Norma Shearer laughing [in Jackie Cooper’s Christmas party (x)]
As MGM never allowed to record any bloopers to maintain the glamorous image of their stars, we will never get to see all those funny moments when an actor messed up his/her line or when something funny happened to them. However, there are a few unscripted moments in some of Norma Shearer’s films. In one scene in “Their Own Desire” she almost slipped and threatened to fall back into the swimming pool after Robert Montgomery was playing with her toes. In “Riptide” she is startled when the gramophone shuts close, in “A Free Soul” the donkey chases and knocks down a fellow actor and in “Marie Antoinette” the boy who plays her son wants to put down his chair a bit too enthusiastically, which makes him fall.
Norma Shearer and Robert Montgomery on set of “Their Own Desire” (1929)
