Secrets

SECRETS was the last movie Mary Pickford would appear in as an actress. In it she displays a much greater ease with the microphone than she did in her earlier talkies. Her performance is really quite superb, and should have paved the way for a long career as a character actress. She was 40 when she made this film, and it does stretch credulity a little to see her playing a virginal debutante in the early scenes - however, as the film goes on, and her character ages, she displays a tremendous range as an actress. And she's beautifully matched by Leslie Howard, who gives a very charming performance as her lover/husband.

Under the skilful direction of Frank Borzage, Mary is allowed many moments to do what a silent screen actor could do better than any other actor - express emotion without words. There is one scene, involving the death of a child, that is amongst the most moving scenes I have ever witnessed - and it is virtually a silent scene. All the emotion comes from Mary. All actors should watch this scene and learn what great screen acting is all about.

The screenplay is a little meandering, and peculiarly episodic. Based on a stage play, I get the impression that the film follows the three act play structure - First Act:light romantic comedy, Second Act:Western melodrama, Third Act:relationship drama - and finally an epilogue to tie-up all the loose ends. It's not an unentertaining structure, but it does seem a little odd. Through it all Pickford, Howard and Borzage stride with great skill, to create a memorable film, and a triumphant farewell to one of Hollywood's greatest stars.

There is a certain old-fashioned charm to this strangely truncated historical epic. Running just 83 minutes, this 1933 film offers the last performance given by silent screen legend Mary Pickford, and one feels conflicted about her performance here. On one hand, she produces some poignant moments and surprising comic ones with her character - a headstrong, late-19th-century debutante named Mary Marlow intent on marrying John Carlton who heads west in a covered wagon to raise cattle. On the other, Pickford is over forty and looks it - playing first a teenager and then a young bride and mother. Gauzy lenses aside, she never quite convinces, especially since her accentuated acting style is so reflective of the silent era.

Even with revered director Frank Borzage ("Seventh Heaven") at the helm and a script co-written by Frances Marion ("Dinner at Eight", "Camille"), there is no getting around the fact that it feels like a vanity production for Pickford to present her as relevant in the sound era. By all accounts, the effort failed. The plot follows Mary and John's courtship in New England under the suspicious glare of her tyrannical father. They head west where they face cattle rustlers and a rather lugubrious shootout at their ranch with tragic consequences. The disjointed story abruptly flashes forward years later where they now have four grown children and John becomes a contender for Governor of California. A nasty senorita shows up at a formal reception threatening to expose John's infidelities – an odd plot development since we are given no hint of this character flaw before. The movie flashes forward again where John and Mary are now elderly and facing a life without obligations.

The irony with casting Pickford (whose voice bears a striking resemblance to Jean Arthur's) is that as Mary ages, she looks more physically appropriate, but she gradually loses much of the on screen vitality for which she was known. That's why the early scenes are far more entertaining even if she looks too mature for them. There is an extended, wordless scene in the cabin with her baby that does showcase why she was a fine silent screen actress. Cast against type as rowdy John, Leslie Howard comes across as much younger than Pickford even though they were almost the same age. C. Aubrey Smith ("Wee Willie Winkie") is great in the early scenes as Mary's father, while sour-voiced Ned Sparks ("Imitation of Life") shows up for typical comic relief. When the camera shows Pickford as an old lady in the Model T, there is a genuine feeling of finality to her career. The 2008 DVD is a welcome reminder of Pickford's legacy, but her earlier work will provide you with a better indication of her onscren talent.

This in 1933 was Mary Pickford's last movie though she would not have known it at the time. Historically this is a particularly special movie for Mary's personal life.

Mary used this movie to make a statement to her husband Doublas Fairbanks (they were separated at this time and seemingly finished as the intense and deeply passionate couple they were). She at this time was telling Douglas Fairbanks she could forgive his meanderings and in fact the tenor of the whole movie is also about these sorts of choices.Mary was in fact seemingly desperate to get back together with Douglas. I think Mary chose this movie because it spoke to her current marital problems with Fairbanks.

Douglas Fairbanks responded to Mary in his last movie in 1934 - appropriately in the role of Don Juan in 'The Private Life of Don Juan'. His response - that he was tired, he needed to rest and to sleep. In real life Douglas Fairbanks in the end couldn't get Mary Pickford out of his heart and made a number of attempts to restart their relationships, but Mary had hardened her heart. And when eventually Mary did relent and decided she couldn't live without Douglas she was a few hours too late. Fairbanks in the end gave up, resolved himself that Mary wouldn't come back and booked himself on an overseas cruise. Mary sent him a message but it was too late, he had already left. And thus it was one of the great and passionate relationships of Hollywood finally died. It should not be under estimated how much these two loved each other. It was something neither got over for the rest of their lives.

