Mary Pickford was all the rage throughout the silent era, playing both male and female roles, mostly characters much younger than herself. Still attractive when the sound era came in, she only made a handful of films, those of mixed quality, and won the second Best Actress Oscar for a truly boring melodrama, "Coquette".
"Kiki" is her second to last film, a farce with Pickford as a temperamental French chorus girl who seems to get fired from every job she takes. She falls in love with a producer who is otherwise engaged but her persistence pays off in her fight to win his love. Mary goes for farce all the way, playing the types of roles Marion Davies was getting thanks to William Randolph Hearst, and as one of the founders of United Artists, Pickford still had some clout. She really is the only amusing thing about this film, playing a character of such outlandish personality that you really find it easy to get annoyed with her, even if you don't totally dislike her.
This is best remembered for a sequence where Pickford, in a man's tuxedo, totally screws up a big production number by getting distracted when producer Reginald Denny appears at the side of the stage. She screws up all of the chorus girls and the leading lady and the musical number results in pandemonium. This gag was repeated with similar laughs in "Star!" with Julie Andrews and "Funny Girl" with Barbra Streisand.
"Kiki" is her second to last film, a farce with Pickford as a temperamental French chorus girl who seems to get fired from every job she takes. She falls in love with a producer who is otherwise engaged but her persistence pays off in her fight to win his love. Mary goes for farce all the way, playing the types of roles Marion Davies was getting thanks to William Randolph Hearst, and as one of the founders of United Artists, Pickford still had some clout. She really is the only amusing thing about this film, playing a character of such outlandish personality that you really find it easy to get annoyed with her, even if you don't totally dislike her.
This is best remembered for a sequence where Pickford, in a man's tuxedo, totally screws up a big production number by getting distracted when producer Reginald Denny appears at the side of the stage. She screws up all of the chorus girls and the leading lady and the musical number results in pandemonium. This gag was repeated with similar laughs in "Star!" with Julie Andrews and "Funny Girl" with Barbra Streisand.