Virginia Rappe Movies
- 1920
Most comedians of the silent era impersonated women at one point or another (it was a popular theme in vaudeville, where most of them got their start). But one man, Julian Eltinge, made a whole career out of his female impersonations. Here he has company -- Fred Covert joins him in dressing like a lady. Some of the advertising catch lines for this slight mythical kingdom comedy are pretty silly themselves, for example, "They took him for a gay adventuress -- until they felt his fist!" Three Americans, Jack Perry (Eltinge), Lyn Brook (Covert), and Dick Sayre (William Clifford), find out about the unrest going on in the kingdom of Alpania and decide to get involved. The royalists capture Perry and order him to be shot at sunrise. With the help of an aeroplane and a bomb, Brook rescues him and they resolve to get the royalists secret plans and pass them along to the revolutionaries. In order to do this, both of them dress up as ladies, and quite successfully, too. When Perry has flirted the information out of the princes and potentates, he heads out with the plans. He is captured, but manages to commander an enemy plane to make a daring escape. Eventually he gets back to America and his girl (thus proving that in spite of his antics he is firmly heterosexual). One of the supporting players is the ill-fated Virginia Rappe, who died in 1921 after a party thrown by Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle (no mean female impersonator himself). ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide
- 1917
"Debauchery amongst the rich and famous" was the theme of the exotically produced Paradise Garden. Having come into a huge sum of money, man-about-town Jerry Bernham (Harold Lockwood) is gently coerced into throwing a series of wild parties at his palatial Long Island estate. The instigator of these bacchanals is Marcia Van Wyck (Virginia Rappe), a woman of questionable morals. Finally realizing that he's being led down the road to perdition, Jeff angrily orders Marcia out of his house, but not before stripping her of the expensive gown which she inveigled him into buying. Existing footage from The Pleasure Garden exhibits an unbridled eroticism rare even for 1917, complete with nude female dancers and "water nymphs." Though singularly unattractive and none too talented, leading lady Virginia Rappe exudes a raw animal passion that is still capable of steaming up the screen. Rappe's short career, and life, would come to an end during a drunken party held by comedian Fatty Arbuckle in 1921. Accused of Rappe's murder (she died of a ruptured bladder, and it was alleged that the comedian had raped her), Arbuckle was eventually acquitted of all charges, but the ensuing scandal utterly ruined his career. Paradise Garden is evidently the only surviving film of the unfortunate Virginia Rappe; unavailable outside of archival screenings, it was given its first public showing in over sixty years as part of the Hollywood TV series produced by Thames Television. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Harold Lockwood, Vera Sisson, (more)