Secrets was an odd movie that apart from the message it directed at Douglas Fairbanks certainly show cased some of Mary's great skill at comedy and at evoking an emotional response from the audience not to mention the last we got to see some her acting habits that created an attachment between her and the viewer. Mary's acting has always been effortless, always natural with a natural tempo. A study of her movies through the years is a revelation. Lillian Gish always thought Pickford the greatest of all actors.

Right from the beginning in 1909 Mary Pickford worked out and stated clearly many times that Stage Acting was NOT the way to act in moving pictures. Pickford pioneered method acting and the skill of silent acting, inventing a new type of acting for film, - where very subtle movements, gestures facial use and so forth had to be used to tell a story and engender emotion. She became the greatest and most skillful silent actor of all time. Revealing also are around 24 newspaper interviews she gave during her early and mid career that showed, that even the very young Mary Pickford made a very careful study of acting for the silver screen and her development of method acting. Even the teenage Pickford took the job extremely seriously.

Another thing people viewing this movie must remember about 1933. Sound was still new to film and the film technology for it still very young and the means of recording actors still in it's development stage, sound quality was not very good. In Mary's movie Coquette, her first talkie, sound microphones were stationary. Actors couldn't speak until they were in proper range of the microphone which created all sorts of problems and curiosities in the earliest talkies. They would speak their line, remain silent until the moved to the next designated spot where a fixed mike was and speak their lines and so on. Mary's other talkie Kiki wasn't a success at the time, though now it is thoroughly entertaining and in some parts great fun and one of the funniest comedic dance scenes you will run across in movies.

The success of Mary Pickford's talkie movies wasn't about Mary but what the public wanted Mary to do. She went in to totally different and unfamiliar roles. But one has to understand what was going on in Mary's life at this very time. She lost her deepest love and closest friend, her mother, which caused her to cut her hair for the first time every - totally changing her image and to reassess her life. She was devastated. Her other family members sister and brother were also in great troubles through alcoholism and sickness and of course she was having trouble with her husband. On top of this her studio UA needed to put out movies to make some money, this being the Great Depression, and Chaplin wasn't pulling his weight at the time. Pickford was under huge emotional, family and business pressures at this time.

Pickford never decided to make this her last movie - it just turned out that way as other business and family pressures kept her too busy and eventually she thought not to bother with it anymore - wrongly thinking that her popularity had gone past its use by date.

In this movie the comedic undressing scene bespeaks the effortless grace, timing and organizational skill of Pickford. The death of the baby silent scene fittingly gives us one last glimpse of the great actress.

It was a pity that Pickford never returned, she still had much to give and all the skill in the world to apply. Her acting was as good as anybody and probably would have reached its great heights again.

The main reason Mary Pickford never made movies again one feels, despite all the other reasons, is the loss of Douglas Fairbanks. If these two had reconciled, rejoined, it is inevitable their great passion and love of life would have seen Mary back in movies, instead this time being a great pioneer of the talking movies. Her career in acting spanned from the age of 5 when she traveled by train day after day, year after year, learning her trade.

For reasons best known to posterity this thoroughly delightful comedy-drama has been almost totally forgotten despite starring none other than Mary Pickford, (it was her last film), and a young Leslie Howard, (before he grew stiff). It was directed by the great Frank Borzage who already had two best director Oscars under his belt and it was written by Francis Marion who also had two Oscars under her belt by the time this came along. Everyone is at their best here, whether it's in the full-blown comedy of the early sequences or in the melodramatics that follow as the somewhat over-egged plot progresses. Something of an undervalued gem and a well-kept secret.

This movie was released the same year as the Oscar winning British film Cavalcade. I've seen them both, and yet Cavalcade was more celebrated then - and now - than "Secrets", even though Secrets is similar to Cavalcade in many ways. Secrets tells the story of a couple through 50 years from their secret courtship in New England and elopement, to their days building up a farm in California, through the husband's rise in politics and then their old age. It really is strongly structured into three acts, but that neither adds to nor subtracts from the film. I thought Mary Pickford still seemed young enough to play the youthful part at this point, and Leslie Howard gave a strong performance as her husband.

Even though this film was well acted, ably directed by Frank Borzage, and had an interesting storyline, it failed at the box office. Perhaps it was just not what Depression era audiences wanted, or perhaps Pickford fans still couldn't get used to Mary in talking roles. At any rate, because Pickford financed her own films, this hit her hard financially. She had started making this film in 1930, stopped production, and then started over, finishing three years later. Thus, this was Mary Pickford's last film, although she remained active behind the scenes as a producer for many years.

If you like films like "Cavalcade" or "Giant" that tell epic stories of families over time, you should like this one. It does show that Mary Pickford did very well understand how to take on a talking film role.