Hi everyone! Welcome back to “The Shadow Land of Make Believe: Mythologising Hollywood in the 1920s”. Today, we will be looking at a film from the beginning of the decade – a short documentary called A Trip to Paramounttown (1922).
Dorothy Dalton's four variants meet up in the 'Paramount-Verse'.
This film was advertised as a “super-special” (Film Renter 8) novelty item on the cinema bill: super special for giving audiences “an intimate glimpse of the fascinating ‘back-stage’ life in [one of] the largest motion-picture studios in the world”. Given away as a free bonus if distributors purchased the next forty-one Paramount productions, the short was a promotional vehicle created to entice the public back into the magical world of the movies. Not only could viewers be privy to sneak peeks of the latest films before they hit theatres, but they could also watch the artists behind these films in action. Mind you, it was also a hasty effort to revitalise the American film industry’s respectability in the midst of several recent controversies, including the suspicious deaths of performers Virginia Rappe and William Desmond Taylor. The title “Paramounttown” has a much more wholesome ring compared to “The Tinselled City of Folly” (Muskogee Daily 8). Needless to say, 1922 was a complicated year for Hollywood.
I have a feeling this guy doesn't like Hollywood...
When I first set about writing this post, I imagined I would be crafting an analysis of Paramounttown’s available footage in regard to the studio’s early-twenties face lift. Instead, I’ve been fixating on a single scene: “Dorothy Dalton writes a scenario, including her greatest characterisations!” It begins with the aforementioned actress wandering into an elegantly decorated living room and sitting at a desk. She takes a paper and pen, thinks for a moment, and begins to write.
The lights dim, and a shadowy figure emerges. They rummage through the desk, a potential thief. Dorothy herself is nowhere to be seen. Suddenly, a second intruder arrives. The first swivels around, gun in hand, to challenge them. It’s a woman in a long white dress, as docile as her assailant is hostile. She puts her hands in the air at the sight of the pistol. Through the living room door saunters a third lady, batting a big black fan as she observes the confrontation with cool indifference. A final, friendlier face follows her into the chamber. She calms the gunslinger down before the group begins to relax in each other’s company.
The wide shot dissolves and we return to Dorothy at her desk. She holds the piece of paper in her hands, unsure of what to make of her “scenario”. It transpires that this eclectic gathering was only a product of her imagination – a congregation of her roles in 1921-1922’s Moran of the Lady Letty, The Woman Who Walked Alone, Fool’s Paradise and The Siren Call. Shaking her head, she tears the page in half and throws it out of frame before smiling at the camera. Fade to black.
This scene is remarkable in many ways – the pre-digital splitscreen editing is astonishing in and of itself, recalling some of the earliest moving pictures by French stage magician George Méliès. Dorothy Dalton’s interactions with her various selves are remarkably natural. However, what truly blows my mind about this Paramounttown segment is the sheer scale of its intertextuality. All of the characters making appearances are from four separate films, utterly unconnected to each other aside from the actress they are portrayed by. Moran Sternersen (Moran of The Lady Letty) is a plucky Scandinavian pirate; Iris Champneys (The Woman Who Walked Alone) is a penniless American socialite; Poll Patchouli (Fool’s Paradise) is a war veteran’s deceitful girlfriend; Charlotte Woods (The Siren Call) is a nightclub dancer caught in a love triangle. It’s a drastic departure from the ‘twin’ effect – using the same actor to double as two individuals in one shot – because there is no way that these women are from equivalent narrative worlds, even as doppelgängers. That’s how things look on the surface, at least.
Dual roles were the "novelty du jour" in silent Hollywood. Here's Norma Shearer and Norma Shearer in Lady of the Night (1925). Norma's body double was Joan Crawford.
This ‘multiverse’ storytelling method is something I’ve only previously seen in the Marvel franchise: bringing variants of Peter Parker together to protect New York City in Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021), or transporting audiences to a reality where John Krasinski depicts Mister Fantastic in Doctor Strange: Multiverse of Madness (2022). Nevertheless, this re-invigoration of the comic book genre only incorporates superheroes within the Marvel umbrella. Mickey Mouse doesn't burst through a portal to assist Captain America in saving humanity, despite being Disney’s poster child (and effectively Steve Rogers’ employer). A Trip to Paramounttown stretches the multiverse concept to the extreme – almost a century before the MCU – by showcasing the talents of a contracted actor simply in order to bolster the image of a studio brand. From now on, I’m going to call this phenomenon the ‘Paramount-Verse’!
