Event

The Goose Woman

(Clarence Brown, United States, 1925, 35mm, 85 min
New 35mm print!
Sunday, May 13 at 07:00PM

UCLA Festival of Preservation

Louise Dresser, who would go on to star in another of our features - the documentary series This Is Your Life heads the cast of this 1925 film based on a murder case in which the primary witness was an unpredictable "pig lady." Rather than a pig lady, Dresser plays an elderly "goose woman," an opera star fallen from glory and mother to a neglected illegitimate son. Claiming to have witnessed a local murder in a final attempt at fame, she gives testimony which threatens to incriminate her son, seeding the conflict that Dresser renders with brutal precision. Director Clarence Brown - famous for directing 10 different actors in Oscar-nominated roles - and Mary Pickford's brother Jack round out the lineup of a film whose performances have made it impossible to forget.