Suds

SUDS is one of Mary Pickford's finest hours, a multi-faceted comedy-drama that runs the gamut from slapstick to heart-touching poignancy. Set in 1800s London, Mary stars as Amanda, a homely little laundress in a dump of laundry. Her only friends are the boy and an old, half-dead horse that deliver the cleaned clothes. Amanda gets through her grim existence nursing a crush on a well-dressed if smug customer, her only link to a better world, who eight months earlier dropped off a shirt to clean which he's never returned to pick up. Twice weeks she washes the shirt in hopes of his eventual return. The other women laugh at her delusions as she claims he's her boyfriend and they are both from the upper classes, her father having kicked her out for their romance to see if anyone will love her for herself and not her inheritance. It's all baloney, of course, but it seems Amanda half believes it herself. There's an enchanting segment where Amanda tells her coworkers her story that allows Mary to be beautiful and glamorous (her faux boyfriend's looks and clothes also having improved from reality) as she is shown in her castle of her home, with Amanda, the beau, and her father all speaking via screen titles in the broken Cockney English of Amanda and her earthy associates. Misfortune continues to plague Amanda and when she least expects it, the phantom "boyfriend" returns for his shirt at long last (or rather, comes in with another shirt to clean).

Mary is wonderful in this charming movie often compared to a Chaplin vehicle but perhaps more of a realistic fairytale with touches of D. W. Griffith and Mack Sennett, often wearing a tight grin that suggests a poor girl hiding bad teeth and also force optimism. The supporting cast has only small parts but then Mary never did really need any help to make a movie an extraordinary experience.

Amanda Afflick (Mary Pickford) is a laundry worker in London early in the 20th century. She is small and weak and the other girls at the laundry pick on her, but she has one consolation: she adores a male customer who left his shirt eight months ago. In front of her colleagues she pretends he is her lover and she is the disowned daughter of an 'arch-dook'. A sub-plot tells how she saves the ancient horse that pulls the laundry cart from being sent off to the knacker's yard. If there is any single film that demonstrates what a great actress Pickford was it is not one of the pictures where she plays a little girl; it is this one. Without any camera tricks and with minimal makeup she manages to appear as an entirely different person - small, wizened, with hunched shoulders and pinched face, whose underlying beauty becomes apparent only at second sight. 'Suds' tells a story that is not particularly happy but it is still full of humour and even of slapstick-like fun (the film exists with several endings, I saw the version where Amanda and her true admirer are reunited with the horse in the countryside). In the course of her career, Pickford would make more sophisticated pictures, for my taste reaching her high point in 1927 with 'My Best Girl'. However, 'Suds' is incomparably better than the earlier efforts of her that I have watched and it showcases her talents perfectly. Highly recommended!

While it's more uneven than usual for a Mary Pickford feature, "Suds" is generally enjoyable, with a mix of material that works often enough to make it worthwhile. Pickford's character was something of a change-of-pace for her, in that many of the character's problems here are simply her own fault, not the result of circumstance. There is also more silly humor than you expect from Mary, but then there are some better comedy sequences that she pulls off as well as ever.

The story has Pickford as Amanda, a day-dreamer working in a hand laundry, where the other employees see her as a ridiculous romantic at best, and an inept nuisance at worst. The plot is carried in part by her far-fetched fantasies, and in part by her efforts to help out the old horse who pulls the laundry's delivery cart. Most of the scenes hold up well enough on their own, but as a whole it never really seems to get off the ground. Fortunately, Mary could make even the most negligible material seem watchable, so most of it works all right, and there are a couple of very good sequences. With a lesser star, it probably would have fallen apart, and overall it probably gets about as much as it could have from the material.

Okay, so I've checking message boards and after seeing pretty much all of the Mary Pickford films one can get on video-which is just a small percentage-I have to say Suds is one of my favorites. It's really goofy, and yeah, a little uneven, but in a way that's it's charm. It has some real goofy charm, I like that Pickford plays a total screw-up. Most of her intentions are good, but she's also a liar, she's a very dynamic person. Often I get bored of Mary Pickford films because she would get stuck playing one-note characters. Amanda is an interesting character because she's such a dork. It's a little sad because seeing odd but charming choices she makes as Amanda, such as the scene where she can't stop scratching the itch on her arm, or the scene where she stitches a portrait of guy she likes into his own shirt show that while she got more opportunities than most women of her time if things had been different she may have been female Charline and not a footnote in cinema history-a title she doesn't deserve anyway. it's a good film.

Amanda Afflick, a poor laundress, works in London, where she is taunted by her co-workers and called "Sudsie." She has all sorts of misadventures. She then makes up a story that she is really the daughter of the "Arch-dook," and is hoping to find a man who will love her for who she is. Benjamin Jones, another commoner, shows fondness for her, but Amanda tries to hold out for the well-off Horace Greensmith, who had left his shirt to be laundered. (Note: in an alternate ending, according to contemporaneous reviews, Amanda cries her heart out on the steps of the laundry. This scene is included in the version I watched, but a more satisfying conclusion is added.)

It took me a while to warm up to this film. For one thing, Pickford is almost unrecognizable in her role; I kept wondering if I was watching the right movie. I was almost jolted during the scene where she imagines she is the daughter of royalty. We get a nice close-up of Pickford, and she appears stunningly beautiful, in contrast to her homely appearance for most of the film.

Some of her early predicaments were not too funny; some seemed downright painful to watch. Eventually, the story did grow on me. There are also some good laughs involving a horse she rescues. For me, Pickford's talent is on full display when she realizes that Albert Austin (as Horace Greensmith), who has just invited her out, is actually ashamed to be seen with her. One can see the pain in her face, even as she smiles at the man who is beyond her station in life.

This is not a classic by any means, but a chance to see Pickford playing an interesting character.