A Small Town Idol
About A Small Town Idol
Sam Smith is engaged to Mary in a small town until J. Wellington Jones accuses him of theft and drives him out. In Los Angeles he takes a stunt the hired actor refuses, a jump from a bridge, and becomes a film star opposite Marcelle Mansfield. He comes home famous. Jones frames him for shooting Mary's father, and the town is ready to lynch him. Mary proves he is innocent, and the two are reconciled.
Cast & crew
More about A Small Town Idol
Mack Sennett and Erle C. Kenton directed. Sennett produced it and wrote it with John A. Waldron. Ernie Crockett, Perry Evans, and J. R. Lockwood photographed it. Allen McNeil edited it. Associated First National released it. Shooting ended in mid-November 1920. It opened at the Mission Theatre in Los Angeles on January 16, 1921. Sennett copyrighted it on February 16, 1921, as LP16165. Wid's Daily of January 15, 1921, called it his largest job to that date, more than a year in the making, at a cost of $350,000. Motion Picture News of December 25, 1920, had printed a figure of $1,000,000.
Themes
Audiences
Harry David, managing director of the Mission Theatre in Los Angeles, reported a one-week gross of $13,950 from a house of 880 seats.
Look
Ernie Crockett, Perry Evans, and J. R. Lockwood shot the small-town scenes and the Los Angeles studio work, including the bridge jump.
Preservation
Copies are in archives, including Gosfilmofond. The 1939 Warner Bros. reissue is the two-reel sound cut Sennett made in 1933.
Notes
- Ben Turpin plays Sam Smith, Phyllis Haver plays Mary, James Finlayson plays Jones, and Marie Prevost plays Marcelle Mansfield.
- Ramón Novarro, billed as Ramon Samaniegos, appears in what was his seventh film.
- Many of the players had been in Sennett's Down on the Farm the year before.
- In 1933 Sennett cut the feature to two reels and added music, effects, and narration. Warner Bros. reissued that short in 1939 as a Broadway Brevity.
- Wikipedia lists a running time of 70 minutes and 7 reels. The AFI Catalog lists 6 reels.
Scenes
- Sam jumps from a bridge when the hired actor refuses the stunt.
- Mary stops the town as it is about to lynch Sam.
Also available
- Internet Archive (1921-a-small-town-idol)
