Movies I've Missed Until Now: The Chaperone (2018)

We’re fans of the TV show DOWNTON ABBEY, so when we came across this DVD at the library that said, “From the writer and director of DOWNTON ABBEY”, we figured it might be worth watching. As it turns out, Julian Fellowes wrote the screenplay, but it’s based on a novel by Laura Moriarty. And while DOWNTON ABBEY is so very British, THE CHAPERONE is pure Americana.

This movie opens in Wichita, Kansas, in 1921, as 16-year-old Louise Brooks is about to head off to New York to study at a famous dance studio. The thing is, she needs a chaperone to go with her. A local woman played by Elizabeth McGovern (Lady Grantham, Lord Grantham’s American-born wife on DOWNTON ABBEY) volunteers for the job. They head off to New York for various romances, scandals, and dramatic revelations that verge on the soap operatic. As a longtime fan of soap operas, that’s fine with me.

And I enjoyed this based-on-a-true-story drama, too. The pace is leisurely, and the tone is genteel for the most part, although some more sordid parts of life crop up every now and then. The acting and the production values are very good. I think the movie captures the time period quite well.

Although there’s a framing sequence set in the 1940s, the main story ends before Louise Brooks becomes a big star in silent movies and her career then falls apart for various reasons. It bothered me a little that there’s absolutely no mention in THE CHAPERONE that her final film was OVERLAND STAGE RAIDERS, one of the entries in the Three Mesquiteers series with John Wayne as Stony Brooke, Ray Corrigan as Tucson Smith, and Max Terhune as Lullaby Joslin. It probably won’t come as a surprise to any of you that that’s actually the only Louise Brooks movie I’ve ever seen . . .