Mabel Normand Double Feature: Raggedy Rose (1926) / What Happened to Rosa (1920) (Silent) (DVD)

Mabel Normand (1892-1930) is widely considered one of the greatest comedians of the silent era, during a time when the competition was predominantly male. Growing up working-class in New York, Mabel started modeling at age 16, posing for Charles Dana Gibson, creator of the "Gibson Girl." Her good looks soon got her bit parts at Vitagraph. She so impressed Mack Sennett that the producer took Normand with him when he founded Keystone Studios in 1912. Though Sennett initially cast Mabel as one of his bathing beauties, he quickly noticed the young woman had a gift for comedy. Her madcap sense of humor meant that she could stand shoulder-to-shoulder with Charlie Chaplin and "Fatty" Arbuckle, with whom she often co-starred in shorts. Now headlining in features, Mabel's popularity became so great that she opened her own film studio outside Hollywood. But two scandals -- the 1922 murder of her boyfriend William Desmond Taylor and the 1924 shooting of Courtland S. Dines by her chauffeur -- brought an end to Normand's movie career. Tragically, Mabel died at the young age of 37 from complications due to tuberculosis, three years after making her last film. However, she will forever be remembered as a trailblazer for women in comedy.

What Happened To Rosa? (B&W, SILENT, 1920): A fortune teller reveals to meek shopgirl Mayme Ladd that she is the reincarnation of Spanish royalty Rosa Alvaro. Inspired, she attends a costume party dressed as the Hispanic noblewoman. Handsome doctor Maynard Drew finds himself immediately infatuated with the mysterious girl, and vows to make her his wife. But the upper-class physician may be disappointed when he learns that his new love spends her days selling hosiery and lingerie...One of Mabel's best roles, What Happened To Rosa? Is Directed by Victor Schertzinger, who later made two of the Hope & Crosby "Road" pictures, Road to Singapore (1940) and Road to Zanzibar (1941).

Raggedy Rose (B&W, 1926, SILENT): Raggedy Rose was Mabel's bid for a big-screen comeback after the recent tragedies in her personal life and an unsuccessful stint on Broadway. Mabel plays Rose, a poor girl who works at a junk shop. Hearing about a woman whose life improved after she was hit by a car, Rose fakes an automobile accident and ends up in the mansion of millionaire Ted Tudor. Now waited on hand and foot, the destitute young woman refuses to return to her former life. She's determined to make the aloof Tudor her husband, or it's back to the junk shop...Despite the help of Mabel's friends Hal Roach (who produced) and Stan Laurel (who co-directed), Raggedy Rose flopped at the box-office. The comedienne retired from Hollywood permanently a few months after its release on November 7, 1926. The print of this rare film comes from the collection of John K. Carpenter, "The Movie Man".

• silent