The Goose Woman

May 13, 2012

(Clarence Brown, United States, 1925, 35mm, 85 min

New 35mm print!
Live score by Paris Hurley!

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.     

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