Daddy-Long-Legs

Mary Pickford (as Jerusha "Judy" Abbott) is found, as a baby, in a garbage dump. Orphaned, she is brought to the "John Grier Home", where young boys and girls are treated more like convicts than children. By the time she is 12, little Mary is leading the orphans in a strike against eating prunes. Some years later, Ms. Pickford is the beneficiary of a lucky, life-changing event: one of the orphanage's new trustees wants to sponsor an orphan's higher education; and Pickford is chosen. At college, Pickford is a fetching young woman, which sends Cupid's arrows flying. Love-struck Princeton man Marshall Neilan (as Jimmie Mc Bride) and "older man" (as Jarvis Pendleton) vie for Pickford's hand in marriage. Pickford becomes a writer; her first effort fails, but she instinctively follows the advice "write what you know" in creating a successful tome about orphans. Finally, Pickford must choose her man, and payback her "mysterious benefactor".

Some of "Daddy-Long-Legs" doesn't ring true; vignettes are cute, in isolation, but add little to the overall film; it's obvious, for example, that the children experience some childhood fun, which is said to be completely absent. And, the cruelty of the "John Grier Home" is hardly comparable to a prison! You may also wonder why a fully clothed boy is considered "naked", how a baby might have digested a mouth organ, how that girl got in and out of the well, and other stuff. The film is not at all unpredictable.

However, Mary Pickford is outstanding. She very believably plays "Judy" - growing from a precocious 12-year-old girl to young career woman. As the film progresses, Pickford seems to add layers upon her character. For example, in some later scene, beginning at a society party where Pickford admires some ancestral portraits; watch, as the party progresses, both Pickford's past, and future, register on her face. Pickford constructs her character extremely well.

Director Marshall Neilan (who also appears, as Jimmie Mc Bride) was an important Pickford collaborator; and the supporting cast is delightful. Wesley Barry is wonderful as Pickford's early orphan pal; he manages to steal scenes from Mary Pickford - 11-year-old Barry play "drunk" better than Pickford! Carrie Clark Ward is delightful as love-weary "Mrs. Semple", and Fay Lemport (as Angelina Wyckoff) shows how pampered, selfish little girls grow up. "Daddy-Long-Legs" was filmed again and again, but this is the definitive version, thanks, mainly, to Mary.

******** Daddy-Long-Legs (5/11/19) Marshall Neilan ~ Mary Pickford, Mahlon Hamilton, Wesley Barry

This film has all the elements of the quintessential Mary Pickford film. The little girl. Spunky. Full of love and against the odds. Willing to risk. From the "ash cans" and down to earth but capable of walking with high society with her head held high. Her profile shots by Charles Rosher are the ones we've learned to remember "Little Mary" by. The cupid scenes are incredible not so much for their content but their originality and sentiment in a film made in 1919.

This movie made me happy and not a lot of movies do that nowadays. Even though the mood of the movie changed halfway through, I think it helped differentiate between the 12 year old and the adult. I highly recommend this movie to everyone!

The first time I saw this movie was late at night. My dad was flipping through channels and came across this movie and said that I would love it. Not just because it has Mary Pickford in it. So I was allowed to stay up until midnight on a school night, and back then it was a big deal! That suddenly became my dad's and my thing, to stay up late and watch old movies. I will always love this movie for itself and now it's sentimental value.

I caught about 1/3 (in the middle) of Daddy Long-Legs on AMC and remarked to myself what a good actress the girl playing Judy was. It was only after my curiosity was piqued that I found out the title and that this was none other than the renowned Mary Pickford. It was my first date with America's Sweetheart.

Since then I have bought three films over the Internet, Croquette, Daddy Long-Legs and Stella Maris. I have yet to see the third of these. I just watched Daddy Long-Legs in its entirety (tinted VHS version) and was most impressed. I also ordered and read a biography of Ms. Pickford during the interim.

Have no doubt: this lady could act. While she showed in Croquette that she would probably have adjusted well to sound and mature roles, had her public been willing to accept this, we see her in her true element in Daddy Long-Legs.

Hollywood silents were entering their maturity in 1919 and this was a solid one. I'm not sure if the tinting was original (as in the case of Nosferatu, which Kino lovingly restored) or added. If it IS original, it is marvelous. I wonder how close the orchestra score is to the tunes audiences would have heard performed during the film at theatres.

The cast is solid and Pickford is brilliant. I have to defend a couple of criticisms of the screenplay. I don't feel Miss Pritchett is inconsistent in trying to help Judy catch the train. After all, SHE would look bad if her charge missed the train after the rich new director had gone to the trouble of making these arrangements. Plus, her relationship to Judy changes somewhat at that point. While Judy had always been a thorn in her side, she suddenly becomes someone who can make HER look good if she succeeds in college – sort of like a pro athlete making his/her high school coach look good. Obviously, had Judy been kicked out of college, she would have had nothing more to do with her and would have felt justified in her earlier harsh treatment of her.

The question about her increase in scholarship is a legitimate one. It troubles me a tad. Yet it appears that at least a couple – and probably four – of years go by between her arrival at and graduation from college. Since she has no boyfriend to start with, no parents to miss, etc., it stands to reason that she would likely have poured herself into diligent study, as she had to her work at the orphanage. She may well have been exceptionally bright, but merely lacking much "book learning." Is this a stretch? Maybe. Maybe not. I would say getting a novel published on the second try at that age is a bigger stretch … but, still, with a story like the one she would have had to tell, it seems feasible, too.

I wish we had a version restored to the 16 apertures per second, or whatever the silent film era speed was. Nosferatu is glorious with remastered and restored sound and speed. This version is still a tad faster than normal … but it still flows very well.

It is easy to see why Mary Pickford was America's Sweetheart. Watch Daddy Long-Legs and fall in love with her, yourself!

I was very pleasantly surprised by Marshall Neilan's take on Jean Webster's Daddy-Long-Legs. That is probably because I had previously only seen the musical version from 1955 with the cadaverous Fred Astaire as the male lead and Leslie Caron in the role of Judy Abbott, and the 1919 film is incomparably better. The plot has been changed quite a lot from the novel, if I do not misremember this (it is years since I read it). About half of the film is about Judy's life in the truly terrible orphanage, where she is the leader of the children and playing pranks. Some of these, and some of the title cards, too, are really funny. Then Judy's anonymous benefactor pays for her to go to college, and pretty soon she meets a charming man with whom she falls in love. The film has much less about college life than the book. I found Mary Pickford convincing throughout: as a child in the orphanage (I guess she is supposed to be about 15) as well as a student who feels insecure about her social position (unfortunately the copy I watched was so poor that it was sometimes hard to make out her facial expressions). Mahlon Hamilton as Jarvis Pendleton is also very good, and director Marshall Neilan plays a student in love with Judy. The ending of the film - moving from the nasty party at the Pendletons to Daddy-Long-Legs' home - is very nice and satisfying. To conclude, I spent an enjoyable one-and-a-half hours with this film.