For Reel

Director: Edward F. Cline

Alice White came to Hollywood as a script girl for director Josef von Sternberg and eventually would find her way into pictures at the dusk of the silent era. Her performance in The Naughty Flirt neatly demonstrates why some had compared her to Clara Bow–she plays cute with the best of them, with much of the film having a preoccupation with her fluttering eyelashes and winning dimples. It’s only the historical interest of her star persona that makes the forgettable programmer worth watching. White plays a reckless socialite who turns straight in order to marry an attorney (Paul Page). Even if not especially well performed, there’s a lively vivacity in the early sequences that follow the hi-jinx of White and her buddies and it’s frankly baffling that audiences are meant to root for her to give that lifestyle up for the bore of a man she ends up with. Worst of all is that her turning point comes when he literally takes her over his knee and spanks her. Myrna Loy’s villainous supporting role has its moments, but it’s not terribly high praise to say that her’s is the best performance in the film.