Tweet Top 3 Mary Pickford Classics

1.) Sparrows(1926)
2.) Stella Maris(1916)
3.) The Hoodlum(1919)


Anybody else?

[Mike Gebert]

As I posted once, I feel like I've seen more of the B team than the A team, but that said, I guess I'd say Poor Little Rich Girl, Sparrows and My Best Girl. That said, I've got a few of her films on laserdisc (!) that I've never seen, including Stella Maris and Suds.

Not an easy choice, but I would probably go with these.

1. LITTLE ANNIE ROONEY (Deserves a proper release from Milestone with a Orchestral score.)

2. THROUGH THE BACK DOOR (Great Robert Israel score on Milestone edition.)

3. TESS OF THE STORM COUNTRY (In need of a 35 Millimeter restoration. )

Stella Maris made me a Pickford fan (gotta watch it, Mike), so it's a sentimental favorite. I'd probably go for Sparrows and Tess (the remake...never seen the original), but it IS tough.

1.My Best Girl
2. Suds
3. Sparrows

i haven't yet watched Stella Maris. I'd use it for my WATCH THAT MOVIE but I've had it for less than a year.
It is my belief that a certain well known movie director, who's initials are Steven Spielberg, keeps a copy of Sparrows in his "How to Direct a Movie' notebook. It has everthing he likes to use.

Sparrows
Stella Maris
Amarilly of Clothes-Line Alley

And I will repeat my belief that Marshall Neilan and Pickford did almost as much in 1916 - 1919 to advance cinema technique as Griffith did from 1907-1015. Not enough credit has been given for their artistry.

MY BEST GIRL
STELLA MARIS
AMARILLY OF CLOTHES-LINE ALLEY

[silentfilm]

Sparrows

Stella Maris


My Best Girl

1. Sparrows (with the Gaylor Carter score)
2. Amarilly of Clothes-Line Alley
3. Stella Maris

There's a lot of sameness in many of her productions, making it tough to choose, but some stand out:

1. Tess of the Storm Country (1922). (1914 version is fine too).
2. Stella Maris (1918).
3. The Female of the Species (1912; tough, sinister, hard-as-nails, sneering Pickford).

I have only watched half of her available films so far.

my best girl-1927
pollyanna-1920
sparrows-1926

1. Stella Maris (1916)
2. My Best Girl (1927)
3. Rosita (1923)

1. My Best Girl
2. Stella Maris
3. Rosita

Murnau,

How do we get ROSITA in here? It's not even complete is it? I loved MY BEST GIRL and the score on the Milestone DVD is excellent. I just picked other features that I feel have been overlooked and deserve to be better known. Also MY BEST GIRL is somewhat anti-typical Pickford, because she had Bobbed her hair. Another picture I really like is M' LISS.

Like LITTLE ANNIE ROONEY, I also think that POLLYANNA needs a proper release from Milestone. Likewise, THE LITTLE AMERICAN. All three long since overdue.

[Christopher Jacobs]

My top Mary Pickfords would be
1 - POOR LITTLE RICH GIRL
2 - M'LISS
3 - TESS OF THE STORM COUNTRY (1914 version)

HEART O' THE HILLS is also among her best, but the poor music score on the DVD is so distracting that it doesn't make the top three. Other good contenders to round out a top 10 would be SPARROWS, POLLYANNA, STELLA MARIS, ROSITA (which would be more fun in a less-contrasty print), LESS THAN THE DUST, and THE LOVE LIGHT (again with a good score instead of the one on the DVD -- sorry, Dennis, Maria Newman may write great chamber music but she simply doesn't grasp the concept of what scoring a film is all about). Pickford made so many films, and there are so many others well-worth seeing, however, that it's very hard to pick three or even ten. I'm sure looking forward to the upcoming Blu-rays of POOR LITTLE RICH GIRL, THE HOODLUM, and SPARROWS!

The LOVE LIGHT is an underrated film. Sadly, Maria Newman's totally out of left filed music score ruins it. Still, Milestone called her back to score the 1910 short of RAMONA.

None of her movies are great. Mary Pickford made rough versions of the lovely classy Shirley Temple films of the 1930s and she had the nerve to play little kids instead of serious important roles that Lillian Gish did.

The Little Mary character is what the audiences loved. She played only adults up until POOR LITTLE RICH GIRL and REBECCA OF SUNNYBROOK FARM in 1917. After that the public preferred the adolescent "Little Mary" I disagree that none of her films are great. She made several excellent pictures. She is not a little girl in THE LOVE LIGHT.

Personally, I think The Love Light is a very under rated film. I appreciate whay it may not not have been a commerical success in it's day, given the subject matter, but I think it stands up very well.

Only 3?

Well, then............

Little Annie Rooney is just a delight. Mary plays well off great support.

The Love Light is so amazing! I can imagine what a problem, unknowingly falling for the enemy.
I love it MUTED! Maria Newman is just about the worst in silent accompaniment.
Listening to her ruins a great film. We need Mont Alto on that one. Rodney.................

Stella Marris is amazing. One looses track of the fact that Mary is doing both leads - such different parts & so well done.

Honerable mention must go to Tess of the Storm Country (22) , & I would love to see the '14 origional.

And DEAR..........your first post is a nasty slam calling Mary a Shirley Temple prequel?
FYI, Mrs. Temple so revered Mary Pickford that she REQUESTED that Shirley remake all the Pickford films as talkies ( it was common at the time to make talkie remakes of many of the popular silents). Shirley Temple said in her autobiography that she begged not to do this - to have to be so compared to someone that great.

