Sparrows

Excellent popcorn movie that serves as a perfect introduction to silent cinema or to Mary Pickford, who at age 34, and still looking youthful, gives a top-notch performance in her final juvenile role. Pickford stars as Molly, ingenious caregiver to a band of orphans held captive on the bayou farm of evil Mr. Grimes - played with steely menace by Von Seyffertitz. The film's title is a reference to Matthew 6:26, a Bible verse Molly teaches her children when they complain about their situation. The film's religious symbolism goes even further, when one of Molly's youngest dies and Christ appears to carry the child home. Grimes strikes a deal with kidnappers to keep the infant daughter of a wealthy young widower until the ransom money can be collected. He assigns the baby to Molly after the death of her "sparrow". When one of the orphans escapes, Grimes plots to dispose of the whole group in the alligator-infested bayou. When Molly learns of Grimes' plan, she plots a daring escape with her band.

An all around excellent film, and a strong influence on many kids adventure films such as vastly inferior big-budget blockbusters like Goonies or Spy Kids.

According to the film history book on United Artists, Sparrows did not quite as well as expected. I suspect the reason is because Mary Pickford at 33 was getting a little long in the tooth to be believable as an orphan waif. Soon enough her golden curls were shorn and she would finally be taking grown up roles at the end of the silent era.

Sparrows takes a lot from Uncle Tom's Cabin without the racial component. Mary is the oldest of several orphan kids who work just like slaves on the farm of the Simon Legree character Gustav Von Syefertitz who played many villainous roles in silents and his wife Charlotte Mineau who aids and abets her husband's villainy.

Von Seyfertitz is up for all kinds of villainy so when some kidnappers want to stash a baby, rich Roy Stewart's baby he's willing for a cut of the ransom. Later when Stewart agrees to pay the kidnappers come back, but by that time Mary is leading her charges through the swamp to escape as she and the kids have had enough.

Most of the film is a white version of Uncle Tom's Cabin, but the ending is out of David Copperfield.

Sparrows is a great example of the art of Mary Pickford and what her appeal was to the movie-going public. She personified goodness and innocence on the screen despite three marriages. Instead of an icy Ohio River, Mary gets to take her brood through the Louisiana swamps with the ever present danger of alligators. I'm sure for 1926 audiences it must have been quite thrilling.

It will still thrill audiences of a new century.

SPARROWS (United Artists, 1926), directed by William Beaudine, is a prime example of good vs. evil with a timeless story centering upon abducted children, mostly orphans, being held in bondage on an isolated location surrounded by treacherous swamps and quicksand where they are put through slave labor with little nutrition, only a potato for each, as well as living in constant fear from a "family man" named Mr. Grimes, who threatens to throw them into the swamp if they don't behave. Headlining the cast of not-so-well known actors is Mary Pickford, one of the top names of the silent screen, whose performance in SPARROWS has been singled out as the finest and most revived of her long list of film credits. Better known as "America's Sweetheart," Pickford, as one of the "sparrows" (title inspired by the Biblical quotation concerning the Lord's attention even to the most humble sparrow) is convincing as the eldest and mother figure to the enslaved children, in spite of being a woman in her thirties, yet, this being her farewell performance as the little girl with pig tails, it's the sort of role moviegoers and film historians remember her best.

The opening inter-titles gives much indication as to what's to be seen: "The devil's share in the world's creation was a certain southern swampland - a masterpiece of horror and the Lord appreciating a good job, let it stand," followed by an overview of the location from where the story is set, "Then the devil went himself one better - and had Mr. Grimes live in the swamp." Grimes (Gustav Von Seyffertitz) is then introduced as the title cards read, going one better, seen limping through the swamp land with mosquitoes flying around his head, acquiring a doll to be given to a little girl on his farm, then crushing the doll's head and throwing it into the quicksand as he watches it slowly sinking. Next introduction is Mollie (Mary Pickford) along with the other little orphans flying her kite with a message for help attached. The kite flies away in the wind only to be caught on a tree branch. There goes her plea for help! The "sparrows" must hide in the barn whenever the bell rings so that they won't be visible to visitors buying hogs from Mr. Grimes. As the story progresses, Grimes acquires a two-year-old girl (Mary Louise Miller) from a couple of abductors, unaware that she is the daughter of millionaire David Wayne (Roy Stewart). When Grimes learns of the child's identity in the newspapers, and that police are on his trail, he attempts to dispose of the evidence by throwing her into the swamp, but Mollie prevents this, first by using a pitchfork as a weapon against Grimes, and later making a daring escape taking the baby and the other "sparrows" with her, risking their lives through the swamps, quicksand and very hungry crocodiles. With this being the highlight, it is followed by a second climatic scene that fails to recapture the initial thrill.

