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Sparrows (1926)

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6 out of 7 people found the following comment useful :-
Thrilling and unforgettable -- a beautiful film, 16 September 2006

Author: wmorrow59 from Tarrytown, NY

We take home video and DVDs for granted now, but for film buffs who grew up in the pre-video era silent movies weren't so easy to track down. They certainly weren't shown on TV much, and when they were they might be treated as laughable relics with "funny" narration. Fortunately, home movie suppliers such as Blackhawk offered good prints of a number of vintage titles, and museums in some cities would schedule occasional screenings. Consequently, as a kid I was able to catch performances by Lon Chaney, Valentino, William S. Hart, and most of the great comedians. Mary Pickford, however, remained elusive. Aside from a few early Biograph dramas her movies were locked away in vaults and shown only rarely. Awareness of her phenomenal fame lingered, but the movies that brought it about were exceptionally difficult to see. I had only a vague sense of what Mary's screen persona was like, and imagined that she must have been sort of an earlier incarnation of Shirley Temple, a goody two-shoes with blonde ringlets who starred in tear-jerkers. Eventually, of course, the situation changed, restoration efforts commenced, and the movies began to emerge from hibernation. In the 1980s SPARROWS became one of the first Pickford classics to become available on VHS, and once I saw it I understood Mary's appeal. Seeing it again recently on the big screen, at a Pickford festival at the Museum of the Moving Image in Queens, New York, only confirmed my first impression that this is one of the most beautifully produced silent films anyone ever made. It isn't flawless, and it isn't for all tastes, but it's powerful, involving and unforgettable, and the leading lady gives one of her definitive performances.

SPARROWS is essentially a thriller, at times close to a horror story. Our setting is a bleak "baby farm" in a swampy bayou that looks like a landscape by Hieronymus Bosch. Mary plays an adolescent known as Mama Molly, who acts as a protective maternal figure to a gang of scruffy, starving kids. These are children who have been sent away by families too poor to care for them, well-intentioned folk who naively believe their children will be properly looked after. The farm is run by the most evil family you'll find in the movies: old Mr. Grimes, his wife, and her son, played by top character actors Gustav von Seyffertitz, Charlotte Mineau, and Spec O'Donnell. Oddly, both Mineau and O'Donnell had backgrounds in comedy, but their performances here are deadly earnest and without a trace of humor. Good as they are, however, they're overshadowed by Von Seyffertitz in what he must have recognized as the role of a lifetime. Grimes is a Dickensian monster: a greedy, spindly, limping man with dead eyes and no conscience. His prison-like farm is surrounded by quicksand and alligator-infested swampland. The children in his keeping are treated as his property, and he'd promptly sell any one of them down the river for a few coins. (At the screening I attended a child in the audience responded to Grimes' evil-doing by loudly announcing: "He's baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaad!" We laughed, but the kid only said aloud what we were all thinking.)

Mama Molly occupies the story's moral center but she's no goody two-shoes. She's been toughened by adversity, and she's fiercely protective of the kids in her charge. When Grimes' horrible step-son bullies the kids she is quick to stand up to him. And when Grimes threatens to punish the children by withholding their dinner, all because of a minor infraction on Molly's part, she volunteers to go without food for two days rather than see the children suffer. She is also the primary caregiver for a sickly baby who, despite her best efforts, dies one night in the loft of the old barn. In a scene some viewers may find highly sentimental, an image of Jesus appears at the moment of the baby's death and carries him away to the after-life. Sentimental? Sure, but it's performed with absolute conviction, and the close-up of Mary that concludes this scene is deeply affecting. (Interestingly, at the recent museum screening we were also shown several rejected takes of an earlier version of this scene in which the baby's spirit is carried away to the heavens by a phosphorescent angel. The out-takes were fascinating, but the scene works better as it stands.)

