The radiantly beautiful Olive Thomas is just about believable as sixteen- year-old Genevieve King, although she was actually 24 or 25 at the time. It seems certain that the common, early movie practice of chest-strapping was used here. In the movie, in spite of the title, Olive plays what was known as a 'Baby Vamp'.
Genevieve is a bored upper-crust girl, who lives in a classic plantation mansion, well provided with colored servants. Unfortunately, the flighty, potentially vampish, teenager, was prone to disappearing with a male friend, and, after being double-crossed by a governess, father packs her off to a girl's boarding school. Here she falls in with some unsavory schoolgirls, and is easily led into being a naughty girl
.one who is keen to attach herself to a particular adult man whom she informs that she is 'about twenty' and not sixteen as she's meant to be in the film.
After many adventures and a ridiculous suicide attempt, Genevieve decides to transform herself into a flapper, although, in her new garb, she is not girly enough to be a flapper of the 1920s. It seems 1920 was a transitional year during which the line between vamp, flapper and even diva was blurred. Flapper, however, was the 'in' term.
Snow scenes always work well in black and white film, and the scene with the horse drawn sleigh and girls sledging is no exception. The scene where the girls turn over their sledges at speed on a downhill run is not as comical as it seems. These extras were in fact badly injured in the shoot, and they filled the local hospital with their broken bodies.
Ginger-haired, violet-eyed Olive Thomas (nee Duffy) was of Irish descent, and became the wife of Jack Pickford (brother of Mary). She had been in the Zeigfield Folies before entering the movies, but it was while on a European tour with Jack that she somehow ingested a solution of bichloride of mercury. It may have been accidental or, perhaps, suicide. She died five days later, leaving Jack devastated, although sister Mary seemed unconcerned for the 'World's Sweetheart' (Mary was only 'America's sweetheart'). One person who was concerned was Mabel Normand, a good friend of Jack. It seems Mabel never met Olive, but had a signed photo of the Baby Vamp in her dressing room and an album of her photos at home. After Olive died, Mabel spent many hours sitting with her grieving mother, and always remained very angry about the circumstances of Ollie's death. Jack Pickford built a mausoleum in New York and had Ollie interred within it. This had the Pickford name inscribed over its doorway, but no other Pickford was ever buried there. We can assume that the sweet Mary, who didn't bother to attend the funeral, saw to that.
Olive seems very modern-looking in her films, and very unlike, say, Mabel Normand who was an entrenched Edwardian. Ollie could easily be cast in a picture today, whereas Mabel is clearly the face of the 1890s (producers have never found any modern actress Mablescent enough to portray her accurately). The World's Sweetheart would undoubtedly have gone on to play more mature, womanly roles had she lived, while Miss Normand and Miss Pickford were hamstrung by their child-like appearance (off-screen as well as on-screen).
