It was Frances Marion who advised William Randolph Hearst that the real talents of the actress (and Hearst mistress and protégée) Marion Davies lay not as "an innocent in glamorous costume epics," as Cari Beauchamp writes, but rather in comedy. Eileen Bowser of The Museum of Modern Art notes, "(Hearst) idolized Marion Davies and could not bear that she act in what he considered undignified roles. (In Zander the Great), not only is she permitted to be a slapstick comedienne, she also appears in the delicious opening sequences as an ugly duckling. It has the effect of doubly emphasizing her beauty when she is transformed." She plays an orphan who, with her adopted brother, Zander, heads out west to search for the boy's father and finds herself a heap of trouble, culminating in a shootout in a Mexican hacienda. Director George Hill is thought to have done his best work (The Big House, Zander the Great, The Secret Six) in collaboration with his wife, screenwriter Marion.