Summary
Alice’s journey from the pastoral serenity of the cornfields to the predatory hustle of the city serves as a sharp, silent-era critique of the 'stardom' industry. Lured by a deceptive advertisement for a rapid-fire movie school, she arrives with pockets full of hope and a bankroll that is promptly drained by opportunistic instructors. The film captures her humiliating 'audition'—a sequence where her attempts at tragic sorrow are met with accidental laughter—before she is unceremoniously handed a worthless diploma. Forced to survive while chasing a dream that has already fleeced her, Alice takes a job as a public-facing pancake flipper in a restaurant window. When a wealthy actor falls for her through the glass, Alice constructs a fragile web of lies regarding her social status. The narrative tension peaks as her rural past, personified by a bumbling boyfriend with his own misguided cinematic ambitions, arrives to dismantle her urban masquerade.
Synopsis
Alice leaves her cornfields to answer the ad of a movie school that promises to make a shining star out of her in record breaking time. Alice arrives at the school - they get her bank roll - and immediately start in to see the way she registers in front of a camera. She is ordered to shed a few tears and the result is a lot of laughs and giggles. A few more trials and she is turned out a finished actress. A diploma is handed to her with the advice to call on the big producers at once. However, in the meantime Alice has to eat and takes a job turning pancakes in one of a well known chain of restaurants. At a studio, she meets a rich actor and tells him that she is the daughter of the restaurant proprietor. They fall in love but Alice nearly loses him when, after seeing her in the window, he decides to visit her table. Her boyfriend from the country also has movie aspirations and is on her trail. Many complication follow.