Leading Women: Exit Smiling (1926)

Beatrice Lillie was already a stage superstar and billed as ‘the funniest woman in the world’ when she made her Hollywood debut in this film – her only silent and an early solo directing gig for longtime Harold Lloyd collaborator Sam Taylor. In it, she plays a maid working for a travelling theatre company who dreams of becoming a leading lady. But there’s a snag. Unlike Lillie, she can’t act. Various reviewers describe her as ‘wonderful, hilarious, mesmerising”.

Watch out too for Franklin Pangborn in a laugh-out-loud role which earned this film a place in TCM’s Gay Images in Hollywood series. With an onscreen introduction by Slapstick favourite film historian legend David Robinson and with live piano accompaniment from Daan van den Hurk.
Approx event running time 85 mins