Pearl White (Betty Hutton) wants to quit her job as a sweatshop seamstress and become an actress. She impresses Julia Gibbs (Constance Collier) who is an actress with a small, traveling troupe and gets an audition with the troupe leader, Michael Farrington (John Lund). Farrington thinks Pearl is too much for the stage, that she doesn't have the chops or the temperament to be a truly great dramatic actress. In a huff, Pearl quits, followed by Julia, who gets a small part in the nascent silent film industry. But a dick-ish director's prank pisses Pearl off and she storms through several sets, impressing the director with her fearlessness. Her career takes off as the lead in an action adventure serial, "The Perils of Pauline."
This is a fictionalized account of the real Pearl White, who starred in a 1914 serial of the same name. And fun fact! They used several of the original serial's actors in either walk-on or one-line cameos. Love that.
Considering that the original serial was remade in 1933 (with a different plot), then had this film made about the making of it in 1947, and then had another remake in 1967, it feels weirdly obscure. I had never heard of Pearl White or her serials, but now I feel like I should hunt them down if only to know what the fuss was about.
It reminded me a lot of Funny Girl, in that both feature a woman succeeding and a man being a sensitive little bitch about his fragile masculinity but Pauline actually has the leg up since Mike gets over himself by the end. And despite some very dated choices, this doesn't feel as out-of-touch as it could have. I think it's because it is also looking back, trying to document a very specific moment in time. It's a little more melodramatic than I personally like but Hutton is so charismatic, I didn't even mind. I'm really glad I found this. It's in the public domain so you can find it a bunch of places, including Wikipedia, but I watched it on Amazon Prime.
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