Much of the credit for this film rightfully belongs to the scenic designer, Harry Oliver, and to the crack team of cinematographers, Charles Rosher, Hal Mohr, and Karl Struss. All of these artists have numerous impressive credits to their names, but their collaboration in this case produced something extraordinary, a movie that is exceptionally beautiful in its design as well as beautifully photographed and edited. It's said that the production was influenced by the work of such German auteurs as Murnau and Lang, and indeed the film has a distinctly "Germanic" atmosphere, but with greater emphasis on audience empathy. NOSFERATU and METROPOLIS startle and dazzle the viewer, but the makers of SPARROWS want you to feel for these kids. Our feelings peak during the climactic escape, when Molly leads the children through the swamp to freedom. Pursued by Grimes' dog they dash across rocks, narrowly missing the quicksand, then climb trees and crawl over branches hovering just above alligators that swarm and snap. It's an amazingly suspenseful sequence.

Unfortunately this is not the film's finale. The escape is followed by a gratuitous action sequence involving kidnappers attempting to flee the police by boat, and when this concludes we still have a couple more scenes meant to tie-up the plot's loose strands. If only the last twenty minutes or so had been reduced to a brisk 7 or 8, the movie would have been just about perfect. Nothing can top the escape through the swamp, and it's too bad they tried. But nevertheless SPARROWS stands as one of the major works of the silent cinema, and Mary Pickford's crowning achievement.

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5 out of 6 people found the following comment useful :-
Marvelous Mary In Her Final Little Girl Role, 17 December 2000

Author: Ron Oliver (revilorest@juno.com) from Forest Ranch, CA

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

A spunky orphan girl, enslaved on a horrible baby farm, looks after the younger children as tenderly as Christ cares for His little SPARROWS.

Mary Pickford, America's Sweetheart and the most popular movie star in Hollywood's history, had made a career out of playing little girls in general & orphans in particular. Her legions of international fans thrilled at her adventures in harsh orphanages, dealing with stony-hearted adults. Time relentlessly marched on, however, and it became obvious that Little Mary could not carry on the adolescent act forever.

Thus, in 1926 at the age of 34, Pickford appeared in her final orphan picture and she made sure it was a doozy. Never before had one of her characters been subjected to such hideous conditions, surrounded by quicksand, starved & overworked, living at the mercy of a self-avowed baby killer - a reptilian old reprobate who doesn't hesitate to `chuck children into the swamp' whenever he feels like it. Mary's audiences ate it up like sweet molasses on hot cornbread.

Several sequences are memorable. The selling of a little boy to a hog-buying farmer sets up a remarkably poignant shot: as the little fellow is driven out of the gates of the baby farm he feebly waves farewell towards the barn, where Mary & the other children remain hidden; poking through cracks & crevices in the wooden structure several hands sadly wave back. Later, the coming of The Good Shepherd for the dead baby cradled in Mary's arms would have been maudlin in less reverent hands; here it succeeds because it is presented with true emotion. Finally, the escape & chase across the swamp, with desperate Mary leading eight tiny children through the perils of mud & crocodiles, is still as exciting & suspenseful now as it was at the film's inception.

Gustav von Seyffertitz makes a marvelously hissable villain; abetted by his vile wife & unspeakable son, old Grimes is evil to his very core. His final fate is both just & emphatically well-deserved.

SPARROWS boasts very high production values, and although burdened with a couple of climaxes too many, Mary's lively performance should effortlessly win over the toughest of critics.

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4 out of 5 people found the following comment useful :-
I couldn't tear myself away... I just had to know what happened to those kids!, 6 January 2005

Author: blaackbird from California

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

I usually ask myself why people want to watch movies filled with suffering. Challenges, yes, agony, no. But where kids are involved I guess I'm a sucker. I have to see it come out all right.

Mary Pickford looks almost as young as her character in this gripping film about a group of orphans held as slave labor by a cruel farmer. The story itself is a natural hook. Like many of the works of Charles Dickens, it paints the picture of the innocent suffering at the hands of people who embody every possible vice and who are capable of every imaginable cruelty.

