The Love Expert (Silent)

Babs Hardcastle, precocious heiress to a million dollar fortune, is thrown out of boarding school for playing matchmaker to the student body instead of studying. Sent to live with her Aunt Emily, she learns that the older woman is stymied in her attempts to wed handsome bachelor Jim Winthrop. According to family tradition, Jim is forbidden to marry until suitable mates are found for his two homely sisters. Realizing she can finally put her matchmaking obsession to good use, Babs starts a nationwide hunt for boys willing to marry the Winthrop girls. But her plan backfires when she inexplicably starts falling for Jim...

The Love Expert is one of the few surviving features starring the lovely Constance Talmadge. While her more famous sister Norma was known for her work in melodramas, Constance specialized in light comedies like A Pair of Silk Stockings (1918) and The Primitive Lover (1922). Despite this, her most famous role was as the Mountain Girl in D.W. Griffith's Intolerance (1916). Though of course not audible in The Love Expert, John Halliday's upper-class British accent would serve him well in villainous roles in The Terror Abroad (1933) and Desire (1936) after the advent of sound. Screenwriter Anita Loos wrote such classics as Red-Headed Woman (1932), San Francisco (1936), and The Women (1939). Her 1925 novel Gentlemen Prefer Blondes eventually became a hit musical and Hollywood film. BONUS: Her Bridal Night-Mare (Silent, BW, 1920): Colleen Moore plays a young bride-to-be whose life is turned upside down when the groom abandons her at the altar. Directed by Al Christie.