Mae Murray got her start dancing with Vernon Castle on Broadway and soon was a star in the Ziegfeld Follies. Despite her diminutive size, she was an energetic powerhouse on stage. Her film career, featuring Murray's skills in dance and light comedy began in 1916. The Delicious Little Devil was her twentieth film.
The Delicious Little Devil (1919)
Mary McGuire (Murray) is a sweet but precocious girl with working class roots. When she's fired from her job as a hat check girl, Mary answers an ad for a cabaret dancer at "The Peach Tree Inn" claiming to be "Gloria De Moin", a well known but missing dancer of dubious reputation. A key requirement for the job is the shady past Mary lacks. The audition and subsequent performance are utterly delightful. Murray's portrayal of the good girl playing bad in an unfamiliar and seedy nightclub world is adorable. This is one case when a stagy, over-the-top performance, the opposite of someone understated like Mary Pickford, is not only called for but perfectly suited to the part. Murray's character performing "The Peacock Walk" to the adulation of the darkened club begins with preparations by Mary, a little girl play-acting the part, and ends in a vampy, sexy and hilarious success!
The Delicious Little Devil (1919)
Mary McGuire (Murray) is a sweet but precocious girl with working class roots. When she's fired from her job as a hat check girl, Mary answers an ad for a cabaret dancer at "The Peach Tree Inn" claiming to be "Gloria De Moin", a well known but missing dancer of dubious reputation. A key requirement for the job is the shady past Mary lacks. The audition and subsequent performance are utterly delightful. Murray's portrayal of the good girl playing bad in an unfamiliar and seedy nightclub world is adorable. This is one case when a stagy, over-the-top performance, the opposite of someone understated like Mary Pickford, is not only called for but perfectly suited to the part. Murray's character performing "The Peacock Walk" to the adulation of the darkened club begins with preparations by Mary, a little girl play-acting the part, and ends in a vampy, sexy and hilarious success!