Daddy Long Legs (1919)

Mary Pickford does precocious better than anyone

Directed by Marshall Neilan
Starring Mary Pickford, Milla Davenport, Percy Haswell, Fay Lemport
Produced by Mary Pickford Company

Jerusha "Judy" Abbott (Pickford) is a young orphan girl who gets her name from a phone book and a gravestone.  At the age of 12, she finds herself the leader and guardian of the hard-scrabble youth of the John Grier home.  And protection is something they constantly need.  The matriarch of the orphanage is an overbearing dictator who burns children's fingers on the stove for misbehaving.

Judy attempts to organize a strike against the hated prune, accidentally finds herself drunk, steals a doll to provide a literal moment of happiness to a dying child and defends the children from the dictatorial trustees.  One of the trustees takes a liking to the precocious Judy and convinces a new trustee to sponsor her for college.  The trustee wishes to remain unknown to Judy.  She only catches a glimpse of his elongated shadow and nicknames him Daddy-Long-Legs.

Once at school, Judy sets out to write the great American novel so she can pay back her anonymous benefactor.  She also finds herself in the middle of a love triangle between the young Jimmie McBride (Neilan) and the older Jarvis Pendleton (Mahlon Hamilton).  Will she find love with either of the men?  And who is John Smith, her mysterious sponsor.

The good news first: Mary Pickford is predictably solid as Judy.  She is humorous and sympathetic, sometimes in the same moment.  She shines during the orphanage scenes, where she is initiating a lot of mayhem with a mischievous smile and a gleam in her eye. 

The other stand out performance is Davenport as the head of the orphanage.  It's a one dimensional part, but she takes it and runs with it.  There's a moment where Judy thinks she's gotten away but the headmistress knows right where she is.  Davenport gives this evil smile, anticipating capturing her tormentor.  Well done.

That said, this movie is a tonal and structural mess.  Judy is 12 years old and an orphan.  Then she's in college with a grey-haired man pining for her.  She an uneducated orphan who can't pronounce half of the words she uses.  Then she's a published author.  It's possible some time went by, but there is no hint of that in the movie.

The movie also downshifts without a clutch between humor and tragedy.  After Judy cleverly steals the doll and brings into her dying friend, the next scene is the child actually dying.  There's no transition between these moments.  They just happen.

Daddy Long Legs spends a lot of time establishing that Judy is the only reason these orphans have any joy in their lives.  Then she heads to college... and completely forgets about them.  Oh, that is until she writes a book about her orphanage experience.  It seems odd that the girl wouldn't use her position at the end of the film to help the other orphans.

The other recurring theme in Pickford movies is present here: creepy old men love Mary Pickford.  Pendleton looks like he's in his 50s.  Judy is at most in her teens. When he professes his love for her, she points out he's more suited to be her grandmother.  The film even knows this is weird.  So why does it keep pushing the romance?

There are a lot of plot threads that pop up randomly and are dropped.  Jimmie is accused of running someone over with his car and taken off at gunpoint.  Never referenced again.  A girl falls down a well.  Did she ever get out?  Pendleton breaks a tail light on his car.  No reason for that to have been in the script either.  And what is with the random appearance of the honest-to-goodness Cupid?  It's an out of place moment of fantasy.

Finally, Neilan has no sense of pacing in this movie.  There's a scene where Judy and another orphan are drunk.  There are amusing moments, but it goes on WAY too long.  There's a moment in the scene where a dog ends up drunk as well.  We spend over a minute of screen time just watching the dog stumble around.  It was funny... for the first ten seconds.

This is not a bad film, but it's not a great one either.  It's another solid performance by Pickford in an okay story, but terribly put together.

** out of *****

Watched on DVD through Netflix

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Stella Maris (1918)

Stella and her cousin... in love....

Directed by Marshall Neilan
Starring Mary Pickford, Conway Tearle, Marcia Manon
Produced by Pickford Film

Young Stella Maris is a paralyzed girl, living an idyllic life.  She is doted on by her aunt and uncle, blushes as her handsome cousin John visits her kingdom and is attended by children dancing around a maypole and presenting tributes of flowers.  Her family has shielded her from every misery the world offers and she lives in ignorant bliss.

Of course, for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.  And the world is trying to balance the scales with Unity Blake.  Unity is an orphan living a hard life.  She thinks her luck is about to change when she is adopted by a young woman.  Of course, the adoptive mother is an alcoholic tyrant and, after Unity is robbed, the woman beats her ward to within an inch of her life.

The woman goes to prison and the woman's husband turns out to be John, the very man who is in love with Stella Maris.  John takes Unity as his own to make amends for his wife's deeds.  Stella is given an operation that allows her to walk and she is soon witnessing every horror life has to offer.  Stella and Unity's lives are on a collision course that will change them both forever.  But who can win the hand of John?

Let's start with the good great.  Mary Pickford plays both Stella and Unity.  Stella is basically the same Mary Pickford character we see in all of her films. The blond curls.  The seemingly perpetual smile.  Classic Pickford.

For Unity, she transforms into Stella's opposite.  She has black, flat hair.  She walks with an awkward gait and her face is unremarkable.  Through special effects, Pickford portrays both characters simultaneously and her Unity is almost a foot shorter than Stella.  She is so good, I would have never guessed it was the same actress.  An absolutely amazing job.

