The Poor Little Rich Girl (1917)

Film: The Poor Little Rich Girl (1917)

Stars: Mary Pickford, Madlaine Traverse, Charles Wellesley

Director: Maurice Tourneur

Oscar History: The film predated the Oscars

Snap Judgment Ranking: 3/5 stars

Each month, as part of our 2024 Saturdays with the Stars series, we are looking at the women who were once crowned as "America's Sweethearts" and the careers that inspired that title (and what happened when they eventually lost it to a new generation).  This month, our focus is on Shirley Temple: click here to learn more about Ms. Pickford (and why I picked her), and click here for other Saturdays with the Stars articles.

Mary Pickford wasn't born into a show business family, but it became one quickly after her father died when she was six-years-old.  After being widowed, her mother put her daughters (Mary was one of three siblings, along with sister Lottie and brother Jack) into stock theater company, which she worked in until her late teens, at which point she was discovered by DW Griffith, who signed her to Biograph.  Pickford's work ethic, which would be a marked characteristic throughout her career, meant she made over 50 films her first full-year in movies, which was smart as she started to become a known commodity.  This became even more apparent when, after Florence Lawrence, she became one of the first major stars of the early Hollywood years to get billed by her name, meaning she wasn't just a "Biograph Girl" but "Mary Pickford"-far more valuable and exchangeable amongst the studios.  In the 1910's, she was the most popular film star in America, only rivaled by Charlie Chaplin.  One of those massive hits was today's film, The Poor Little Rich Girl.

(Spoilers Ahead) Based on a stage play by Eleanor Gates, the movie is about Gwendolyn (Pickford), a poor little rich girl whose parents don't have time for her (her father works, her mother plans society luncheons), and has no playmates.  We see (this is a silent film, so there's no dialogue other than title cards, and a lot of the story is told in large brushstrokes) her life as being pretty empty, being taught as the only student in her school, her only playmates being snobby little children who are not as kind as Gwendolyn, and her literally being on a balcony overlooking poor people in the streets, whom she longs to play with.  Most of the first half of the film is Gwendolyn getting into antics, but after an accidental overdose of sleeping medication, she nearly dies, and during that near-death experience, she dreams of a bizarre forest world with creatures that she could play with, and is lured by Death to come and join him in eternal rest...but eventually Life wins, and she rejoins her family, now less consumed by greed and more focused on their daughter.

The movie features Pickford as a child, which was a common trope for her in her early years.  Pickford would've been 24 when this was released, and to modern audiences she would've been barely believable as a teenager, much less an 11-year-old, playing that age, but it works better than you'd expect in the film.  Pickford's short stature and youthful complexion helps, as does her over-exaggerated acting style & commitment to the bit.  I'll be totally honest when I say the only Mary Pickford movie I had seen before this month was Coquette, which has the ignoble stature of being one of the worst performances to win a Best Actress statue, but watching this-while I don't know if Pickford is a great actress yet, it's pretty clear to see she's magnetic, and why audiences loved her in movies like The Poor Little Rich Girl.  She has a presence, and with a limited plot, she knows how to milk most of the movie.

It also helps that the film's approach is quite inventive.  The filmmaking is fun (I love the distinctive way they get a title card of her shouting "I hate her" through a keyhole), and the last 15 minutes is genuinely a gas.  I expected Mary Pickford to be playing someone a decade younger than her in this movie-I did not expect her to go on an acid trip complete with human-like donkeys and the personification of death like she was in an Ingmar Bergman movie.  Silent films are an acquired taste, and to be honest I'm usually more partial to epics or comedies of the format than family dramas, but this works primarily because it's willing to take such a large swing late in the film, totally upending our expectations.