Coquette

The chief flaw of Coquette is the generally poor quality of the sound which sometimes fades entirely, making it difficult to follow the plot which is propelled mostly by spoken exposition as opposed to purely cinematic techniques. The play on which it is based was a hit for Helen Hayes on Broadway but was sanitized and oversimplified for the screen (not at all unusual in those days). Dialogue and acting are florid and broad but nevertheless the story does manage to hold the attention. A doctor's daughter (Mary Pickford) outrages her tradition- bound father (John St. Polis) by falling in love with an uncultivated fellow from "the hills" (John Mack Brown). A fatal shooting results, but I won't give away the exact circumstances here.

Although she was in her mid-30's at the time of filming, Pickford is convincing, if somewhat mannered, as the maiden with one foot still in girlhood, displaying wide emotional range and a masterful command of her body, no surprise considering the physicality of her long silent film career. Her diminutive stature also works in her favor. When she sits in the maid's lap for consolation she really does look like the little girl she had played for so many years. Sadly, she is made to spend a great deal of time sobbing hysterically. (Vivien Leigh had to deal with the same requirement in Gone with the Wind ten years later.) Although not much of an actor, John Mack Brown has a kind of animal appeal, with a relatively deep, strong voice which registers clearly; one can understand why he became a popular player in talking films. Here, he seems to seesaw between menace and tenderness and you just have to give him the benefit of the doubt. Otherwise you cannot believe Pickford's feelings towards him. St. Polis has a stately presence and a sonorous, trained voice and seems the most comfortable of the supporting players in his role. The character of the black maid played by Louise Beavers departs from the norm; she moves torpidly and even talks back to the master's teenage son when he tries to rush her through her chores.

There is a lively scene at a country club featuring a jazz band and young revelers stomping to the hotsy-totsy musical numbers with wild abandon, suggesting that the later jitterbug and sixties dances did not come out of nowhere. The courtroom climax is hard to swallow – did judges in the South or anywhere else ever allow witnesses to sit in the laps of defendants for long personal dialogues while on the stand?

Mary Pickford won the Best Actress Oscar for her performance in this film - and this fact has dominated the way people have treated it over the years. Yes, perhaps her award had more to do with her power than her performance - but the performance is actually pretty good. At times she rises to great emotional heights - the death scene is quite extraordinary and the court-room sequence powerful. Of course she's too old for the role - but she was too old for nearly every part she ever played, and just a few years later Leslie Howard and Norma Shearer played Romeo and Juliet to great acclaim - so such age issues were probably not issues in 1929.

It is true that she talks a little like an adult Shirley Temple (did Shirley model herself on Mary - they certainly played many of the same roles?)- but her silent acting is excellent - her looks can really kill.

The supporting cast is not very good, except for the wonderful Louise Beavers, - but Johnny Mack Brown is devastatingly handsome as Mary's love interest. The script betrays its stage origins, and the film suffers the same problems most early talkies suffer - inadequate use of music, poorly synchronised sound effects, completely absent sound effects (eg doors opening and closing silently), and limited movement of both actors and camera.

But all things considered this is a worthwhile little film - certainly not great but not as bad as myth would have it. And the ending is really gorgeous. Watching the great silent stars struggling in early talkies, I always feel that they were learning a new craft, just as the cameramen, directors and writers were. Sadly the audiences were less forgiving of their beloved stars than they were of those unseen behind the camera, and rejected them before they had a chance to develop a new acting technique. I can't help thinking that, if they had been given the chance, many of these actors would have been great talkie actors. The technicians were allowed to develop but, by the time they were skilled enough to make the actors look and sound good, most of the old stars had gone. The supreme example of a silent star who was allowed to develop is, of course, Garbo - and, to a lesser extent, Ramon Novarro (but he could sing - which helped). Is it possible that, given the same opportunities as Garbo, we may have seen Fairbanks, Pickford, Talmadge, Swanson, Bow, Brooks, Gish, Gilbert, Colleen Moore, Leatrice Joy etc for many more years than we were allowed? But within ten years of this film being made Gilbert and Fairbanks were dead, Gish was carving out a new career on the stage, Pickford, Swanson, Bow, Talmadge, Brooks and Moore had retired, Joy was doing the occasional character role and even Ramon Novarro was out of work. What a waste!

