The New York Hat

This competent Biograph short is probably best-known for being the screen writing debut of the acclaimed Anita Loos. It's also incredibly well acted and directed with confidence by DW Griffith.

As well as being her last, this is perhaps the best performance by Mary Pickford in a Biograph short. You can see why she would later soar to superstardom by playing young girls. Here, at twenty, she plays what we would assume is a girl in her mid-teens, and looks more convincingly that age than when she first worked for Griffith at sixteen. She had a real gift for portraying innocence. Griffith makes the most of her abilities and moves the camera in close on her face at key moments.

It's also nice to see Lionel Barrymore in a lead role. Although he was an established stage actor, on the screen he really had yet to prove himself in anything other than a series of somewhat silly character parts. In the New York Hat however he shows himself to be a fine screen player, playing the preacher with subtlety and dignity. He too gets the full benefit of Griffith's camera.

You get the feeling that by now Griffith could do this sort of drama standing on his head. The easy movement between standard three-quarter shot and mid-shot is by now totally natural. But really, this is Pickford, Barrymore and, of course Loos' show, and for the most part Griffith just sits back and lets them get on with it.

Loos has written a strong story, although in many ways this is very typical Biograph fare, so I assume she was deliberately trying to write something in the Biograph style. Still it makes for an entertaining little film, and fortunately it was highly regarded enough to have been given two superb and well-cast leads.

A picture of a few human beings. They live in a small country town and seem to center around the village church. It doesn't shut its eyes to the frailties of mortal flesh; but it is optimistic, good-natured and leaves a pleasant taste, indeed, it is a picture among pictures to entertain, encourage and amuse. It is wonderful how the Biograph producer gets his many different characters, for hardly can the players be recognized so sure are they in their assumption of the peculiarities and semblance of people not themselves. One marvels that they are; but seeing them, he is not astonished to find them acting humorously. The scenario behind this picture of the little girl (Mary Pickford), of a miserly father for whom the minister bought a new hat, because her dying mother, knowing the father's stinginess, had given him a little money to get her a "few bits of finery," isn't strong in its primary idea; but it has been mighty well worked up. Then the motivation of the characters is so clearly drawn and the humor of them so often convinces laughter that the audience gets satisfaction. Clair McDowell plays an old spinster, Mae Marsh has an unimportant part. - The Moving Picture World, December 21, 1912

I viewed this short film in my film class and I was quite impressed with it considering it's age. It is easy to understand the story although there is no voices but it's still well defined by the music. And the characters are well defined as well.

For a number of reasons The New York Hat is among the most familiar titles of all the short films D.W. Griffith made for Biograph during his apprenticeship. It marks Griffith's last collaboration with Mary Pickford before her departure for the Famous Players Company, and it presents a youthful Lionel Barrymore in a prominent role as the pastor who takes a benevolent interest in Mary. Sharp-eyed viewers might also catch a glimpse of Lillian Gish in a brief bit outside the church. History and casting aside, the movie itself holds up quite well as entertainment.

From the very first scene Mary has our sympathy. The death of her mother has left her in the care of a sour, miserly father who is not attentive to her needs, and when she receives a fancy hat as a gift it clearly means a great deal to her. As the story unfolds we become increasingly involved in her situation, indignant at her mean-spirited father, and irritated with the town gossips who assume the worst about the pastor's intentions towards Mary. The age of the film is forgotten when Mary's father rips her beloved hat apart and throws it to the ground. We feel for her, we want to see justice done, and we want to see that old miser brought low. In this regard, the ending is especially satisfying.

It's interesting to find that this early work features thematic elements that would recur in films by both director and star. Several of Mary Pickford's strongest vehicles present her as a lower class girl who is painfully aware of her status, and longs for acceptance by her 'betters' -- who, as often as not, are snobs unworthy of her admiration. Griffith, meanwhile, went on to demonstrate a special contempt for busybodies in his later work, such as the "reformer ladies" in the modern story of Intolerance.

Still, while the gossips of The New York Hat richly earn our scorn, the sympathetic pastor's actions look naive at best. Shouldn't he have expected people to wonder about the nature of his relationship with this young girl? The girl's exact age is not stated and is hard to determine (Mary Pickford was 20 years old when the film was made, but she could have passed for 16 or even younger), but in any case you'd think he would have been a little more circumspect. One question left unexplored at the end is the whether the gossips are correct in their assumption that the pastor is interested in Mary in a, shall we say, more than fatherly way. Let the viewer decide!

Whenever I watch films from the silent era I do sometimes struggle to focus on the film itself rather than be lost in the fact that I am seeing something that was filmed over 100 years ago and that everyone who made it is long dead – and indeed everyone who watched it on its release is almost certainly gone the same way by now too. It is always a sobering thought and I think seeing people on the screen makes it seem more amazing than, for example, seeing a painting created hundreds of years ago. Anyway, the downside of such thoughts are that if the film isn't particularly gripping then such things tend to take over my mind and it was this case with this simple film.

The plot sees a mother of a young girl pass away. She has a small amount of money to leave her daughter but does not trust her husband and so leaves it to a minister to make sure it is kept safe for her Mollie. Mollie is a simple girl but when she sees a beautiful hat in the local store all the way from New York, she really wants it despite not having the money. The minister sees this and decides to get it for her using a small amount of her mother's trust. It is a simple act but when the town gossips see a minister buying a hat for a young girl, well, tongues soon get to wagging.

It is a very simple tale which takes longer to build to the crux than it does to resolve and as such it is not really the most engaging. The thing that holds the attention though is that the cast do a very good job of delivering the material silently (obviously). I was expecting the occasional title card to show their words here and there, but the only titles are setting the scene rather than specifics. Pickford and Barrymore are both expressive and (mostly) do not overact too much to compensate for the silence, but actually do well with character with just their faces – particularly Pickford. The supporting cast are fine although I did enjoy the stern faced old biddies enjoying their scandal.

The New York Hat is now more a historical curio rather than a great film to be enjoyed on its own terms. The director and the main cast are the main headlines and, outside of this, the story really isn't enough to hold a modern viewer.