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Beauty and the Beast

The story of a young man's embarrassing encounter with a young lady's woollen undergarment at the theatre.

Comedy 1922 39 mins Silent

Overview

The fourth wall has gone missing in this frothy comic curtain-raiser by British film’s power-couple of the day, Ivy Close and Guy Newall. They become aware of us, the ‘dear Public’ looking in at them, but so as not to be rude they take us along to their dressing rooms and into the studio while preparing to tell us a story about ‘IT’.

The ‘IT’ in question, predating Elinor Glyn’s famous quality of charismatic allure, has a pull of a different kind. It’s a woolly vest forced on poor Beauty (Ivy Close) by her parents as she has a cold. She protests and vows to marry the man who can rid her of the monster. At the theatre the Beast (Guy Newall), fidgety because of the boring play, manages to catch the loose thread of Beauty’s vest and unconsciously unravels the undergarment entirely. At the denouement we are firmly ejected. A great example of self-conscious 1920s British film humour.

Director

Guy Newall

Featuring

Ivy Duke , Guy Newall , Winifred Sadler and Douglas Munro

Genres

Comedy

Country

United Kingdom

Language

Czech with English subtitles