By 1918, tired and dispirited and fed up with Mack Sennett's treatment of her, Mabel Normand was thrilled to go over to the newly formed Goldwyn Pictures where she felt she would get an opportunity to show her talent as a versatile actress. Early in 1917 Goldwyn launched Goldwyn Pictures with the six women he had signed - Mabel Normand, Mae Marsh, Madge Kennedy, Jane Cowl, Maxine Elliot and opera star Mary Garden. His first movie with the temperamental Garden was a nightmare and he always claimed Mabel's movies kept the company solvent - even though they weren't as popular as her Sennett movies.
Wonderful to see what was the original Goldwyn lion logo, an early example of Cedric Gibbon's art direction and the type of role perfected by Mabel - a small town dreamer who gets a chance to live out her fantasy!! She is Mayme Ladd, a notions counter drudge who yearns for romance. She eagerly laps up all that Madame Yvette, an Egyptian seeress (exotically played by Eugenie Besserer), tells her of her past life as a Spanish beauty, Rosa Alvero, and hunting around at home for some proof of her exotic heritage finds her mother's old Spanish dancing costume!!
From then on she is Rosa, whenever she dons the costume. Her flatmate thinks she is balmy, once friendly work mates shun her but that doesn't stop her going to the shopgirls picnic and stopping the show as Rosa "zee beautiful"!! She also catches the eye of Dr. Maynard Drew, someone else who longs for a little spice in their lives!! There are some funny gags - fiddling around with mannequin legs that are made to look like her own, the length she goes to, to wrest off an urchin's rags so she can get into the doctor's office incognito. But the old Mabel spark is not there, she looks tired, really thin, the gorgeous healthy, rosy cheeked Mabel is missing and it's easy to understand why the movie was not a success.
By the time of "What Happened to Rosa", Mabel's private life was catching up with her and it proved to be one of her last Goldwyn releases. Adolphe Menjou, at the start of his long career, played Dr. Drew's reporter friend.
Wonderful to see what was the original Goldwyn lion logo, an early example of Cedric Gibbon's art direction and the type of role perfected by Mabel - a small town dreamer who gets a chance to live out her fantasy!! She is Mayme Ladd, a notions counter drudge who yearns for romance. She eagerly laps up all that Madame Yvette, an Egyptian seeress (exotically played by Eugenie Besserer), tells her of her past life as a Spanish beauty, Rosa Alvero, and hunting around at home for some proof of her exotic heritage finds her mother's old Spanish dancing costume!!
From then on she is Rosa, whenever she dons the costume. Her flatmate thinks she is balmy, once friendly work mates shun her but that doesn't stop her going to the shopgirls picnic and stopping the show as Rosa "zee beautiful"!! She also catches the eye of Dr. Maynard Drew, someone else who longs for a little spice in their lives!! There are some funny gags - fiddling around with mannequin legs that are made to look like her own, the length she goes to, to wrest off an urchin's rags so she can get into the doctor's office incognito. But the old Mabel spark is not there, she looks tired, really thin, the gorgeous healthy, rosy cheeked Mabel is missing and it's easy to understand why the movie was not a success.
By the time of "What Happened to Rosa", Mabel's private life was catching up with her and it proved to be one of her last Goldwyn releases. Adolphe Menjou, at the start of his long career, played Dr. Drew's reporter friend.