The Poor Little Rich Girl

In addition to typecasting Mary Pickford as playing child characters, this role established her as America's Sweetheart. The 24-year-old Pickford plays an 11-year-old rich girl, who's neglected by her parents and is raised by nasty housekeepers and several personal schoolmarms. The only playmate she's allowed is a bore. Of course, every viewer sympathizes with the character's predicament, and Pickford gets the most out of that. The mud fight and tantrum scenes add some amusement between the more gushy moments and the great dream sequence.

Much of the credit here also needs to go to the screenwriter Frances Marion. Besides being a woman in a male-dominated business, she was one of the first scenarists to have creative control over productions. Like another female screenwriter, Anita Loos, Marion helped introduce the role of intertitles in silent film (as opposed to the tableau style of title cards only to introduce scenes). Both women also sometimes demonstrated their authorship with self-referential winks; Marion's "Armarilly of Clothes-Line Alley" and Loos's "Wild and Woolly" are two examples--where the authors expose their constructions with one intertitle.

Pickford does well to overcome the weirdness of an adult playing the role of a child. Moreover, the setting of a mansion, in addition to large props and tall actors accentuate Pickford's natural smallness, but more needed to be done about her adult figure. Director Maurice Tourneur and the film-making crew add appropriate, non-intrusive style to this sweet photoplay, providing Pickford with the most important vehicle of her career.

Gwen's family is rich, but her parents ignore her and most of the servants push her around, so she is lonely and unhappy. Her father is concerned only with making money, and her mother cares only about her social position. But one day a servant's irresponsibility creates a crisis that causes everyone to rethink what is important to them.

The film was shot in Fort Lee, New Jersey when early film studios in America's first motion picture industry were based there at the beginning of the 20th century.

What is most interesting to me is that the film was directed by Maurice Tourneur. Maurice had an incredible career spanning from the earliest days up through the 1940s. And yet, I think he is not a well-known figure. His son, Jacques, is quite a bit more known due to his working with producer Val Lewton. But why has Maurice been forgotten?

Like so many of the silents, there is a powerful message here about family and the importance of family. Here is a little girl with everything money can buy except the time of her parents. They are so busy with making money and the social circuit they have no time for their little girl (Mary Pickford). As is also the case with so many silents, the cue cards make sure that we understand the points the makers want made. And as has been the case in so many other silents, the movie makes its points very well and did not need the extra cue cards to make them. Having said that, this is a very good movie. Early films could do a very good job of telling a story and making a statement. This one does indeed do both.

Wealthy ten-year-old Mary Pickford (as Gwen) lives in a beautiful mansion; she has everything she needs, except love. She must make an appointment to see her father (Charles Wellesley), who spends his time wheeling and dealing; and, she barely gets an opportunity to see her mother (Madlaine Traverse), who is busily attending to social duties. Her parents do not have time to spend with lonely Ms. Pickford; and, she is left in the care of unloving servants...

A lot of studio trickery helps to make Pickford believable as the fun-loving, independent and lonely little Gwendolyn; her age is not at all vague, as her 11th birthday is celebrated during the running time. You'll notice the large sets, and tall actors (standing on telephone books, no doubt) right away. Yet, finally, it's Pickford who pulls off the ruse. When she sits down for her tutoring, in close-up, Pickford makes the character a fully believable individual. The effort to make Pickford appear small adds to the film's surreal whimsicality.

Importantly, "The Poor Little Rich Girl" is the first of Pickford's adult portrayals of little girls. Her relative youth, and lack of "affected" mannerisms, is an early strength; she is fresh, and convincing. Later on, Pickford's portrayals suffered, as she employed stock muggings, pouts, and grimaces (to be fair, these were responsive to moviegoers increasing demand she remain in the "little girl" roles). Subsequently, the Pickford mannerisms were more cloyingly adopted by Shirley Temple, and others; for example, note how closely Pickford resembles Ms. Temple after she dons a boy's hat and clothes.

Director Maurice Tourneur and set designer Ben Carré help create the extraordinary, whimsical world "Gwen" inhabits. There are some "special effect" sequences, ending with a drug-induced delirium. Therein, Pickford dreams about the day's people and events; and, finally, she meets the beckoning figure of death, who invites: "Here, in the forest, dark and deep, I offer you, eternal sleep…" Maxine Elliott Hicks and Herbert Prior are among the more notable supporting players. Frequent Pickford writer Frances Marion does a fantastic job bringing story details together; she, Pickford, Mr. Tourneur, and Mr. Carré certainly created a monster.

********** The Poor Little Rich Girl (3/5/17) Maurice Tourneur ~ Mary Pickford, Maxine Elliott Hicks, Herbert Prior

This delightful film marked a turning point in the career of Mary Pickford, the first time in adulthood that she played a little girl. The illusion was enhanced with specially scaled sets and props that made Mary look smaller, and also by casting unusually tall actors as the "grown-ups," but it wouldn't have worked if Mary herself hadn't been such a gifted performer in her own right. She is remarkably convincing as 11 year-old Gwendolyn. It's notable that when Mary (who was 24 when this film was made) plays scenes opposite Maxine Elliott (who was 12 at the time), the illusion is not spoiled. The great success of The Poor Little Rich Girl at the box office ensured that Mary Pickford would be playing little girls well into her 30s, despite occasional attempts to demonstrate more versatility. Eventually she came to consider the role something of a curse, but in any event the film holds up nicely today: it's interesting, suspenseful, and funny, with odd touches of surrealism during the extended dream sequence that forms the climax.

Mary's Gwendolyn is certainly a sympathetic protagonist. The story paints a vivid picture of the girl's loneliness and her desperation to receive some attention from her high society parents, but she's no sad sack-- she's a spirited kid bursting with vitality, though she's surrounded by servants who devote themselves to stifling her energy. She's sheltered but no snob, and much of the havoc she creates comes when she invites some of the scruffier neighborhood kids inside to play. The comic high point is a mud fight that takes place in the green house of Gwendolyn's home. (Oddly enough, Mary Pickford revealed in later years that director Maurice Tourneur was opposed to the inclusion of this sequence and had to be persuaded to film it.) The mud fight is great fun, but for me the movie's real highlight comes when Gwendolyn, ill and delirious, has a bizarre dream that offers metaphors for her life and the people she's known. For instance, her mean-spirited governess, described earlier as a "snake in the grass," actually appears as such in the dream, while another character is shown to be "two-faced." I won't reveal any more of the imagery for anyone who might see this film, except to note that the dream sequence alone is worth the price of admission.

P.S. I happened to see The Poor Little Rich Girl at a recent screening at the Museum of the City of New York, where locally-made movies are occasionally shown. Viewers interested in New York City history may be interested to learn that this film includes location scenes of Mary taking a ride along Riverside Drive as well as some brief shots of Wall Street. My fellow New Yorkers got a big laugh at one point when Gwendolyn's father contemplates selling his mansion for $35,000!