Los Angeles. Remember "Mem", a nice woman, hastly married Scudder. On a hunch, while they were on a train, she secretly leaves the waggon on a stop and flees in the desert. There she is found by actor Tom, who was playing a Sheik on a camel of a movie set. Mem settles in at Hollywood, and when an actress is injured by a lighting lamp that falls on her, director Frank auditions Mem for a part. Mem is bad at playing a comedy role, but gets a role in a film anyway. Scudder turns out to actually be a crook who steals the money from the women he seduces. When Scudder sees Mem in a scene in a film at the cinema, he goes to her room and says he wants her back. When a lightning strikes a circus tent during filming, Scudder is so jealous at Frank that he tries to kill him with the propeller of a wind making machine, but dies himself instead. Frank later kisses Mem.
"Souls for Sale" attracted renewed interest when film critic Roger Ebert included it in his "Great Movies" list: while the movie is a really well made early satire on Hollywood, its inclusion in the Pantheon of cinema classics is still a little bit undue and unwarranted. Even though the story is presented as a drama, director Rupert Hughes amusingly refuses to treat it as such, and instead crafts several jokes throughout, including numerous witty examples of dialogues, which is quite unusual for a silent film. In one such scene, a reverend is rehearsing a sermon aimed against Hollywood, lamenting: "Oh Los Angeles, thy name should be Los Diaboles!" In another, when Mem is saved from dehydration in the desert by a man, she asks him: "Are you real or a mirage?", and he replies with: "Neither, I am a movie actor." When an extra is hitting on actress Leva, she melodramatically explains that she is reluctant due to her deceased husband: "My heart is in the grave with Tim." Besides taking a jab at Hollywood, where the actors have to "sell" themselves to the audience, in any way possible, "Souls" is also interesting for giving rare one-minute behind-the-scenes of Erich von Stroheim directing "Greed" and Charlie Chaplin directing "A Woman of Paris", since the heroine stumbles on their set on two occasions while trying to "make it" in the movie world. Several plot twists keep the story moving, yet the very good impression is somewhat ruined by a rather melodramatic (and ridiculous) ending, though the film deserves to be seen and is never a waste of time.
Grade:+++
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