Beatrice is a maid to a naughty society girl. The latter's lover takes a liking to the maid and a riot follows during a dance.

A champagne coupe smashes against a parquet floor; the shards catch the chandelier’s blaze and for one crystalline instant the whole bourgeois century seems to fracture—this is how Merely a Maid announces itself, a 1921 one-reeler that punches far above its eight-minute weight. Beatrice La Plante, eyes the bruised v...

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Comparing the cinematic DNA and archive impact of two defining moments in cult history.

Fred C. Newmeyer

Henry Edwards
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" A champagne coupe smashes against a parquet floor; the shards catch the chandelier’s blaze and for one crystalline instant the whole bourgeois century seems to fracture—this is how Merely a Maid announces itself, a 1921 one-reeler that punches far above its eight-minute weight. Beatrice La Plante, eyes the bruised violet of twilight lilacs, incarnates the downstairs girl whose surname history forgot. She polishes silver while the gramophone croons of love she is not invited to purchase. Upsta..."
United States


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