires of her, she kills him. The husband (Victor Varconi) would take the blame, but he law tries her for the murder. To Roxie Hart, being featured as "Chicago's most beautiful murderer" was worth anything. It mattered not that her husband had to sacrifice, borrow and steal to raise money for her defense.
Never for a moment is she played for sympathy, and yet she is so beautiful that you never want to see her suffer -- even when she is cruel, when she is selfish, when she cheats her husband, and even when she commits murder.
Lenore Coffee has done a beautiful piece of work in adapting this play for the screen, and Cecil De Mille's supervision is evident throughout the picture. Fank Urson's direction needs commendation, too. Victor Varconi does his very best work, and that in a very difficult role.
Robert Edeson, as Defense Attorney, T.Roy Barnes as a preporter, Gene Pallette as the man she killed, May Robson as the matron, Virginia Bradford, Josephine Norman and others do work worthy of mention, but, after all, the picture belongs to Phyllis Haver who gives a marvelous characterization. We agree with Mr. De Mille that she is his greatest "find" since Gloriea Swanson. Of course, nobody will miss seeing "Chicago."
CHICAGO
starring Phyllis Haver, Victor Varconi and Robert Edeson
MOTION PICTURE MAGAZINE
April 1928
This is the story of the rewards of crime out in Chicago, but as a matter of fact, it might be almost anywhere in the Unied States. Roxie Hart, a bad, bad girl, shoots a man in the first reel and devotes the rest of the picture to using her s.a. (and she has plenty) on her husband, her lawyer, the jury, and every other available male until she is acquitted. The stage version of "Chicago" was a biting satire on the trial system, jails, newspapers, and all the other things connected with what we call justice. The picture is no less relentless; it doesn't soften Roxie or gloss over the foibles of the wise men. But since there really isn't much action, in the picture sense, and not quite all the devastating lines of the play can be inserted as subtitles, the result isn't quite so telling as the stage play. Phyllis Haver is well cast as Roxie.
For more information, see "Chicago" as our "Feature of the Month"