You Never Know Women (1926)

A Russian performer (Florence Vidor) in a vaudeville revue finds herself in the middle of a love triangle with a magician (Clive Brook) and a wealthy playboy (Lowell Sherman). Based on the short story THE GREAT ILLUSION by Ernest Vajda and directed by William A. Wellman (THE HIGH AND THE MIGHTY). I'm rather fond of Wellman as a director so this simplistic slice of romantic melodrama was a disappointment. A lot of the film's brief running time is devoted to the vaudeville acts which aren't very interesting and while Vidor is lovely, her two leading men are a bust for different reasons. The melancholy Brook is a cipher while Sherman overdoes the oily playboy to the point that you wonder what Vidor could possibly see in him. If you're going to base an entire movie on who the heroine will end up with, you'd better make us care enough to invest in it. The movie is also rather sexist as it suggests women don't know what they want. With El Brendel who has the best moment in the movie when he kisses a bespectacled goose on the beak.