Gregory Kelly Movies
A popular Broadway juvenile of the 1910s, dark-haired Gregory Kelly proved a big hit opposite a very young Ruth Gordon in Booth Tarkington's Seventeen in 1918. (Another Kelly, future movie tough guy Paul Kelly, was also in the cast). They married three years later, a union that sadly ended with Kelly's early death in 1927. Working solely on the East Coast, he seems to have appeared in only two films: Manhattan (1924) as Jacqueline Logan's brother; and the still extant The Show Off (1927) filmed by Malcolm St. Clair on locations in Philadelphia and at Paramount's studios in Astoria, Queens. Kelly once again portrayed the leading lady's brother, but his romantic interest was no less than a young, radiant, Louise Brooks. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide- 1926
This first film version of George Kelly's stage comedy The Show Off stars former Keystone Kop Ford Sterling in the title role. Though he's only a thirty-dollar-a-week clerk, Aubrey Piper (Sterling) is an incorrigible braggart, brimming full of grandiose get-rich-quick schemes. Quickly ingratiating himself with the family of his fiancee Amy Fisher (Lois Wilson), Aubrey inveigles them into an investment scheme that nearly results in ruination for all concerned. Even though he and his victims are saved from penury by a last-minute miracle, Aubrey shows no signs of having learned his lesson by film's end -- but Amy loves him anyway. Critics in 1926 were amused by Ford Sterling but impressed by the coolly authoritative performance of up-and-coming Louise Brooks in a minor role. The Show-Off was remade with Spencer Tracy in 1934 and with Red Skelton in 1947. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Ford Sterling, Lois Wilson, (more)
