Reviews of silent film releases on home video. Copyright © 1999-2024 by Carl Bennett and the Silent Era Company. All Rights Reserved.

The Clinging Vine (1926)

This feature comedy was directed by Paul Sloane and stars Leatrice Joy and Tom Moore, with support by Robert Edeson, Toby Claude, Dell Henderson and Snitz Edwards.

Leatrice has fun with this story of A.B. Allen (Joy), a business-obsessed, mannish woman executive of a paint corporation, who comes to want to attract the attentions of men. With the direction of her boss’ wife Grandma Bancroft (Toby Claude), A.B. is transformed into a society darling — the envy of women and the object of men’s desire. But Grandma intends to make a romantic match of A.B. and her grandson, Jimmie Bancroft (Moore).

Like a journeyman baseball player, A.B. is left to play her flirting game with only the two untried pitches that were taught to her by Grandma: a longing fluttering of the eyelashes with head cocked to one side, and cooing the phrases, “Aren’t you wonderful!” and “Do go on.”

Foremost among A.B.’s newly found gentlemen friends is one B. Harvey Doolittle (Henderson), a slick grifter who becomes infatuated with A.B. but is also actively looking for his next sucker. Meanwhile, Jimmie has no idea that the fascinating woman he has met is the reviled A.B. Allen, and with the skills she has only recently been taught A.B. plays Jimmie like a violin.

As a novice inventor, Jimmie’s get-rich-quick demonstration of his clunky egg-beating machine for his grandfather ends in failure, due in no small part to Doolittle’s pranks. Convinced he is a failure, A.B. secretly pays Jimmie $25,000 for the worthless machine. Doolittle overhears of the transaction and wastes no time swooping in to scam Jimmie out of his new money. About this time, we all have to wonder if Jimmie isn’t a total nitwit.

Meanwhile, having found his angle, Doolittle is working on the Bancroft house guests, taking them in turn for whatever monies and jewelry he can get them to hand over. Desperate for a solution to the mess, A.B. gets a brainwave and proceeds with a plan to scam the scammer.

We must say, whether for intentional or unintentional comic effect, the design of Joy’s dress for her introduction at the garden party early in the film is joke that she only needs a Bo Peep shepherd’s crook to hit the punchline. And, of course, the point is that men are sheep.

As we said, Leatrice Joy appears to have all sorts of fun playing the role of A.B., especially when plying her newly-found feminine charms on the men around her. Tom Moore is charming, as usual, as the dizzy inventor. The scarcely-seen Irish actress Toby Claude is adequate as Grandma, and Dell Henderson makes a good comic antagonist. Snitz Edwards is a welcome cast member as his usual put-upon self, all mugging and huffs of exasperation. A few of the intertitles written by John Krafft are notable, such as when asked if she is A.B., Jimmie jumps in for his new girlfriend and says, ”No, she isn’t A.B. — she’s O.K.”

Ultimately, this light romantic comedy is frothy, tasty entertainment worthy of multiple viewings.

— Carl Bennett