After the disastrous sneak preview of The Dueling Cavalier, Don, Cosmo, Lina, and R. F. stand in the lobby and listen to the exiting crowd mock the terrible sound synchronization in the film. The movie poster behind them (for the silent film Lovey Mary (1926)) prominently features the name of that movie's male star, William Haines. Befitting the plot of the film, Haines was a wildly popular heartthrob star of the silent era whose career abruptly ended soon after the advent of talkies--but in Haines's case, this had nothing to do with the suitability of his speaking or singing voice. In fact, Haines made a successful transition to talkies, and was under contract to MGM during the late 1920s and early 1930s. But Haines was openly gay in an era when this was highly unusual, and in 1933, Louis B. Mayer (the head of MGM) insisted that Haines had to enter into a sham marriage for publicity. When Haines instead chose to stay with his boyfriend, Jimmie Shields, Mayer cancelled Haines's MGM contract. Blacklisted from an acting career, Haines opened a popular antiques dealership and interior design firm with Shields; they catered to Southern California's elite, including many movie stars (among their clients were Joan Crawford and Ronald Reagan and Nancy Reagan). Their renown as interior designers was well-established by 1952, when Singin' in the Rain was released, so the appearance of a Lovey Mary (1926) poster in the film is both a genuine artifact of the silent-film era and a contemporary in-joke for the Hollywood intelligentsia who saw the movie on its first release. Shields and Haines remained together until Haines's death in 1973.