Her Sister from Paris (1925)

Directed by Sidney Franklin Writing credits Ludwig Fulda (play) Hanns Kräly

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F Gwynplaine MacIntyre (Borroloola@aol.com)
Minffordd, North Wales

Date: 16 August 2003
Summary: A blemish on Constance Talmadge's career (and her face)

'Her Sister from Paris' is an example of what I call a 'pre-make': an obscure film that was later remade as a much better-known movie which is not normally recognised as a remake. The source material for 'Her Sister from Paris' was a play by Ludwig Fulda, which was later the basis for 'Two-Faced Woman' ... the rather lame sex comedy that is now recalled as the movie that killed Greta Garbo's career.

This movie has the same plot as 'Two-Faced Woman', minus the ski-lodge sequences of that film. The same premise was also used by Cecil B. DeMille in 'Madam Satan': a staid wife tries to recapture her wandering husband by posing as an exotic woman, hoping he will woo her without discovering her disguise. (Must be a stupid husband...)

The dull Constance Talmadge plays the dull Helen Weyringer, a Viennese hausfrau trapped in a dull marriage to novelist Joseph (Ronald Colman). They loved each other once, but now the spark is gone. On an impulse, Helen tells Joseph that her twin sister Lola is coming to visit from Paris: Lola is exciting, vivacious; everything that Helen is not. Helen has never mentioned Lola before, for a good reason: Lola doesn't actually exist.

Eventually, 'Lola' shows up (Helen in disguise) and proceeds to vamp Joseph. This premise didn't work when Garbo did it (or when Kay Johnson tried it in 'Madam Satan'), and it's not much better here (although this film is the least inept of the three versions). If the husband doesn't recognise the 'twin sister' as his wife in disguise, then he's a philanderer and rather stupid with it ... and bang goes the audience's sympathy. On the other hand, if the husband romances the 'other' woman while fully aware that she's his wife, then the entire exercise is pointless.

This same premise has occasionally been used with the genders reversed ... for instance, Molnar's play 'The Guardsman', in which an actor tests his wife's fidelity by disguising himself and then trying to romance his own wife while pretending to be somebody else. It doesn't really work, in either direction.

Constance Talmadge has never impressed me, but here she actually manages to make her two identities seem like two different women. As the demure Helen, she's a subdued brunette wearing high-collared shirtwaists that would seem more appropriate on Loretta Young. As Lola, she's a heavy-lidded ash blonde, trailing a mink coat that was presumably paid for by Joseph without his knowledge. To show that Lola is more 'exotic' than her twin sister Helen, the make-up department has given Talmadge a small dark mole at the corner of her mouth.

Which prompts me to ask: who came up with this stupid idea that a spot on a woman's face makes her more glamorous? I've never understood this, never sympathised with it, yet it turns up in film after film. Whenever a female character onscreen is meant to be a tart or a slut, the make-up man always puts a spot on her face. In MGM's musical 'Summer Holiday', we see a good-time girl from the subjective viewpoint of callow youth Mickey Rooney: after he downs a couple of drinks, she suddenly acquires a facial mole to signal us that Rooney is becoming sexually aroused. Huh? In 'Madam Satan', good-girl wife Kay Johnson turns herself into the exotic Madam Satan by adorning her face with some 'beauty marks' that look like hairy moles! Ugh! It's notable that Madonna (who often plays slutty roles) first attained stardom with a prominent facial mole ... but she had it surgically removed early on in her career, then went on to greater popularity without it. I can't understand why anybody believes that a facial mole makes a woman more attractive. Constance Talmadge looks much prettier as the demure Helen (whose face is a mole-free zone) than as the spot-faced Lola.

George K. Arthur (who usually played gormless roles) is amusing as Colman's companion in the nightclubs and boites: Arthur looks dapper here in white tie and tails, but he sports a pair of gloves that look like they were loaned to him by Mickey Mouse. The direction by Sidney Franklin is stodgy and slow. I'll rate this movie one point out of 10. I might rate it as high as 2 points if somebody could digitally remove that mole from Constance Talmadge's face.

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