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Two films Mabel Normand and silent film comedy fans will not want to miss on DVD are "Hollywood Cavalcade" (1939) with Alice Faye (pictured above alongside Buster Keaton) and Don Ameche, and "The Perils of Pauline" (1947) with Betty Hutton and John Lund. Both are decidedly fictional yarns about early Hollywood; done, incidentally, in beautiful technicolor. Yet they contain more than a few overt, and sometimes direct, references in them to the actual Mabel Normand and Mack Sennett story -- with a bit of Sister Carrie thrown in for drama. The portraits rendered of the film industry in both movies is singulalry fascinating in what they say about the formation of Holllywood and about Hollywood at the time these films were made -- clearly very much had changed, and there is a fair amount of distortion and revisionist history by the latter as it attempts to re-live and recreate the former.

But there are, even so, some authentic reminders and touches of Keystone and the silent film era. In the case of "Cavalcade," Sennett himself both appears (including giving a short speech) and reportedly assisted in the film's production. And while Betty Hutton is presented in "Perils of Pauline" as playing serial queen Pearl White, her character far more resembles a Mabel Normand type. Indeed, Hutton had originally been slotted by Paramount to do a bio-pic of Sennett in which it was intended she would play Mabel, but wound up making "Pauline" instead. Between the two, "Pauline" is probably the more enjoyable film, but both have plenty in them that will be of interest to movie history buffs, including, in the case of "Cavalcade," supporting roles and cameos by Buster Keaton, Ford Sterling, Ben Turpin, Chester Conklin, Hank Mann, Snub Pollard, Al Jolson, and Rin Tin Tin Jr., as well as Sennett; while "Pauline" counts among its cast Chester Conklin, Hank Man, Snub Pollard, William Farnum, Paul Panzer, James Finlayson, and Creighton Hale.

Another not dissimilar tribute and treatment of early Hollywood, though in black and white, is the later "Abbott and Costello Meet the Keystone Kops" (1955). Here Sennett again shows up briefly as himself, speaking a few lines to Costello. While not the epic "Cavalcade" and "Pauline" in their way are, it's better than average Abbott and Costello fare, and holds its own as nostalgia and casual entertainment.

Later Note. Marilyn Slater, subsequent to my posting this, passed along these remarks, courtesy of both herslf and William M. Drew; with Mr. Drew having among his many scholarly distinctions (as some of you already know) a special expertise and interest in the subject of Pearl White:
"I was talking to William Drew about your opening page and he told me that the co-author (with P. J. Wolfson) of the script of Betty's 'Perils of Pauline' was none other than Frank Butler, who had written 'The Nickel Hopper' twenty years before!
"According to WMD [i.e. William M. Drew], Mabel's film was only the second film the former screen actor is credited with having written. So since Butler had actually known and worked with Mabel (she had, after all, played a major role in his career as the success of his film with her launched him as a screenwriter), it is not improbable that he drew on his memories of her in depicting the real-life Pearl White."

Post-PostScript. And at the very last, Marilyn also very kindly and graciously (as usual) furnishes us with this most apt and (for us) timely article on the Betty Hutton-Mabel Normand connection, and that coincidentally she's had on the back-burner for some time -- until now...
See http://looking-for-mabel.webs.com/bettyhutton.htm