Peg o' My Heart

Marion Davies was twice the age of the character she was playing, but never you mind. As a plucky Irish lass taken from village life in Erin to claim a 2-million inheritance if she lives three years with a snooty family of destitute British bluebloods, Davies is a lovely and winsome colleen in a vehicle popularized on stage and silent screen by legendary Laurette Taylor and expertly retailored for Davies. Breaking from the jaded, brassy broads she'd recently played (and of which her mentor/paramour William Randolph Hearst disapproved), Davies brings enormous charm and comically cuts through all potential blarney as the wide-eyed, plain-spoken Peg McConnell. She prevails over the snobs and parlor snakes who would underestimate, as one of the movie's tunes proclaims, this "Sweetheart Darlin'." Unabashedly sentimental, spiked with wit (courtesy of adaptor/two-time Academy Award winner* Frances Marion), sprinkled with song and deftly directed by Robert Z. Leonard (The Great Ziegfeld, Pride and Prejudice), Peg o' My Heart will win you over.

• drama