Through the Back Door

1921 was last time Pickford made three movies in one year, reflecting the meticulous care she took in producing her brand of films. Her earlier May 1921 "Through The Back Door" has Pickford's brother Jack listed as co-director. Jack had just experienced the tragic accidental death of his wife, Olive Thomas, and became greatly depressed. To lift his spirits, Mary felt if he were busy in assisting directing "Through The Back Door," he would get out of his funk. But by all accounts people involved say he did next to nothing to deserve credit as a co-director to Alfred Green. Jack was also listed as co-director in "Little Lord Fauntleroy," also with Green, but it was another two years before he resumed his acting career in a self-produced film, 1923's 'Garrison's Finish."

Pickford's strong forte as a producer was always selecting stories that were sentimental yet tailor-made to her on-screen personality. Sometimes it didn't hurt the plot consisted of a younger version of the adult protagonist, which is exactly what happens in "Through The Back Door." The narrative has the actress as a 10-year-old daughter to a Belgian widowed mother, whose new marriage to a rich man, a child-hater, has Pickford left with a maid while the couple relocate to America. Several years later, during World War One, the now-adult Pickford immigrates to America. Not letting on whom she is, Mary becomes a house maid to her mother. Things get interesting when she gets wind of an embezzlement plan to fleece her mother and hubby.

When this comedy-drama was made Mary Pickford was at the height of her fame. Like all of the films she produced and appeared in during her peak years (roughly 1917-1927) Through the Back Door was painstakingly crafted: the sets, cinematography, lighting, etc., are all state-of-the-art for the time. Pickford always chose the best supporting players in the business, and never failed to deliver an energetic and charming performance herself. Even the title cards in her movies were carefully composed and often witty, though sometimes a little puzzling; I must admit I was thrown by the introductory title to this film that declared it a "story of mother-love," an assertion that isn't exactly borne out by what follows. In any case, and although it doesn't rank with her best work, Through the Back Door could nonetheless serve as a decent introduction to Mary Pickford for viewers who have never seen her. Beyond its entertainment value, the film also offers several of Pickford's favorite recurring motifs, to wit: 1) regardless of her actual age, the star plays a preteen girl in her opening scenes and a teenager thereafter; 2) she's in search of a mother figure; 3) despite her youth, Mary's character Jeanne also acts as a surrogate mother for younger children who have been abandoned by others; 4) she encounters class prejudice, and is made to feel inferior because of her upbringing; 5) in the end, Jeanne proves that good character wins out over wealth and social position, and in doing so, gains those privileges.

As the story begins Jeanne's widowed mother Louise plans to remarry, but her selfish fiancé, jealous of the attention the girl receives, insists that the child must be raised on a farm in her native Belgium while he and his new wife live in luxury in America. Five years pass, and Jeanne now regards her nurse Marie as her mother, just as Marie regards Jeanne as her own child. When Louise belatedly returns to claim her daughter Marie falsely claims that the girl has died, so the heartbroken woman returns home. At the outbreak of the Great War in 1914 Jeanne is sent to America, carrying a letter signed by Marie in which she confesses her lie, but circumstances prevent Jeanne from handing over the letter and identifying herself. She winds up working in her mother's household as a maid, until at last she is able to reveal the truth.

As the synopsis may indicate, there are aspects of the story that challenge credibility. Even if we accept that Louise is willing to give up her daughter in order to remarry, why would she wait five years before going to see her? Would she believe the nurse's story of her daughter's death with no further confirmation? How is this "a story of mother-love"? Louise's actions don't seem plausible, but the greatest strain to our credulity comes in the second half, when Jeanne arrives in America (with two orphaned boys in tow) and is inexplicably reluctant to reveal her identity to her mother or anyone else. We're given to understand that she's embarrassed about her low station in life as a war refugee raised on a farm, afraid her mother might be ashamed of her, but even so we're bewildered as she passes up one opportunity after another to identify herself. I believe this plot device would have worked better if Jeanne's motivation for keeping her identity a secret had been stronger, or at least explained more fully; as it is, we watch in frustration and wonder what's the matter with the girl.