I caught this film on TCM recently. This was actress Mary Pickford's first 'talkie.' At times, the acting is rather wordy and staged, but then it was a stage play before the film. But Pickford does shine in certain scenes, showing us why she was a superstar. In the film, Pickford plays Norma, a southern belle type whom we assume can have her pick of any beau in town. But she falls hard for handsome working class Michael (Johnny Mack Brown)someone her father considers beneath her. Things come to a boil when Norma spends the night with Michael at his cabin, and her father explodes with anger, killing Michael. Pickford is riveting in the death scene, and the courtroom scenes later where her father is on trial for killing Michael. This is not a perfect film by any means, and at times the actors' voices fades - not certain is this is the age of the film or the creaky new sound technology of the day. Either way, I had to crank up my television to hear what the actors were saying from time to time. Pickford's Oscar for this film was probably a way of honoring her for her many films and stardom rather than for her actual performance here. Still, the film is worth catching - despite its flaws.

"Coquette" is an overrated picture, to be sure, but it is nevertheless worth seeing for its place in Hollywood's early history. It was Mary Pickford's first talking picture and for which she won an Oscar (probably weren't many nominees, this being 1929). Let's just say that there have been many better acting performances since then.

Have you ever seen a movie set in the 19th century which contains a live stage play, for instance, "Showboat"? That is what "Coquette" resembles, with exaggerated, overdone performances and the story confined to just a couple of indoor sets - there is only one outdoor shot in the film. The overacting in "Coquette" is a sight to behold, led by Miss Pickford, who chews the scenery in a hammy, overwrought performance. Yes, she is attractive but looks older than her boyfriends - which she was. Her main squeeze is the old buckaroo, Johnny Mack Brown, who does the best he can. Best acting honors, such as they are, go to John St. Polis, who plays her father.

It is a story of honor and customs in the Old South in the early 20th century, and some elements of the plot are tough to swallow, especially in 2011. The story is simple enough to follow, but the consequences of situations which would be easily solvable today leave the viewer perplexed.

But as I said, it's a famous picture and it has historical significance, so watch it if you get a chance and see what you think.

More than the silents that preceded it, this is a rare glimpse into a world that is almost impossible for our generation to imagine. The acting style seems bizarre by modern standards. The characters walk as if they were trying to dance, and they speak as if they would rather sing their lines. Okay, sound equipment may have been awful then - "talkies" were brand new in 1929 - but that fact does nothing to make it less pretentious when the characters stretch their mouths to yawn proportions to utter dated lines like, "darling, I love you more than life itself."

Then there's the plot, another feature of this film that is as quaint as the acting and the dialogue. "Norma," played legendary silent screen actress Mary Pickford at the end of her prolific career, becomes "compromised" by a night with a boyfriend, Michael. Michael vows to marry her but instead finds himself in an angry confrontation with Norma's father, the doctor.

Father takes a gun to avenge his violated daughter - who is played, remember, by a 37-year-old woman. And poor Norma, finding her lover on his deathbed, pours forth a mind-numbing, melodramatic declaration of her love that had to have been way over the top even in those days.

But the most amazing part is the end, where the doctor is on trial for murder. Norma takes the stand to accuse her lover of rape and thus save her father, which she does admirably and with all the flourishes and eye-batting appropriate for the era. Suddenly, the father's conscience is stirred and he rushes to the feet of his daughter - this in a court of law - and pleads with her to let him take the blame with honor. The doctor eyes the murder weapon, a revolver sitting on a table before the judge, and then stands before the court and demands that he pay his debt to the state. Imagine that!

Father then rushes to the arms of daughter and begs her to "hug daddy" as she used to. What follows was surely, even to audiences of the day, an excessively-long, gruesomely-sentimental embrace. To a modern viewer seeing it in the contemporary context, it would clearly suggest incest, though this was certainly not the meaning of the scene. That done, father grabs gun and commits suicide in the courtroom. To the film's credit, the event is conveyed well by the sound of a single gunshot - no blood.

Pickford may have been the darling of silent film, and she was undeniably a remarkable actress in that setting. But her talkie debut is flawed in every conceivable way, from the bogus southern accents of her and others' characters to the comical arm gestures she makes to emphasize her schmaltzy love-talk with Michael.

You have to cut this film some slack not only for the year it was made, but also because sound movies were then in their infancy. Still, the story line and script are painfully exaggerated and the acting horribly stilted.

But is it worth watching? I say yes. It's important cinema history. And it's fun.