Neilan does a fantastic job directing.  He seems amongst the best at understanding the film grammar created by D.W. Griffith and knows how to cut and edit scenes and when to move in for a close-up.  The ending shot is a dramatic pull away that is obviously on a vehicle (there's some bouncing), but it is still the right way to end the movie dramatically.  Neilan is very good at walking the viewer through the story.

Unfortunately, the story is my big problem with this.  It's all soap opera and melodrama.  I never really cared about the plight of any of these characters.  Every person is one-dimensional and makes broad pronouncements that are not even questioned.  At one point, after his wife is improsoned John wants to leave London. Stella's family says he cannot go because it would break Stella's heart.  John stares and sadly nods his head.  There is a lot of John doing the classic soap opera stare off camera in this film.

And John's wife? Evil for sake of being evil. If she had a moustache, she would be twirling it.  She wants to destroy Unity.  And John.  And Stella.  Why?  Because she's evil.  Period.

The movie is a series of soap opera cliches.  A man who is married to an evil shrew, but in love with the beautiful young maiden.  The put-upon orphan who cannot catch a break.  The magical appearance of a doctor with a miracle cure.  John keeping his marriage a secret so as not to hurt Stella (gee, do you think she finds out anyway?).

The one last large problem for me watching this was the relationship between John and Stella.  He looks like he's in his 40s and she looks 17.  John's evil wife looks like she's in her 30s.  Pickford looks and plays roles that make her look young so to see this seemingly much older man with this really young girl feels creepy.  And then when you remember that they are actually cousins?  Ugh.

It's a shame too because Neilan and Pickford have clearly brought their A game to the film.  Pickford's Unity is a marvel to behold when compared against her Stella. Ultimately, having her talent in service of this story is like asking Frank Owen Gehry build a Jenga tower: it may look nice, but it's a waste of a consummate professional's time.

** out of *****

Watched on DVD through Netflix
Photo from Observations on Film Art

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Amarilly of Clothes-Line Alley (1918)

Upper crust meets hard-working Irish

Directedby Marshall Neilan
Starring Mary Pickford, William Scott, Kate Price, Ida Waterman
Produced by Mary Pickford Company

Amarilly of Clothes-Line Alley follows the adventures of our title character (Pickford) as she is torn between two worlds.  Amarilly is a poor girl working to clean up a theater to help support her mother and four brothers.  When she is unjustly blamed for a fire at the theater and fired, her bartender boyfriend gets her a job selling cigarettes at his club.  A wealthy socialite visits the establishment and, after flirting with Amarilly, he gets involved in a brawl.  Amarilly takes care of the injured, rich man and begins working for him.  But the socialite's mother sees an experiment in the young woman.  And Clothes-Line Alley is abuzz that Amarilly has a new love.  Can Amarilly become a refined young debutante?  Does she even want to?

This is a classic fish-out-of-water story that plays out (for the most part) in a predictable way.  However, a couple of things elevate this one above your typical movie of this era.  First, Neilan's direction is great throughout.  He intercuts long shots and close-ups with the medium shots that were the staple of the silent era.  More than that, the way the edits happen within scenes, from one actor to another, from medium shot to close-up serve the story perfectly.

The direction never draws attention to itself, but Neilan knows how to frame his shots and knows how to use lighting.  I particularly love the shot of Amarilly in the alley after being fired.  She is seen in silhouhette and the image perfectly captures the mood of the film.

The only special effect in the movie is Pickford.  She is predictably brilliant in her role and Neilan is smart enough to showcase her. He often goes to close-ups of her expressive face and you always can see what's going through her head.  I loved her reaction shots to the brawl in the bar and her sadness as she deals with the climactic collision of her rough and tumble family and her socialite employer.

The other notable performance for me was Kate Price as Amarilly's mom.  She's right from central casting as a tough-as-nails Irish woman and is fantastic in the role.  There's a scene where she admonishes one of her sons for not standing up to a bully, then cheers him on as he fights the other boy.  Perfect.

The biggest issue with the movie is the story itself.  As I said, you've seen this before and basically know where it is going.  The movie is a set up to admonish the attitudes of the rich and praise the virtue of the poor and it carries its mission out according to the Pygmalion playbook.  You know the ending within ten minutes.

That said, there are two moments that bug me in particular.  First, it is clear that the socialite and Amarilly become involved at some point, but you never see it.  At first, their "relationship" is a misunderstanding that stems from the ramblings of the neighborhood gossip.  Then, the film jumps ahead in time and they seem together, although that is never 100 percent clear.  A scene or even a couple of lines there would have helped.

SPOILERS FOR THE END OF THE MOVIE!  Second, the end sequence is about the most random scene possible.  Amarilly has reconciled with the bartender.  He picks up flowers and is walking to her apartment where she is preparing dinner.  The neighborhood gossip finds a gun on the ground and as he examines it, the weapon goes off and shoots the bartender in the back.  He then stumbles down the street, up two flights of stairs and collapses on Amarilly's dining room table.  She comes to his aid, gets a doctor and then he's fine.

What was the point of this scene?  Did they have to fill out more time on the reel?  Was Neilan contractually obligated to deliver a movie that was over an hour?  Did they want to showcase William Scott's terrible acting as the bartender?  I mean, he either was shot in the back or has an itch he can't reach.  You'd never know it based on his face.  He survives the wound and he and Amarilly end up together.  But they were going to end up together anyway, right?  Just bizarre.

It's an unfortunate end to an otherwise solid movie.  On the whole, I recommend it.

***1/2 out of *****

Watched on DVD through NetFlix
Photo from Silent Era

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