| Breakfast at Sunrise | |
| Director: | Malcolm St. Clair |
| Producer: | Constance Talmadge Joseph Schenck |
| Starring: | Constance Talmadge Marie Dressler |
| Cinematography: | Robert Kurrle |
| Distributor: | First National Pictures |
| Country: | United States |
| Language: | Silent film (English intertitles) |
Breakfast at Sunrise is a 1927 silent film comedy directed by Malcolm St. Clair and produced by and starring Constance Talmadge. It was distributed by First National Pictures.[1] [2] [3]
Breakfast at Sunrise is one of the “sophisticated comedies” that St. Clair filmed of Paramount.[4] The film presents a “doubled-plot line” in which two couples “rivaling each other, respectively toast with champagne, and the dueling/doubling effect is achieved with cross-cutting.”[5]
Prints survive at George Eastman House and Library of Congress.[6]
Two denizens of a grand hotel nightclub, the rich and attractive Madeleine (Constance Talmadge), and the poor and handsome Marquis (Bryant Washburn) have a common desire: they wish to discipline their respective lovers by making them jealous: Madeleine, her betraying boyfriend Champignol (Albert Gran), and Marquis, his faithless mistress Loulou (Alice White), who performs at the nightclub.
Madeleine and Marquis enter into a conspiracy: they will publicly concoct a phony courtship, pretending to be in love. This charade is paralleled by dozens of nondescript people who have been hired by the hotel owner to parade about the nightclub in fancy dress. The purpose is to make the hotel appear prosperous to prospective customers. The entire hotel staff is operating under false pretenses: nobody is who he or she pretends to be. Madeleine and Marquis go so far as to stage a mock marriage to delude their lovers. In the end they abandon the deception, and genuinely fall in love with one another.[7]