One most touching quality of the film is the portrayed ability of Molly, in the face of all she endures, to draw together the group as a family and love each one as a mother should. Self-pity is alien to her. Life is what it is but there's always hope for better and the cruel blows don't change that or make it untrue.

I saw that the ending did drag on in the sense that it isn't quite as snappy a resolution as a viewer would want. But I found that after seeing them endure so much, I wanted to see something of their happy ending. I shared in the pain, and wanted to share in the joy as well. And so I feel that it ended rather more like the books it resembles and not like a modern thriller. The boat scenes did go a bit astray, but were mercifully short compared to other parts.

A horrifying tale with a surprising note of humor and sweetness that somehow worked, this film is well worth watching.

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2 out of 2 people found the following comment useful :-
Thrills, spills, chills, a little romance! What more could you want?, 21 August 2001
Author: chriscuomo from Alabama

Excellent popcorn movie that serves as a perfect introduction to silent cinema or to Mary Pickford, who at age 34, and still looking youthful, gives a top-notch performance in her final juvenile role. Pickford stars as Molly, ingenious caregiver to a band of orphans held captive on the bayou farm of evil Mr. Grimes - played with steely menace by Von Seyffertitz. The film's title is a reference to Matthew 6:26, a Bible verse Molly teaches her children when they complain about their situation. The film's religious symbolism goes even further, when one of Molly's youngest dies and Christ appears to carry the child home. Grimes strikes a deal with kidnappers to keep the infant daughter of a wealthy young widower until the ransom money can be collected. He assigns the baby to Molly after the death of her "sparrow". When one of the orphans escapes, Grimes plots to dispose of the whole group in the alligator-infested bayou. When Molly learns of Grimes' plan, she plots a daring escape with her band.

An all around excellent film, and a strong influence on many kids adventure films such as vastly inferior big-budget blockbusters like Goonies or Spy Kids.

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3 out of 4 people found the following comment useful :-
Proof that William "One Shot" Beaudine really COULD direct!, 1 June 2001
Author: reptilicus from Vancouver, Canada

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

If the only movies directed by William "One Shot" Beaudine that you know are THE APE MAN, VOODOO MAN and BILLY THE KID VS. DRACULA you really ought to check out this 1926 thriller. Mary Pickford was one of the founders of United Artists, the first of the independant film studios and she and co-founders D.W. Griffith, Charles Chaplin and Douglas Fairbanks wanted to make movies THEIR way. 34 year old Mary plays 16 year old Molly, a fiesty tomboy who is protector and surrogate mother of a group of orphans on the seedy "baby farm" of the evil Mr. Grimes (Gustav von Seyfertitz, possibly the most unlikable villain in silent films). Mary was a deeply religious woman in real life and notice how Jesus puts in a cameo appearance in this film in a heartbreaking scene in which a young infant dies and is taken away to a beautiful pasture. The scene in which Molly and the children finally escape from the farm through a ghastly swamp was photographed by Karl Struss and Charles Rosher, both of whom would later win Oscars for their stylish photography. One scene of them clambering over a rotting tree limb which constantly threatens to drop them all to some eagerly anticipatory crocodiles is still a hair raiser even today. This is not to say that SPARROWS does not have some faults. The ultimate fate of Mr. Grimes is telegraphed far in advance of the actual occurrence and once the danger is over the film continues on with a prolonged motorboat chase and a seemingly interminable dream sequence where Molly envisions life for herself and the children in the future. A little editing would have helped immensely in this case. So is SPARROWS worth seeing? You bet!

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3 out of 4 people found the following comment useful :-
Pickford in all her poignancy, 21 February 2000

Author: rudy-46 from Swansea, IL

Mary Pickford once again shines in this late silent cinematic gem. The somber photography and storyline suggests a strong influence of the then German expressionist movement. A fine production nicely directed by William Beaudine. Still youthful looking, this is I believe Pickfords' last juvenile role and she plays it with that same girlish vitality. One of the finer films of the silent era.

