Hearst further hindered Davies' career by insisting she star only in costumes dramas in which she often played "a doll-sweetheart out of the 1890s, in the manner of D. W. Griffith heroines." Davies herself was more inclined to develop her comic talents alongside her friends Charlie Chaplin and Mary Pickford at United Artists, but Hearst pointedly discouraged this. Hearst preferred seeing her in expensive historical pictures, but she also appeared in contemporary comedies like "Tillie the Toiler", "The Fair Co-Ed" (both 1927), and especially three directed by King Vidor, "Not So Dumb" (1930), "The Patsy" and the backstage-in-Hollywood saga "Show People" (both 1928). "The Patsy" contains her imitations, which she usually did for friends, of silent stars Lillian Gish, Mae Murray and Pola Negri. Vidor saw Davies as a comedic actress instead of the dramatic actress that Hearst wanted her to be. He noticed she was the life of parties and incorporated that into his films.