Meu Único Amor

This along with Stella Maris are my two most favourite Pickford films. I've seen this film about 4 times as issued by Image Entertainment. The Image Entertainment version has a beautiful and uplifting musical score that matches the movie perfectly.

Mary and Buddy are perfect together and theirs is the romance that all of us wish to have at least once in our lifetime. It makes you laugh, it makes you cry.

I also loved the performances of Lucien Littlefield who plays Mary's father, Sunshine Hart who plays her mother and the fiery and exotic Carmelita Geraghty who plays her jazz-loving, hot-tempered flapper sister.

The ending is funny. We see Mary's rag-tag family ready to make the boat on time where she will be married to her sweetheart.

One of the best and funniest silents ever! Also, check out Harold Lloyd's Girl Shy (1924). That's another funny romantic film too.

Mary Pickford (as Maggie Johnson) is a lowly "5 & 10 cent" stockroom worker. One day, while covering a salesclerk's station, she encounters cute Charles "Buddy" Rogers (as Joe "Grant" Merrill). Ms. Pickford thinks Mr. Rogers is a customer; so, she tries to sell him on a Devil Doll - blowing it up for size! The two are mutually attracted; and, Rogers is happily assigned to be Pickford's stockroom ward. Pickford doesn't know it, but Rogers is actually millionaire store owner Hobart Bosworth (as Robert E. Merrill)'s son, posing as a "commoner" in order to earn some business sense. Moreover, Rogers is engaged to marry his societal equal, Avonne Taylor (as Millicent Rogers)…

This was Pickford's final silent film; and, in hindsight, she might have been wise to end her career right here, on top. "My Best Girl" is an indispensable film, one of several late 1920s films which show the silent film had achieved a considerable level of artistic sense. It's difficult to point out single pieces, since the entire film works so well; however, the rainy location scenes are notably exquisite. Director Sam Taylor and Pickford shine throughout. Dave Kesson, Charles Rosher, and Jack Schulze make outstanding contributions. This is one of Pickford's finest performances; and, she forms an extraordinary partnership with relative newcomer Rogers. Their scenes together are magical, rivaling the more rustic Lillian Gish/Robert "Bobby" Harron romances directed by D.W. Griffith.

Pickford and Rogers later took the chemistry evident on film to heart, and formed a more long-term partnership; their wedding and "newsreel" footage provide a lovely coda for "My Best Girl"...

Life imitates art.

********** My Best Girl (10/31/27) Sam Taylor ~ Mary Pickford, Charles 'Buddy' Rogers, Lucien Littlefield, Hobart Bosworth

My Best Girl is Mary Pickford's last silent film...the last big go around for America's Sweetheart. In this film, she goes back to her roots...she plays someone her own age. Unlike the gothic Sparrows, or the poor low class lady in Suds, Mary comes off as striking and fills the screen with her beauty and charm. She plays a stock girl in a large department store, who falls in love with the owner's son, which at first she doesn't realize. She has to deal with her strange family, where they all look to her for leadership. The owner's son (Buddy Rogers, whom Mary later really marries) must deal with his parents and other girlfriend when he too returns her love. What's charming about this picture, is when I watched it late at night recently, is to notice how much the world has really changed since 1927. Remember when a family actually owned a department store instead of faceless boards of directors and changing CEOs? And how the cash registers rang up 5 cents for a total purchase? How the department stores has sales people every few feet to help you? How the street was filled with cars that now can only be found in museums? How innocent the dating was reflected in film...kissing was like...going all the way! It is also interesting to notice how the rich were shown on film in the 1920s. I'll bet most people in the audience could only dream of homes like those shown. And that all the actors and actresses you see are now gone, their image lives on in film..which is a moment captured in time forever.

There is a bittersweet quality to "My Best Girl" which has nothing to do with the on-screen action. This was Pickford's last silent film, and as such heralds the end of an era. Though she would continue with her career until 1933, sound and its early limitations really knocked her off her exalted pedestal.

It is also the film in which she co-starred with Buddy Rogers who became her husband for over forty years. (In the process she had to divorce Douglas Fairbanks, and anyone who cares even vaguely about silent film will have certain pangs of regret about that.)

In itself it is a beautifully constructed, engaging romance. Unusual for a Pickford feature, it tends to outstay its welcome towards the end, where Mary's histrionics are laid on a little thick. Buddy I find irritatingly enthusiastic - can't the man just laugh without slapping his knees?

But let's not nit pick. "My Best Girl" is a totally engaging piece of fluff; not up to the standards that Mary set in "Sparrows" and "Stella Maris", but still amongst her most accessible features today. See it if you can with the Gaylord Carter organ track.

"My Best Girl" is a sweet and sentimental romantic silent film, starring Mary Pickford as a poor shopgirl, and her then future husband Charles "Buddy" Rogers, as the secret son and heir to the 5 and 10 Cent Store in which they both work.

It was nice to see Mary playing an adult role for a change, and one feels for the burdens her character has to go through, being the oppressed daughter of such a silly, blundering, selfish family. Buddy's character is a bit tough to take; he's too much of a "pretty boy" through most of the film, romancing the girl under false pretenses, dallying with her affections, but he redeems himself in the end.

The DVD version has a nice symphonic music track (refreshing in comparison to the boring organ scores on so many old Mary films) and this film is tinted, plus it has some darling home movies included from Mary and Buddy's wedding and honeymoon 10 years after the making of the film.

If you enjoy Mary Pickford on film don't forget to plop this one in your DVD player sometime soon. It was her last truly silent film and therefore something special.