Director: William Beaudine
Cast: Mary Pickford, Gustav von Seyffertitz, Roy Stewart, Mary Louise Miller*
Have I Seen it Before: Never.
Did I Like It: I had it established in my head as I watched the film that this must have been an early film in Pickford’s career, a star for whom I have little awareness outside of her role in the creation of United Artists. As such, it’s a surprisingly well-realized work that largely works for a modern audience, and was worth preserving long before it degraded into so much vinegar and nitrate. It turns out this was the second-to-last silent movie she ever made, and she didn’t last too long once the movies started talking.
That only makes the film more fascinating, and just a bit more unsettling. There’s not an ounce of Pickford’s performance, or the movie surrounding it that indicates she’s at the end of a career. She is America’s Sweetheart at the top of her game.
The only problem with being America’s Sweetheart in the 1920s, is just what that actually means for America. Molly, Pickford’s character, is never depicted as more than fifteen years old. What’s more, she lives only to be deeply—if somewhat malapropistically—religious, and to be the primary caregiver of every child that comes across her path.
Is that what America was in love with between the first two (of a yet to be determined amount) World Wars? It’s kind of a drag. The only thing that could have made things worse were to be if she were to be this picture of adolescent madonna-hood, and then grafting some degree of romantic comedy onto her dealings with Mr. Wayne (Stewart).
*There’s a weird moment when you watch a film celebrating its 100th anniversary, where you think the infants in the film are all probably, but not definitely dead by now.