Mary of the Movies (1923)

Before making film history by starring opposite comic great Buster Keaton in The General, Marion Mack starred in a few small films of her own (working up from her modest beginning as a Mack Sennett bathing beauty). This comedy-drama, put together by Film Booking Office of America (FBO), is perhaps the best-known of Mack's non-Keaton work -- literally dozens of the day's best-known movie stars have cameos (not surprisingly, the producers were publishers of a fan magazine). Mary (Mack) is a small-town girl who leaves her home in Arizona and heads for Hollywood fame and fortune when her family faces financial difficulties. She is aided in her efforts to find film work by Jane, an extra girl (Rosemary Cooper), and a nice young man (Creighton Hale). They take her around to the studios where she meets Douglas MacLean, Barbara La Marr, Johnnie Walker, J. Warren Kerrigan, Herbert Rawlinson, Louise Fazenda, Anita Stewart, Bessie Love, Rosemary Theby, Tom Moore, ZaSu Pitts, Elliot Dexter, Marjorie Daw, and a host of other stars, plus directors Maurice Tourneur, Rex Ingram, and Edward J. Le Saint. All this star power doesn't seem to help her much, since she winds up having to work as a waitress. But then she gets her lucky break -- a star that she resembles falls ill, and she steps into the role. She makes good, and is able to save the family home from being auctioned off. The boy who was so helpful to her inherits a fortune and everything ends happily. ~ Janiss Garza, Rovi