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2 out of 3 people found the following comment useful :-
Orphans of the Swamps, 8 December 2005
Author: lugonian from Kissimmee, Florida

SPARROWS (United Artists, 1926), directed by William Beaudine, is a prime example of good vs. evil with a timeless story centering upon abducted children, mostly orphans, being held in bondage on an isolated location surrounded by treacherous swamps and quicksand where they are put through slave labor with little nutrition, only a potato for each, as well as living in constant fear from a "family man" named Mr. Grimes, who threatens to throw them into the swamp if they don't behave. Headlining the cast of not-so-well known actors is Mary Pickford, one of the top names of the silent screen, whose performance in SPARROWS has been singled out as the finest and most revived of her long list of film credits. Better known as "America's Sweetheart," Pickford, as one of the "sparrows" (title inspired by the Biblical quotation concerning the Lord's attention even to the most humble sparrow) is convincing as the eldest and mother figure to the enslaved children, in spite of being a woman in her thirties, yet, this being her farewell performance as the little girl with pig tails, it's the sort of role moviegoers and film historians remember her best.

The opening inter-titles gives much indication as to what's to be seen: "The devil's share in the world's creation was a certain southern swampland - a masterpiece of horror and the Lord appreciating a good job, let it stand," followed by an overview of the location from where the story is set, "Then the devil went himself one better - and had Mr. Grimes live in the swamp." Grimes (Gustav Von Seyffertitz) is then introduced as the title cards read, going one better, seen limping through the swamp land with mosquitoes flying around his head, acquiring a doll to be given to a little girl on his farm, then crushing the doll's head and throwing it into the quicksand as he watches it slowly sinking. Next introduction is Mollie (Mary Pickford) along with the other little orphans flying her kite with a message for help attached. The kite flies away in the wind only to be caught on a tree branch. There goes her plea for help! The "sparrows" must hide in the barn whenever the bell rings so that they won't be visible to visitors buying hogs from Mr. Grimes. As the story progresses, Grimes acquires a two-year-old girl (Mary Louise Miller) from a couple of abductors, unaware that she is the daughter of millionaire David Wayne (Roy Stewart). When Grimes learns of the child's identity in the newspapers, and that police are on his trail, he attempts to dispose of the evidence by throwing her into the swamp, but Mollie prevents this, first by using a pitchfork as a weapon against Grimes, and later making a daring escape taking the baby and the other "sparrows" with her, risking their lives through the swamps, quicksand and very hungry crocodiles. With this being the highlight, it is followed by a second climatic scene that fails to recapture the initial thrill.

With the exception of Pickford and the child actors, much of the supporting players are very much like the Charles Dickens novels, unsympathetic types. Grimes is evil beyond belief; his wife (played by Charlotte Mineau) is an ignorant country woman with some common sense, but not quite as pleasant, while their son, Ambrose (Spec O'Donnell) is quite brutal, especially when he pleasures himself by bullying the sparrows, mainly the defenseless ones, ranging from a stuttering youngster to a lame boy bearing crutches.

Throughout the years, SPARROWS has been available in alternate versions, not in terms of length or missing scenes, but in music accompaniment. When the Museum of Modern Art in New York City had a tribute to Mary Pickford in June 1979, the very year of her death, SPARROWS was presented to an attentive audience with a slow pacing piano score, the same print shown in the 1982-83 public television's weekly series of "Sprockets." Distributed on video cassette through various distributors, ranging from those with an organ score by Gaylord Carter, piano or no score at all, Turner Classic Movies shows it on it's own "Silent Sunday Nights" equipped with piano score by William Perry from the Paul Killian collection, having the 1970s "Silent Years" feel to it.

As good as the story goes in regards to sentiment, suspense and limited doses of comedy, SPARROWS leaves some questions unanswered, one in particular regarding the father of Doris Wayne. With the only other female residing in his mansion being a private nurse, whatever became of the mother? Is he divorced or widowed? As for Pickford's character, she comes across as self-confident, religious and never losing her faith, praying to the Good Lord in hope that someday she and the nine other "sparrows" will obtain their long awaited freedom. One poignant scene occurs with Molly holding a dead baby in her arms as she envisions Jesus Christ approaching her and taking the infant with Him to Heaven.