Dorothy Dalton basically made this meme way before these three were even born!
It's important to consider the order in which the ladies arrive in Paramounttown. First comes Moran, furtively digging through the contents of her performer’s desk. She is the daughter of a ship captain in her titular story, just as capable at sea as any man on board the Lady Letty. After the vessel catches fire and her father dies, she is rescued by Ramon Laredo (newly-minted superstar Rudolph Valentino), a runaway socialite turned pirate. Despite insisting that she isn’t “made for men” – and wishing she was born one – Moran ends up falling in love with Ramon after a battle with his chauvinistic crew. “It is good to be a girl after all,” she sighs as the two sailors share a passionate kiss.
That may be – but it is the version of Moran with loose trousers, unkempt bobbed hair and a toted pistol who appears in Paramounttown instead of the "more feminine, definitely heterosexual woman at peace with her estrogen” (Leider 180). This gender-nonconforming character undoubtedly resonated as a curiosity for early-twenties audiences, particularly in comparison to Dorothy’s sweeter and ‘more ladylike’ ingenues like Iris Champneys. An aristocrat who is wrongfully accused of infidelity, she hides away in the South African mountains and accidentally becomes embroiled in a murder plot. Her introduction to the Paramount-Verse pans out in much the same way: walking in with a concerned expression and a dainty lace gown, she immediately surrenders to Moran’s weapon. We might as well be watching a Western showdown.
Dorothy beating the bad guys with Rudolph Valentino in Moran of the Lady Letty (1922).
Meanwhile, Poll Patchouli is an inadvertent seductress, tempted to lie to her ex-soldier beau (Conrad Nagel) who she accidentally renders blind. She pretends to be a French dancer, the girl he really loves, in order to receive his affection – and is extremely adept at imitating her rival’s every vocal inflection. Perhaps this is why she doesn’t seem to care about the gun being shoved in Iris' face? She is so accustomed to artifice that she doesn’t believe in the show being put on in front of her. Poll’s dark frock gives her something of a femme-fatale edge, like a spider spinning its web.
The tremendous contrast in which these women express their identities – either as the butch adventurer, the demure damsel or the glamourous vamp – constitutes what the documentary envisions as an audience reaction of astonishment or even amusement. This display of Dorothy’s versatile acting range, as well as the wide variety of heroines that Hollywood seemingly has to offer, literally paints a picture of the modes of femininity being examined by early American film. Dalton is apparently a chameleon who can embody each archetype with startling authenticity.
A dolled-up Dorothy in a publicity photo for Fool's Paradise (1921).
Additionally, Paramounttown actively positions itself as a documentary that is proud of its cinematic heritage, excited for what the future may bring and keen to bring the public along for the ride. By recalling productions in its back catalogue – especially in an era before home recording technology – the studio attempts to recognise those members of the cinema who have consistently supported their endeavours and made special memories through them. Films aren’t disposable pieces of junk designed to snatch change away from pockets: they’re an art form for everyone to appreciate on a uniquely personal level. It’s on purpose that Charlotte Woods, protagonist of The Siren Call, is the last to make an entrance. With a release date of September 1922, there are only a few months left to wait for Dorothy’s newest motion picture. The Paramount-Verse, therefore, brings symbols of yesterday, today and tomorrow together in a spectacular celebration of Hollywood history.
But what does the tearing of the paper signify? This is probably the most mysterious action in the entire scene. Does it represent the boundless creativity that Dorothy – and consequently Paramount – holds within? Is this a studio that has so much time, energy and artistic prowess that they can afford to discard the ideas which fail to meet their high standards? Or is it a self-aware jab at the scenario’s author, an actress with no screenwriting experience? Paramounttown certainly relies on careful orchestration rather than a fly-on-the-wall method to documentary-making. Is the torn paper actually a symbol of Dorothy as a fantastical presence rather than as a ‘real’ subject of the film? The implication that she pens plots for Hollywood is just as fictional as the four women she conjures up from the screen, even if the lavish office she writes in is legitimately her own. The grin she gives audiences before her segment comes to a close could resemble a knowing wink, an inside joke understood. Together, we are indulging in a moment of innocent make-believe.
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