Bruce Loeb on Piano. Some of Allan Dwan's most appealing work is to be found in a series of films he made with Gloria Swanson-several of her best films, as well, including Manhandled, Stage Struck, and What a Widow. Stage Struck, aside from being a beguiling comedy about a West Virginia waitress who takes up acting to prevent her boyfriend from taking up with actresses, is important as one of the first films to contain Technicolor effects, which are beautifully preserved in this Eastman House print. Dwan recalled (in Peter Bogdanovich's book The Last Pioneer) "the dream sequence, in which Gloria, playing a little punk who wants to be an actress, fancies herself a great person in the theater-and it was a magnificent pageant- pageant-all in color....We would never dream of using (Technicolor) for a whole picture-but for a short sequence of that kind, I thought it might be effective."