Of the handful of screen villains at that time, such as Ernest Torrence or Tully Marshall, Von Seyffertitz comes across as very sinister, coming close to the physical resemblance to Max Schreck in the German made NOSFERATU (1922). In spite of a few weaknesses found in the screenplay, it's almost a perfect film. Only debit happens to be humorous scenes that seem to not fit into this atmospheric setting. It's also quite surprising that a movie with a touch of D.W. Griffith to be directed by William Beaudine, better known today more for his low-budget productions in later years.

With a majority of silent movies remade during the sound era, it's amazing that as popular as SPARROWS has become, that it wasn't redone. A remake with Anne Shirley as Mollie and Edward Ellis or Arthur Hohl as Grimes might have worked as good casting. However, as remakes go, very few have ever recaptured the success of the original. (***)

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3 out of 5 people found the following comment useful :-
The Great Mary Pickford, 22 February 2005

Author: drednm2004 from United States

A superstar of her era, Mary Pickford was a great actress and a great comic. She won an Oscar for her talkie debut in Coquette, but Pickford is better remembered for a string of silent films in the teens and 20s that showed off her amazing abilities and personality. And Sparrows is one of the best. Pickford plays a young girl trapped on a "baby farm" in the middle of a swamp somewhere in the Deep South. The role allows her to be funny, poignant, and plucky---all the things audiences wanted to see in a Pickford picture. Pickford is also a great physical comic in the tradition of Chaplin, Lloyd, and Keaton. Sparrows is funny but also builds dramatic tension as Mary leads the band of orphans thru the swamp to escape the evil owner. The wonderful piano score by William Perry is also an asset. Good film; great star.

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3 out of 5 people found the following comment useful :-
An Excellent Melodrama With Mary Pickford and Much More, 25 September 2001
Author: Snow Leopard from Ohio

This is an excellent melodrama, with a fine performance by Mary Pickford and much more besides. The settings, characters, and photography create an interesting and memorable world in which the adventures of Molly (Pickford) and the orphans take place, in a story with plenty of drama and suspense.

Molly was an ideal role for Pickford, who could make such a character appealing and very sympathetic without going overboard. Though most of the film is quite serious, she also makes good use of the occasional comic moments. The settings in the swamp and on the farm run by the vile Grimes are nicely conceived and created. The sets are filled with careful atmospheric detail, and the photography is excellent. The Grimes family are very good villains, and Gustav von Seyffertitz gives a fine portrayal of the nasty farmer.

There is plenty of action and there are some fine scenes, leading up to an excellent suspense sequence in the swamp, with plenty of thrills and excitement. The only thing that keeps it from being a nearly perfect film is that the last part does drag on just a bit, becoming rather anticlimactic, and it would have been an even better movie if it were maybe 5-10 minutes shorter. But that doesn't change the fact that overall it's great fun to watch.

If you are a fan of silent melodramas, make sure to see "Sparrows" if you get the chance.

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Sparrows versus a Hawk!, 11 May 2008

Author: JohnHowardReid

Although this is Mary Pickford's film, it also presents Von Seyffertitz with the best role of his career. Needing little in the way of make-up, the gaunt actor adds to his frighteningly sinister appearance by flourishing his claw-like hands and limping in awkward yet forceful strides. Child actor, Spec O'Donnell, who usually played comic roles, is also most effective. But it is, of course, Mary herself who focuses most of our attention, not only in the hair-raising scenes in which she is pursued by Grimes but in the many heartrending sequences in which she protects her "sparrows".

William Beaudine later became Hollywood's number one hack, but in silent days—indeed until around the mid-1930s—he was a very polished director who could not only draw great performances from his players but add immeasurably to a film's atmosphere and visual effect. Here, his compositions are indelibly terrifying.

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