Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm

During her tenure as 'America's Sweetheart', Mary Pickford made a lot of very similar films. Again and again, Mary played young girls and teenagers--even though she was clearly a woman in her 30s or 40s. America and the world loved it and didn't seem to mind. However, if you've seen as many of her films as I have, there is definitely a certain sameness about these performances. Again and again, she played a plucky, decent, adorable and slightly mischievous girl--in such films as "Daddy Long Legs", "Sparrows", "Pollyanna" and many others. I generally like these performances despite the sameness and this was true with all her fans. However, in the case of "Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm", she plays a similar sort of creature but the film is definitely not up to her usually high standards. Why? Mostly because the film is, at times, practically plot less.

The film begins with Rebecca (Pickford playing someone about age 14) going to live with her two elderly aunts. It seems that Rebecca's family is having financial problems and the aunts have offered to take one of the children in and adopt them--and the one turns out to be Rebecca. What follows is no real consistent theme--just a variety of incidents. Some involve Rebecca fighting with some stuck up girls at school, some with her attempts to help a local poor family and a very few involve Rebecca and her aunts. However, there really isn't much of a theme or purpose to all this. SOME attempt is made with the introduction of the Mr. Ladd character, but this is also very under-developed and a bit creepy. See the film and you'll understand about the whole 'creepy' angle. Overall, a film that left me surprisingly cold considering that I like Pickford's films...just not this one. Now I am not saying it's bad--just not nearly as good as her typical 'little girl' film.

By the way, if you want something other than these sorts of portrayals by Pickford, try finding a copy of "My Best Girl"-- probably her best film and one of the great silents.

An adaptation of Kate Douglas Wiggins' famous novel and play. A polished production based on a famous novel that nevertheless doesn't stray far from Mary Pickford's established formula. It's pretty thin on plot and only mediocre entertainment if you're not a fan of Pickford's fondness for playing adolescent girls.

Saw Rebecca for the first time at the UCLA 2004 Restoration Festival. Obviously, Mary Pickford steals the show in a series of vignettes loosely tied together by screenwriter Frances Marion from the original children's story. Pickford is the original coquette, tiny (just watch her dancing with her "beau" in one scene), her head a mass of curls and a spunky spirit that's very twenty first century. However, there is much of the film that is dated and does not resonate with a modern audience.Of course, that's what I enjoyed most about the film- gazing back into a world which no longer exists. We get a glimpse at Victorian sensibilities- the movie was made in 1917-and harks back to an even earlier time. Much of the plot is devoted to Rebecca's heart warming but somewhat patronizing efforts to succor the woeful and shiftless Simpson family (now that's funny). The Simpsons are poor, badly dressed and lack a parlor lamp and a wedding band, until Rebecca comes along.

At times, it's disconcerting to see Pickford play a young teen because for all the prancing,pouting and curl tossing, Mary is clearly an adult woman. Even creepier is the abject attention this little girl is receiving from the village's most eligible bachelor, but I guess back even in 1917 people wanted to see a love story. Still, the film is an old fashioned pleasure, with many charming gags and characters, and over much too soon.

When Adolph Zukor and Jessy Lasky merged their movie production companies into one, the Famous Players-Lasky, they eyed their partner in its Paramount Pictures distribution branch, William Hodkinson, to squeeze him out with an involuntary buyout. Once they did in the summer of 1916, Zukor and Lasky dropped their Famous Players' name and called their combined production and distribution company Paramount Pictures.

Zukor believed in signing the top movie stars in the business. One of his first contracts was with Hollywood's most popular actress, Mary Pickford. Her signature on the dotted line on June 24, 1916, was the first million dollar pact for an female performer. Zukor was willing to pay her $10,000 a week and to give her half the profits for each film she made. He guaranteed over one million dollars (about $20 million in today's inflationary dollars) for the year with her full control of each of her film's production, an unprecedented contract at that time.

So impressed was Zukor with Frances Marion's script of "The Poor Little Rich Girl" he took the unusual step of paying her $50,000 per year to be Pickford's official scenarioist, making her one of the highest paid writers in the business. Marion wrote two other scripts for her in 1917, both becoming instant classics.

For her second Pickford screenplay, Marion took the 1903 Kate Wiggin's children novel, "Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm" and the 1909 play of the same name and adapted it to fit Pickford's magnetic personality. The September 1917 movie contains a series of vignettes of Pickford playing a young niece who is harbored by two aunts, one cranky and the other laid back She's harped on because of her confident independence, except for a one loyal friend and a rich young man who has eyes out for the adolescent Rebecca. Innocent romance develops between the two in this feel-good motion picture which the members of the American Film Institute nominated as one of 500 films to be considered for its "Top 100 Funniest Movies."

This is an ideal role for Mary Pickford, and she is quite a joy to watch. Young, lively "Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm" is innocent but not naive; she is charming and warm, but at the same time more than capable of taking care of herself, too - thus the character has all the qualities that Pickford excelled at portraying on screen. It was probably a pretty easy role for her to play, but the result is a delightful little comic melodrama that gives you a good idea of why Pickford came to be so wildly popular in her time.

The story follows the old-fashioned novel fairly closely, beginning with Rebecca sent to live with her two stern, joyless aunts in a new town. Much of the story's appeal lies in the ways that Rebecca responds to her new acquaintances and surroundings, and this is something Pickford does extremely well. Whether sizing up a new girl at school, or simply responding to the decorations in her aunts' home, she is convincing, captivating, sympathetic, and often very funny. And as for comedy, the wonderful circus sequence alone would make the movie worth watching.

It's hard to find this film now, but it's well worth the trouble. Perhaps from a detached point of view, this might not be considered a great movie, since the plot is somewhat predictable and very old-fashioned. But it's a thoroughly pleasurable, thoughtful film, and one filled with fine moments.