Tiffany Pictures is often judged by its last couple years' output, typified as specializing in ultra-cheap, stilted and slow moving talkies. In the silent era, however, their product is indistinguishable budget-wise from every other studio save M-G-M. Tiffany in the 1920s was more comparable to a studio like early Columbia Pictures; making quality features on less money than the majors. Director Louis Gasnier -- early shepherd of Max Linder and director of both "The Perils of Pauline" and "Reefer Madness" -- likewise has his detractors despite a large and respectable output mostly lost to us. One Gasnier film that is not lost, however, is "That Model from Paris," which survives in two 28 mm prints; one at the Library of Congress, the other in Canada. It stars Marceline Day, a radiant cutie of the first order in what has got to be one of her finest and most characteristic roles. She is Jane Miller, a shopworn angel with nothing to wear, working as a cashier in an apparel store who gets free theater tickets from the boss in a rare moment of charity. She unwittingly goes to the show in a dress borrowed without permission and wins her discharge from the drudgery of her position, though also her source of livelihood. By chance, she is hired as a model by slime-ball Morgan Grant (Ward Crane) who nonetheless maintains some slimy designs on her, not to mention a hidden lien on her new career. Jane is engaged to fill in for a no-show French fashion model and to keep her secret intact she is instructed to answer every question with one word -- "no." This leads to some very funny situations when she falls in love with Robert Richmond (Bert Lytell), a senior partner in the firm that she is representing and a seemingly incurable playboy; he finds that he just cannot stay away from "That Model from Paris" -- who is really not from Paris, and only says "no." At first glance, Lytell comes off like a poor man's Neil Hamilton, but as the film progresses you begin to feel for his character, as you definitely do for Day's; she is bright, very pretty and graceful and her big, emotive eyes help to tell the story as much as any other element in the picture. Director Gasnier had his own struggle with the English language which he was never able to master, and you can see that he was sympathetic to Jane's plight; having to feign exclusive competence in a language that she didn't understand. As a silent movie, "That Model from Paris" is entirely successful in conveying a conflict that is rooted in dialogue. Though he was not credited, director Robert Florey once claimed "That Model from Paris" as his first film, and this is entirely possible, as Gasnier preferred to work with a second director who wasn't always named. As a Frenchman, Florey would have been an obvious, and useful, candidate for the job. Whether or not "That Model from Paris" is the result of one or two minds, the finished film plays seamlessly, and the pacing is near perfect. I saw the Library of Congress print projected from a clattering pair of vintage 28 mm machines, and while it looked fine, the LC print has some amount of damage typical to 28 mm prints. As 28 mm was a safety film format we are not in immediate danger of losing "That Model of Paris" to decomposition, but it is such a fine film that one may hope that it is moved up in the preservation queue; it serves as a corrective to the various critical brickbats hurled at its studio and director, and is a captivating, smart and highly entertaining experience -- it is hard not to praise it enough.
