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Mary Pickford Recommendations?
Topic Started: Feb 17 2008, 09:06 PM (443 Views)
SuperRog
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It looks like I'm going to win a used copy of Mary Pickford's autobiography. I'm sure once I read that, I'll want to finally try a few of her films. So, does anyone wish to recommend any of her films? Which of her movies do you like the best and what are the best ones that are available on DVD?
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igsjr
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Three Pickford films I can recommend because I have them in my DVD collection are Tess of the Storm Country (1922), Sparrows (1926) and My Best Girl (1927). I've also seen Stella Maris (1918), which is also fantastic, but the DVD is OOP and I can't find a copy that doesn't require an arm and a leg in payment.
"Life is in color--but black-and-white is more realistic..." -- Samuel Fuller, director

So many DVDs...so little time...
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George Kaplan
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Rog, I second those recommendations (and I can't afford the available copies of Stella Maris either, but it's a pip: Pickford plays two vastly different characters). Amarilly of Clothes-Line Alley and Daddy-Long-Legs are easy to find at reduced prices on Amazon Marketplace and elsewhere, and both are worth seeing. Heck, Pickford is believable in even the most unlikely settings, like the Kentucky mountains (of California) in Heart o' the Hills.

The Little American from 1917 is sometimes dismissed as a wartime propaganda film, but I found Pickford's performance riveting and the movie fairly hard hitting. (It also prominently features serial favorites-to-be Jack Holt and Raymond Hatton!) I have only seen it on a Passport Video collection, but I believe there is a better and more recent issue out there now.

If you want to go WAY back, check out Pickford's early Biographs. Panzer will know more about these than I do, but it is engrossing to watch Pickford's minimalist acting style develop in the midst of others who are waving their arms and rolling their eyes to express emotion.

Who said it--George Cukor? "Mary Pickford invented acting."
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SuperRog
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Thanks for the recommendations. Interestingly, neither of you mentioned her Oscar-winning role in Coquette. One lady who runs a classic movie e-mail list told me she hated her acting in that...she wondered if Pickford's win was the first "career" Oscar. I have marked down some of the recommendations here and will shortly go over to Amazon for a price check...
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Sgt King
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"Sparrows" is my favorite.
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SuperRog
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I have now ordered a copy of My Best Girl. That seems to be liked a lot, both here and at Amazon.com where there are several positive reviews.
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igsjr
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Rogmeister
Feb 18 2008, 08:18 PM
One lady who runs a classic movie e-mail list told me she hated her acting in that...she wondered if Pickford's win was the first "career" Oscar.

The answer to this is "Yes."
"Life is in color--but black-and-white is more realistic..." -- Samuel Fuller, director

So many DVDs...so little time...
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panzer the great & terrible
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I like Sparrows the best too; it's one of the most exciting silents, with a scary Dickensian villain in Gustav Von Seyffertitz. Agree that Pickford is most interesting in her Biographs, and for just the reason cited above. She's modern, the other actors are archaic. Little Annie Rooney is a good one nobody's mentioned. Going by what I know you like, Rog, you'll probably enjoy her stuff. I sure do. Netflix has most of the best ones.

The Pickford I most want to see is Ernst Lubitch's first American picture, Rosita. I think there is a print entombed at MOMA but they never seem to show it. It was a critical and popular hit but Pickford herself disliked it and did her best to keep it under wraps. We can hope: maybe the current interest in Lubitsch will flush it out.

Perhaps Eclipse will put out a box of the American Lubitsch silents.
Life is just a bowl of cherries, it's too mysterious, don't take it serious...
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SuperRog
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Surprisingly, none of Mary Pickford's sound pictures seem to be available on DVD. Maybe someday...by the way, I received that autobiography of Mary today. It looks like it came out in 1955...that's only 3 years after I was born. In Pickford-related matters, I finally got around to watching the documentary on Olive Thomas today which is on The Olive Thomas Collection. She, of course, was married to Jack Pickford...
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George Kaplan
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Kevin Brownlow's Mary Pickford Rediscovered (1999) is the other book you should have, Rog. It's a collection of photographs, beautifully reproduced, many rare--portraits, behind-the-scenes glimpses, production stills, shots from the films--over 200 of them, selected from the photo archives at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. It's out of print, but both new and used copies are easy to come by. A great companion to the films.
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SuperRog
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Thanks, GK...I went to Amazon and found an affordable copy of that book so I ordered it.
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SuperRog
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That book arrived today. It is indeed a very nice book. I think I'll enjoy it. I noticed that Coquette will air on TCM next month, though at 6:00 in the morning so I'll try to remember to catch that then.
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George Kaplan
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I hope this means the DVD release of Coquette is around the corner.

The Pickford book is filled with surprises, and Brownlow's text is excellent. I love the behind-the-scenes shots, like the ice-cream cone "toast" between Pickford and villain Gustav von Seyffertitz (at his most Karloffian) on the set of Sparrows.

One amazing picture is a frame enlargement from Little Lord Fauntleroy in which Pickford, who plays both the boy and his mother, kisses herself. At the moment of the kiss the mother's face casts a real shadow on the son's face, and Brownlow goes into some detail to explain how Pickford and first cameraman Charles Rosher got the shot . . . in a mere fifteen hours.
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panzer the great & terrible
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That's a damn good movie too.
Life is just a bowl of cherries, it's too mysterious, don't take it serious...
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