On the plus side, however, the filmmakers made a special point of lightening the atmosphere with several bright comedy sequences, especially in the film's first half. In the best known bit Jeanne scrubs a floor by putting thick brushes on her feet, and skating around the room through the suds. Here Pickford suggests Chaplin in The Rink, not only in her grace but in her comically panic-stricken near-falls. A little later Jeanne has a run-in with an ornery mule in a scene which, strictly speaking, is irrelevant to the plot, but nevertheless welcome as comic relief. The film's second half would have benefited from more humor along these lines; instead, the story turns conventional as Jeanne helps thwart a scheme to defraud her step-father. This secondary plot is played straight, and must have felt overly familiar to viewers even in 1921.

All told, Through the Back Door is a well-made, entertaining movie with a number of pleasing elements and a winning performance by the star. If the screenwriters had fully worked out the lead character's actions and not fallen back on formula in the second half, this might have ranked with Mary Pickford's most memorable works. Even so, second-tier Pickford is still expertly crafted silent cinema.

So the story of this film is preposterous at best, even for it's time. A girl meets a rich guy who talks her into leaving her baby in another country for like a decade or so, then decides she wants her back but the woman she left her with pretends she's dead, then she goes to America and for some reason doesn't tell her mom but instead goes to work for her, entangling her in some scam against playboy step-dad and oh-yeah, she meets a totally not-so-charming man who she falls for because he helps her up when falls face first in the mud. and she's got a duck and two orphan children as pets. did i miss anything? I really can'tsay anything for the story of this movie, but when she's aloud run amok, Pickford is as as great as ever, I just Barely recommend this movie for those moments. everyone knows the famous scrub brush-skating scenes. but i'll list a few more for good measure.

1. the sequence in which she impresses an old man by fishing a massive sturgeon from a puddle, turns out it was her family's dinner for the evening and when the maid finds it missing she nearly kills the cat.

2. She cleans her dirty feet off by laying on her back on a table and rubbing them on a towel on the wall as if she was walking up the wall.

3. Mary's character is elated at having smuggled a duck into the US raising it triumphantly over her head and marching away like victorious general.

4. Falling in the mud she tries to clean herself off and only winds up leaving two suggestive hand prints over her breasts. When a cute rich boy arrives to see if she's all right, in embarrassment she tries to cover it up by grabbing herself suggestively, actually doing with hands what the mud hand prints suggested. (probably really racy for the day.) 5. the suitor asks of the Bellina orphans she's picked up along a road after their mother died: "Are the children really yours?" she says "Yes. I found them." she says. To which he makes a face to suggest. "oh, good enough for me." so yeah, I wrote a lot about a movie I'm not that into, but those moments and a few others make the film worthwhile. Mary Pickford is a giant supernova of charm and a fantastic performer, she outshines her directors unfortunately.

This is one of Mary Pickford's least remembered films and that's a shame because it's one of her best. She stars as Jeanne, a poor little rich girl fairly ignored by her mother who abandons her with a housekeeper while she goes off to marry her next husband. Then years later, the mother decides to reclaim her daughter but the housekeeper now of course loves the child as her own and says the girl is dead. Another five years pass and Jeanne, now a teenager, through circumstance ends up working as a maid for her real mother! There are many tender scenes in this movie but lots of comedy too and Mary's washing the floor with scrub brushes tied to her feet and skating is one of her classic screen moments. The whole cast is fine and darling little Jeanne Carpenter as the very young Jeanne will surely charm you and break your heart as the abandoned child. Much as I love Mary, I would have loved to have seen more of the film with Jeanne in it.

Mary Pickford once again plays a teen - and, for a while, a pre-teen - girl in this dull mix of comedy and melodrama. When the film starts, her character is only four years old, but thankfully even Pickford realised she wasn't going to pull that one off and so a real child was used. In one of his early credited roles, a ridiculously young Adolphe Menjou plays a lounge-room cad attempting to swindle Pickford's estranged stepfather out of his moolah. It's watchable, but nothing special.