With the exception of Pickford and the child actors, much of the supporting players are very much like the Charles Dickens novels, unsympathetic types. Grimes is evil beyond belief; his wife (played by Charlotte Mineau) is an ignorant country woman with some common sense, but not quite as pleasant, while their son, Ambrose (Spec O'Donnell) is quite brutal, especially when he pleasures himself by bullying the sparrows, mainly the defenseless ones, ranging from a stuttering youngster to a lame boy bearing crutches.

Throughout the years, SPARROWS has been available in alternate versions, not in terms of length or missing scenes, but in music accompaniment. When the Museum of Modern Art in New York City had a tribute to Mary Pickford in June 1979, the very year of her death, SPARROWS was presented to an attentive audience with a slow pacing piano score, the same print shown in the 1982-83 public television's weekly series of "Sprockets." Distributed on video cassette through various distributors, ranging from those with an organ, piano or no scoring at all. Turner Classic Movies (TCM premiere: May 30, 1999) occasionally presents it on "Silent Sunday Nights" equipped with piano scoring by William Perry from the Paul Killian collection, having the 1970s "Silent Years" feel to it.

As good as the story goes in regards to sentiment, suspense and limited doses of comedy, SPARROWS leaves some questions unanswered, one in particular regarding the father of Doris Wayne. With the only other female residing in his mansion being a private nurse, whatever became of the mother? Is he divorced or widowed? As for Pickford's character, she comes across as self-confident, religious and never losing her faith, praying to the Good Lord in hope that someday she and the nine other "sparrows" will obtain their long awaited freedom. One poignant scene occurs with Molly holding a dead baby in her arms as she envisions Jesus Christ approaching her and taking the infant with Him to Heaven.

Of the handful of screen villains at that time, such as Ernest Torrence or Tully Marshall, Von Seyffertitz comes across as very sinister, coming close to the physical resemblance to Max Schreck in the German made NOSFERATU (1922). In spite of some weaknesses in the screenplay, it's almost a perfect film. Only debit are dozes of comedy seemingly unfitting with atmospheric setting. It's also quite surprising that a movie with a touch of D.W. Griffith to be directed by William Beaudine, better known more for his poverty-row features in later years.

With a majority of silent movies remade during the sound era, it's amazing that as popular as SPARROWS has become, that it wasn't redone. A remake with Anne Shirley as Mollie and Edward Ellis or Arthur Hohl as Grimes might have worked as good casting. However, as remakes go, very few have ever recaptured the success of the original. (***)

We take home video and DVDs for granted now, but for film buffs who grew up prior to the video era it wasn't easy to track down silent movies. They were seldom aired on TV, and when they were shown, unfortunately, they were sometimes treated as laughable relics with "funny" interpolations. Thankfully, vendors such as Blackhawk offered good prints of many vintage titles in 8mm and 16mm, and museums in some cities would schedule occasional screenings. Consequently, as a kid I was able to catch memorable performances by Lon Chaney, Valentino, William S. Hart, and most of the great comedians. Mary Pickford, however, remained elusive. Aside from a few early Biograph dramas most of her movies were locked away in vaults, and shown infrequently. Awareness of her phenomenal fame lingered, but the movies that inspired that fame were difficult to see. I had only a vague sense of Mary's screen persona, and imagined she must have been an earlier incarnation of Shirley Temple, a goody two-shoes with blonde ringlets whose vehicles were mostly tear-jerkers. Eventually, of course, the situation changed, restoration efforts commenced, and Mary's films began to emerge from hibernation. In the 1980s Sparrows became one of the first Pickford classics to become available on good quality VHS, and once I saw it I understood Mary's appeal. Viewing it again recently on the big screen, at a Pickford festival at the Museum of the Moving Image in Queens NY, only confirmed my first impression that this is one of the most beautifully produced silent dramas ever made. It isn't flawless, and it isn't for all tastes, but it's powerful, moving and unforgettable, and the leading lady gives one of her definitive performances.

