Chicago 50 - No. 11 - The Silent Film (1927)

Phillys Haver as Roxie. Photo by John Springer

The Los Angeles Times loved it Maurine Watkins' play Chicago, which played on tour at Hollywood's Music Box Theatre for 11 weeks. Its drama critic said: 'Bristling with wicked satire ... the public is treated to a caricature of itself as a nation of gum-chewing, sensation-seeking addicts who must incessantly be fed faked pictures and hysterical interviews.'

Cecil B. DeMille paid $25,000 for the rights to Chicago and produced the silent film version.

Lenore J. Coffee adapted Maurine's play for the silent feature. The DeMille 'Chicago' retains some, but not much, of the stage version's sass and zingers. 'Hang a woman with a face like that?' a reporter cracks via intertitles, sensing the jury is about to acquit a good-looking female killer. 'Say, Justice ain't so blind!'

Frank Urson directed the film, a little sluggishly. Producer DeMille reportedly took over while keeping his name off it, so as not to offend audiences who'd come to associate DeMille with the pious yet salacious biblical epic "The King of Kings," a sensation of the time.

Onstage, Maurine's cynicism rarely let up. Onscreen, in 1927, it let up plenty, allowing for sentimental melodrama and conventional romantic interests. In early 1928, the Los Angeles Times interviewed Chicago film star Phyllis Haver who played Roxie. She laid out the rationale for turning a harsh topical comedy into a softer, more palatable affair:

'It is the old story of the necessary appeal for less sophisticated audiences in smaller communities." In the play, Haver said, Roxie got away with murder. 'Back in the Middle West,' the actress noted, audiences would 'sense only the obvious, that Roxie instead of being punished was rewarded for her crime. They would think it is a perfectly terrible example for their young people... plays like 'Chicago' are for sophisticated city folk. Movies like 'Chicago' receive the biggest patronage in the hinterlands.'

From -Movies Silently:

Here is the story: Roxie Hart (Phyllis Haver) is the apple of her husband’s eye. Amos Hart (Victor Varconi) is a mild-manner tobacconist who adores his wife so much that he does all the housework, gives her breakfast in bed and occasionally pauses to… nuzzle her jingle-bell garter? Hmm.

Anyway, Roxie has expensive taste and the cigarette store that Amos owns is just not enough to give her what she wants. So, she has taken a well-to-do lover. Rodney Casley (Eugene Pallette) enjoyed Roxie’s company for a time but the bills for couture gowns and French perfume have become too much and he dumps her.

Victor Varconi as Amos and Phyllis Haver as Roxie. Photo by John Springer, 1927.

Roxie takes the news about as well as you might expect and puts a bullet through Casley. Now she’s in a fix. She’s in her apartment wearing, er, abbreviated attire with a dead body and a gun. What to do? Call Amos, naturally.

Roxie tells Amos that Casley was a burglar. Amos realizes the lie when he discovers a distinct jingle-bell garter in the dead man’s pocket. However, he loves Roxie too much to let her be arrested and tries to confess to the police. The district attorney (Warner Richmond) sees through the deception and Roxie is arrested.

That’s where the press comes into it. Roxie is a knockout and she can sell papers by the thousand with her picture and a caption that reads, “Chicago’s most beautiful murderess.” Roxie is thrilled by the attention and happily plays along.

Amos, meanwhile, is trying to find a way to free Roxie. He tries to hire Flynn (Robert Edeson), the crookedest, winningest lawyer in Chicago, but the fee is $5,000. That’s $67,000 and change in 2014 money.

Phyllis Haver as Roxie in the courtroom

Roxie, meanwhile is enjoying her time in prison. She busily clips news stories and pictures about her case. Velma (Julia Faye) is the previous murder queen and she is contemptuous of her new rival. She and Roxie end up getting into a catfight. (The fight is yet another reason to believe that DeMille directed the film.)

A desperate Amos ends up burgling Flynn’s place to get the money for Roxie’s defense. It turns out to be cash well spent. Flynn is a brilliant liar and manipulator. He fine-tunes Roxie’s story. She was defending her honor! They both grabbed for the gun!

Chicago moves along at a rapid clip, though things do slow down in the middle act when we are shown more Amos and less Roxie. Things pick right up again in time for the trial. The courtroom scenes are the showstopper of the film. Edeson and Haver play off one another extremely well and the jury’s reactions to Roxie are worth the price of admission.

Phyllis Haver was a veteran Sennett Bathing Beauty but she was also an extremely talented actress. She captures the infantile (and homicidal) personality of Roxie to perfection. You can just see the wheels turning in Roxie’s dim little brain as she tries to both save herself and gather up fame. Edeson is equally well-cast as the crooked Flynn.

--Movies Silently