So DEAR, with a no-facts slam as your initial foray you may be a Pickford hater, a Troll, or something else, but here if you are going to slam the entire career of someone of that stature please have something real to back up the hate.

Gagman,
If I only knew… I saw Rosita a couple of years ago from bootleg. It was quite poor copy but it seemed complete – or what I know? It was fascinating because it was so different than most Pickford’s. Intertitles were Russian but it didn’t matter. I have tried to get Rosita to Forssa Silent Film Festival since then but let’s see will they make a Mary Pickford theme some year or not.

I haven't seen Sparrows nor Tess.

My top 3:

1. Stella Maris
2. Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm
3. Through the Back Door

Gagman,
If I only knew… I saw Rosita a couple of years ago from bootleg. It was quite poor copy but it seemed complete – or what I know? It was fascinating because it was so different than most Pickford’s. Intertitles were Russian but it didn’t matter. I have tried to get Rosita to Forssa Silent Film Festival since then but let’s see will they make a Mary Pickford theme some year or not.

I saw Rosita at Film Forum several years ago, and the print shown on that occasion was very definitely complete. The intertitles were in English, and picture quality was fine from what I recall. It's an entertaining movie, and it's always interesting to see Pickford in an atypical role (as in The Love Light, and in Dorothy Vernon of Haddon Hall, which is also better than its reputation suggests) but there's no getting around the fact that in the role of Rosita she's miscast. It's Pickford trying to be Pola Negri, and Pola would have been better at it.

Incidentally, at Film Forum that night in the lobby before the show I saw a familiar-looking man talking on his cellphone, and realized it was Peter Bogdanovich. Someone told me later that, during the movie, his phone rang, and that he took the call, and spoke with the caller for several minutes. Why am I not surprised?

My three favorite Pickfords are obvious choices: 1) Sparrows, 2) Stella Maris, and 3) The Poor Little Rich Girl. There are several others I like a lot, but I could watch any of those again, any time. My least favorite is Coquette. I could barely get through that one, even once.

P.S., Several hours later: In re-reading my note from this morning I find a sentence I'd like to re-phrase, that is: "There's no getting around the notion that in the role of Rosita, Pickford was miscast." I shouldn't have called it a fact, since it's an opinion. Sorry about that, I do try to be careful about my phrasing when I post.

Gagman,
If I only knew… I saw Rosita a couple of years ago from bootleg. It was quite poor copy but it seemed complete – or what I know? It was fascinating because it was so different than most Pickford’s. Intertitles were Russian but it didn’t matter. I have tried to get Rosita to Forssa Silent Film Festival since then but let’s see will they make a Mary Pickford theme some year or not.

I saw Rosita at Film Forum several years ago, and the print shown on that occasion was very definitely complete. The intertitles were in English, and picture quality was fine from what I recall. It's an entertaining movie, and it's always interesting to see Pickford in an atypical role (as in The Love Light, and in Dorothy Vernon of Haddon Hall, which is also better than its reputation suggests) but there's no getting around the fact that in the role of Rosita she's miscast. It's Pickford trying to be Pola Negri, and Pola would have been better at it.

The restored print of Rosita is unfortunately saddled with awkward re-translated titles. The original titles were rather clever, based on the few that survive in reviews of the time. I found it an entertaining picture, and fun to score (who doesn't like a mad scene?) and the sets are elaborate and must have appeared quite glorious in the original prints. She has several good opportunities to show off her spunky, not-taking-any-guff-from-anyone attitude, and since she's playing a Spanish girl, she gets the hands and flashing eyes involved. It's always gone over well with audiences. And the theme song is quite nice too.

Gagman,

I saw Rosita at Film Forum several years ago, and the print shown on that occasion was very definitely complete. The intertitles were in English, and picture quality was fine from what I recall. It's an entertaining movie, and it's always interesting to see Pickford in an atypical role (as in The Love Light, and in Dorothy Vernon of Haddon Hall, which is also better than its reputation suggests) but there's no getting around the fact that in the role of Rosita she's miscast. It's Pickford trying to be Pola Negri, and Pola would have been better at it.

Ironically, Lubitsch ROSITA and Herbert Brenon's THE SPANISH DANCER, Starring Pola Negri were both released in 1923, and are actually based on the same story. Didn't the guy from the Nederlands film Museum say that THE SPANISH DANCER was being fully restored to it's original length in 35 millimeter about a year ago? For decades it has only been circulating in the condensed Kodascope version. Can we get an update on that project?

None of her movies are great. Mary Pickford made rough versions of the lovely classy Shirley Temple films of the 1930s and she had the nerve to play little kids instead of serious important roles that Lillian Gish did.

I imagine, if Miss Gish was still with us, that she would be a passionate advocate of Pickford's films.

I'd say she was to comedy what Miss Gish was to drama. No need to bash her roles.

Stella Maris (1918)
Little Lord Fauntleroy (1921)
Tess of the Storm Country (1922)

Wow, Maria Newman's scores are so bad that they knocked a few of Mary's films out of the running. I agree, they're terrible, ruinous even. I can't watch my DVD of HEART O' THE HILLS either, and I've put off buying THE LOVE LIGHT because her name's on it. Poor Lon Chaney even suffers from her ear-splitting musical misdeeds in MR. WU; it's hard for me to sit through that one too. It absolutely mystifies me as to why she was repeatedly hired to score silents, as that's obviously not where her talents lie. The worst case of miscasting since John Wayne as Genghis Khan.

[Danny Burk]

All too true about Maria N. I buy the films anyway, but turn off the sound....it's impossible to listen to it. Perhaps one day, if I get ambitious, I'll record the sound of a projector running, play it along, and just pretend I'm back to 16mm days.