Sparrows is essentially a thriller, at times almost a horror story. Our setting is a bleak "baby farm" in a swampy bayou that looks like a landscape by Hieronymus Bosch. Mary plays an adolescent known as Mama Molly who acts as a protective maternal figure to a gang of scruffy, starving kids. These are children who have been sent away by families too poor to care for them, well-intentioned folk who naively believe their children will be raised properly. The farm is run by the most evil family you'll find in the movies: old Mr. Grimes, his wife, and her son, played by character actors Gustav von Seyffertitz, Charlotte Mineau, and Spec O'Donnell. Both Mineau and O'Donnell had backgrounds in comedy, but their performances here are deadly earnest and without a trace of humor. Good as they are, however, they're topped by Von Seyffertitz in what he must have recognized as the role of a lifetime. Grimes is a Dickensian monster: a greedy, spindly, limping man with dead eyes and no conscience. His prison-like farm is surrounded by quicksand and alligator infested swampland. The children in his keeping are treated as his property, and he'd sell any one of them down the river for a few coins. At the screening I attended a child in the audience responded to Grimes' evil-doing by loudly announcing: "He's baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaad!" It got a big laugh, but the kid only said aloud what we were all thinking.

Mama Molly occupies the story's moral center, but she's no goody two-shoes. She's been toughened by adversity, and she's fiercely protective of the youngsters in her charge. When Grimes' horrible step-son bullies them she is quick to stand up to him. And when Grimes threatens to punish the children by withholding their dinner, all because of a minor infraction on Molly's part, she volunteers to go without food for two days rather than see the children suffer. She is also the primary caregiver for a sickly baby who, despite her best efforts, dies one night in the loft of the old barn. In a scene some viewers may find a bit sticky, an image of Jesus appears at the moment of the baby's death and carries him away to the after-life. Sentimental? Sure, but it's performed with absolute conviction, and the close-up of Mary that concludes this scene is deeply affecting. (At the recent museum screening I attended we were shown several rejected takes of an earlier version of this scene in which the baby's spirit is carried away to the heavens by a phosphorescent angel. The out-takes were fascinating, but I feel the scene works better as it stands.)

Much of the credit for this film rightfully belongs to the scenic designer, Harry Oliver, and to the crack team of cinematographers, Charles Rosher, Hal Mohr, and Karl Struss. All of these artists have numerous impressive credits to their names, but their collaboration in this case produced something extraordinary, a movie that is exceptionally beautiful in design as well as beautifully photographed and edited. It's said that the production was influenced by the work of such German auteurs as Murnau and Lang, and indeed Sparrows has a distinctly "Germanic" atmosphere, but with greater emphasis on audience empathy; that is, the filmmakers really want you to feel for these kids. Our emotions peak during the climactic escape, when Molly leads the children through the swamp to freedom. Pursued by Grimes' dogs they dash across rocks, narrowly missing the quicksand, then climb trees and crawl over branches hovering just above alligators that swarm and snap. It's an amazingly suspenseful sequence.

Unfortunately, this is not the film's finale. The escape is followed by a gratuitous action sequence involving kidnappers attempting to flee the police by boat, and when this concludes we still have a couple more scenes meant to tie up the plot's loose strands. If the last twenty minutes or so had been reduced to a brisk seven or eight, the movie would have been just about perfect. Nothing can top the escape through the swamp, and it's too bad they made the attempt. Even so, in my opinion Sparrows stands as one of the most memorable works of the silent cinema, and Mary Pickford's crowning achievement.

Although this is Mary Pickford's film, it also presents Von Seyffertitz with the best role of his career. Needing little in the way of make-up, the gaunt actor adds to his frighteningly sinister appearance by flourishing his claw-like hands and limping in awkward yet forceful strides. Child actor, Spec O'Donnell, who usually played comic roles, is also most effective. But it is, of course, Mary herself who focuses most of our attention, not only in the hair-raising scenes in which she is pursued by Grimes but in the many heartrending sequences in which she protects her "sparrows".

William Beaudine later became Hollywood's number one hack, but in silent days—indeed until around the mid-1930s—he was a very polished director who could not only draw great performances from his players but add immeasurably to a film's atmosphere and visual effect. Here, his compositions are indelibly terrifying.