It's great to find this movie is now available on a quite watchable Alpha DVD. Obviously based on a stage play, it is divided into Three Acts. Act One is marvelous. Great fun as Mary Pickford completely derails a stage show. Director Busby Berkeley has a great time inventing all these hilarious mishaps and Mary Pickford plays them out herself without using any doubles. Unfortunately, for Acts Two and Three, Berkeley was replaced by a director who was completely under the thumb of Miss Pickford. As a result, Act Two is lousy, and Act Three is even worse. We keep waiting for Mary to top some of the hilarious routines she pulled off so skilfully in Act One, but she doesn't. True, the ho-hum, super-boring script gives her few chances to do so, but Mary obviously revels in hogging the camera whether or not the script is amusing or just plain boring and repetitive. The director here is not Berkeley but a guy who is obviously completely under Mary's thumb, and to make matters worse, Reginald Denny is woefully miscast as the super-boring straight guy.
Review of Kiki
