What I really want to know after watching this film is what happened? Please excuse me for sounding like I'm using latent feminist criticism here, which I'm not but I really dislike the change in Judy's (Mary Pickford's) character after about the first 50 minutes of this film. Yes, there is the great silent humor by both Pickford and the boy when they get drunk which rivals the genius of Chaplin. There is also The Prune Strike and Judy's defense of the baby and Bosco against the harshness of the Trustees/ Aristocrats. She seems like a Dickensian Joan of Arc who will one day save all the children from the harshness of the orphanage.
Now I'm not against Ironic twists of fate because she is set up by the headmaster who wants to be rid of her. So a trustee is coerced to pay for her education and Judy then falls in love with him not knowing this man is also the trustee, when a surprise is obvious to me (I am easily mesmerized and don't usually guess how films end) someone has done something wrong. Not only that but when she finds out Daddy-Long-Legs is the man she wants to marry she curses him and marries him anyway? While Pickford's performance is excellent throughout I cannot understand why she is so pleased at conforming. With all the liberal-minded titles which are sometimes poetic and sometimes just too much suddenly we are give a tale where a woman who hated the rich is now constantly surrounded by aristocracy at school, marries a man she used to fear, and she lives happily ever after? She could've shutdown the orphanage, reformed it or adopted a kid but we get none of that. And it left me scratching my head.
Not only that as soon as she gets to college there is a non-diegetic inclusion of these baby cupids that make absolutely no sense and make this film seem like it was two stories spliced together when they would've been better as two separate shorts instead of as one feature. On the plus side it was enjoyable watching a beautifully restored, shot and finally a tinted silent film. Mary Pickford is a film legend who was so natural as a visual performer that words to her would just be clutter. It's just a shame to be exposed to her in a film where her character's motivation is ill-defined.
Now I'm not against Ironic twists of fate because she is set up by the headmaster who wants to be rid of her. So a trustee is coerced to pay for her education and Judy then falls in love with him not knowing this man is also the trustee, when a surprise is obvious to me (I am easily mesmerized and don't usually guess how films end) someone has done something wrong. Not only that but when she finds out Daddy-Long-Legs is the man she wants to marry she curses him and marries him anyway? While Pickford's performance is excellent throughout I cannot understand why she is so pleased at conforming. With all the liberal-minded titles which are sometimes poetic and sometimes just too much suddenly we are give a tale where a woman who hated the rich is now constantly surrounded by aristocracy at school, marries a man she used to fear, and she lives happily ever after? She could've shutdown the orphanage, reformed it or adopted a kid but we get none of that. And it left me scratching my head.
Not only that as soon as she gets to college there is a non-diegetic inclusion of these baby cupids that make absolutely no sense and make this film seem like it was two stories spliced together when they would've been better as two separate shorts instead of as one feature. On the plus side it was enjoyable watching a beautifully restored, shot and finally a tinted silent film. Mary Pickford is a film legend who was so natural as a visual performer that words to her would just be clutter. It's just a shame to be exposed to her in a film where her character's motivation is ill-defined.