Plot Summary - POSSIBLE SPOILERS AHEAD - - A ham actor named Charley (Warner Oland) thinks of himself as the next "Booth" but his theatrical troupe know him as "Good Time Charley". Hartwell (Montagu Love), the manager of the troupe, spends his free time hitting on Charley's attractive actress wife. One day, while Charley is on-stage, Hartwell's pursuit of her causes her to fall off a scaffolding and be killed. Poor Charley widowed - all he has now is his acting and his little 3-year old daughter Rosita. Cut to fifteen years later, Rosita (Helene Costello) is a star attraction in the show - a dancing and tumbling beauty. Bad man Hartwell has a grown son, described as a chip "of" the old block, who loves her. Hartwell, now a famous Broadway producer, hires Rosita to star in his show and she's soon a hit on Broadway. He refuses to take Charley into the show too - until he's forced to hire him in order to keep his star Rosita from quitting. After Rosita elopes with the son - Charley, thought of as "an old fossil", is kicked out right before his Opening Night debut. Oh dear! - things just go from bad to worse for him when, while forced to perform in rundown theaters to earn a living, he gets an illness and becomes blind. Out-of-work, but with a pal helping him out and money being saved towards a $1,000 operation that will cure him, he is visited by Rosita who has been pressed to ask her dad for money by her bum husband. Charley keeps his blindness and jobless status a secret from his daughter (he even goes so far as to tell her he is a huge success on Broadway) - and actually gives her his savings of 800 bucks, willing to sacrifice for her sake. And things just go downhill from there - for both Rosita and Charley too, until he ends up in an old actors home where Rosita is performing/helping out and the truth is finally revealed.
Review - An excellent silent melodrama, directed by Michael Curtiz - screened at Cinecon 45 with a very nice-looking print. The film includes some interesting photography and editing - notable in my memory is a tracking shot showing the different faces in the audience in close-ups as they watch Charley perform on stage near the beginning of the film. Also, Rosita's rehearsals for her Broadway debut are shown in an interesting montage of overlapping photography. The stand out, and what really makes this film such a good one, is the performance of Warner Oland as Charley, memorable and moving - he's just terrific, his eyes so expressive. Now, I have to say, I kept wondering why his character keeps insisting on keeping the daughter in the dark about his many problems - can't see why he doesn't just tell her about it from the start. Oh well, I guess that would have sort of nipped the plot in the bud. A quality film, well worth seeing - perhaps my favorite film screened at Cinecon 45. Rating - 9 to 9.5/10 stars
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