In 1928 Alice White, First National Pictures’ blonde answer to Clara Bow, starred in the movie musical Show Girl. She plays Dixie Dugan, an aspiring dancer who fakes her own kidnapping as a publicity stunt.
Based on popular writer J.P. McEvoy’s Dixie Dugan character, Show Girl was the first starring vehicle for White.
Long thought lost, a single print of the film was discovered in an Italian archive in 2015. Ned Price, Chief Preservation Officer at Warner Brothers, arranged for the film’s repatriation, while The Vitaphone Project assisted in locating a complete set of accompanying Vitaphone music and sound effects discs.
“Showgirl” will be screened with “Unseen Vitaphone Varieties – Part II,” a program of long-unseen vaudeville shorts, part of Film Forum’s “Golden Age of Vaudeville” festival.
SHOW GIRL | Film Forum, New York | October 25