It’s only fair to follow up a post about Douglas Fairbanks with one about the other half of Hollywood’s Royal Couple, “America’s Sweetheart” Mary Pickford. Mary began her film career in 1909, joining the American Biograph Company to act for D.W. Griffith in silent one-reelers. At that time the sixteen-year-old had already spent eight years on the stage. She was capable and mature beyond her years, as she was supporting her mother and two younger siblings. At that time studios did not release the names of their players, but audiences noticed the girl with the round face and the golden curls right away, and clamoured to know who she was. Theatres advertised her as “the girl with the curls” or “the Biograph Girl” until her name was finally released to the press. In this way she was among the very first movie stars.
(Her real name was Gladys Smith. The stage name of Mary Pickford was selected for her by theatrical impresario David Belisario.)
Just five feet tall, she was cast in both child and adolescent roles, a typecasting that continued long into adulthood. A very sharp businesswoman from the earliest days, Mary quickly mastered the craft of film acting and capitalized on her strengths to create her own screen persona.
The Mary Pickford ‘brand’ that audiences fell in love with was a perky, pretty child, usually an orphan, cheerful in adversity, plucky as all get-out, kindhearted and full of fun. She was the girl in the orphanage who raided the kitchen to give treats to the younger children, the one who stuck out her tongue at the mean headmistress, the one who hid a stray puppy under her bed. Considering she was Canadian (born in Toronto), it is surprising she never played Anne of Green Gables, because it would have suited her perfectly. (The 1919 film version instead starred Mary Miles Minter.)
As it was, Pickford played all the Anne-esque heroines of that era: Tess of the Storm Country, Poor Little Rich Girl, Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm, The Little Princess, Daddy Long Legs, Stella Maris – even Little Lord Fauntleroy – and of course Pollyanna.
Pickford was 27 in 1920, but still able to pass for much younger, aided by the casting of very tall actors in the adult roles.
A bestselling book and hit play, Pollyanna tells the story of recently orphaned twelve-year-old Pollyanna, who goes to live with an rich but miserable aunt. The sunny little girl meets and helps many neighbours, encouraging them to play the “glad game”: overcoming sorrow by thinking of things to be grateful for. After an accident leaves Pollyanna paralyzed, possibly permanently, her friends gather to cheer her up with her own glad game. In the end she is cured and everyone’s problems are neatly solved.
This relentlessly upbeat orphan was not to everyone’s taste. We still use the epithet “Pollyanna” for someone who is excessively, mindlessly optimistic. Both Pickford and her friend and screenwriter Frances Marion dreaded doing this story, though they knew it would be a huge hit. They were right. Pollyanna was Pickford’s first film for the newly formed United Artists, and made over a million dollars, no small amount in 1920. The film’s great success also sentenced Pickford to playing orphaned moppets for another six years, well into her thirties.
Pickford is very effective here. Her apprenticeship at the Biograph taught her how to communicate with every nuance of expression and gesture, and it is impressive how clearly her every thought and feeling is conveyed.
The film has its mawkish moments, though Marion and Pickford succeed in keeping the tone light and entertaining. If anything, I find that the best melodramas of this era don’t dwell on tearjerker scenes nearly as long as movies do today.
Her other film from 1920, Suds, is much more of a romp. I imagine she had a lot of fun playing the dreamy, dorky, klutzy girl working in a London laundry shop. She’s still plucky and resourceful, but without the ethereal beauty and grace this time. Pickford works hard to downplay her looks, wearing minimal makeup and screwing up her face when she speaks.
There is, however, a fantasy scene in which she daydreams about a romance with a dapper fellow named Horace whose shirt she is washing. In this sequence she imagines herself as a fairy tale princess and so she is beautifully made up and photographed (to keep her fans happy, one supposes).
In Suds Pickford shows off her talent for physical comedy, as she drops things and trips over her own feet into laundry bins. There is also a nice sequence in which she saves an old cart horse from the glue factory and very awkwardly attempts to keep him in her second-storey walkup.
One day a rich lady spots Suds with her cart horse and agrees to let the horse live out his days at her country estate. Suds herself continues toiling at the wash shop, until the day she finally meets the subject of her daydreams. She admits to him she told her coworkers he was her boyfriend. He goodnaturedly invites her for an afternoon outing, but when she realizes he’s a little embarrassed to be seen with her she declines. He gives her a keepsake and leaves. Suds is left alone, weeping on the washhouse steps as the adoring delivery boy Ben watches from the wings, a hint that some day he will step up to become her true love.
At least the film originally concluded this way, but the downbeat ending displeased early audiences. Two new endings were shot, one for American audiences and the other for overseas.
In the overseas version – which is the one I saw – a sequence is added to the end in which Suds and Ben visit Lavender the horse in the country. Stung by a wasp, the horse bolts through a pond with Suds on his back and she falls in. “That’s gratitude!” she exclaims and Ben looks rueful. The End. A little abrupt but not bad. It feels very true to life and succeeds in giving the film a lighter ending.
I have not seen the American ending, but apparently it involves the rich lady giving Suds a job as a maid, whereupon she discovers Horace is also an employee and they end up together. Allegedly. If this really is the other ending, it ditches poor Ben completely. And since Horace looked to be kind of a pompous twit earlier, I’m not sure what’s gained by bringing him back into the picture. Bizarre.
Despite the tortured phonetic Cockney in the title cards, this is a pretty charming little movie. And it displays two aspects typical of the era: the American view of British life as quaintly Dickensian, and the plot device of a rich person swooping in to save the day.
The plight of the poor was a very common theme in early motion pictures. From the beginning nickelodeon audiences were predominantly working class, and they identified immediately with a hero or heroine struggling to earn a living. And once you’ve established your protagonist’s financial difficulties, it was common to then introduce a Duke or Duchess to goodheartedly offer assistance. Problem solved!
Mary Pickford was a movie pioneer, an actress of the highest skill who also kept a keen eye on the business side, no small feat in an industry still in flux. She was in charge of her own destiny from the very beginning – she knew her worth and what she brought to her films. And in the earliest days of movie stardom she created a very successful film persona, so successful in fact, that it became impossible to change her image as she got older.