Sparrows (1926)

Saturday July 15, 4:20pm The Castro, San Francisco
Monday August 21, 7:00pm The Paramount, Seattle

Hollywood’s Oldest Teenager …

In the early days of the Biograph Company, as D. W. Griffith created the new vocabulary of film, a diminutive young actress named Mary Pickford recognized the potential for subtlety and nuance in front of the camera not possible on the stage. "I swore that, what ever the temptation, I would never overact," Pickford recalled in her autobiography. "This was revolutionary in the early movies where the actors were using the elaborate gestures of the French school of pantomime. ‘I will not exaggerate, Mr. Griffith,’ I would say in firm voice. ‘I think it’s an insult to the audience.’" The result of her obstinance, and Mary Pickford’s legacy to the world is the art of motion picture acting. It was 1909 and filmgoers soon took notice of the pretty young girl with the golden curls in Griffith’s films. As ‘the flickers’ came to life in tiny theaters that seemed to be popping up everywhere, Pickford became the first bona fide ‘movie star’ playing the plucky, resourceful and kind-hearted little girl with a hint of mischief that everyone felt they knew. The adorable ingenue would be her greatest success but also her ultimate undoing. Twenty years later, fans still demanded ‘Our Little Mary’ while Pickford had become the dominant force behind a major film company (United Artists) she helped found, and was well on her way toward middle age. Increasing complexities of the feature format showcased talent in a way earlier and shorter films could not, but her public never accepted Pickford in adult roles. Despite critical success and an Oscar winning performance in her first sound picture Coquette (1929), Pickford went on to star in only four more films then retired forever in 1933. What might have been the brilliant second half of her film career was sadly never to be.

Sparrows

"I’m awful empty, Molly."
"I bet I’m emptier."
"I’m twice as emptier than everybody - - lookit!"

The last appearance of the golden haired girl was Sparrows, in 1926. The idea of accepting a thirty-three-year-old woman in the role of a child today seems absurd, and yet Sparrows remains a beautiful and accomplished work of art in which Pickford displays all the qualities for which she was so loved.
A group of ragged and starving ‘orphants’ live on Grimes farm in the middle of a bottomless swamp. Molly (Pickford) is the oldest. She does her best to mother the rest and make a home of the cold, drafty barn where they live. By day they toil in the farmer’s field and suffer his wrath. By night, Molly reads from the bible about Jesus to keep their spirits up. "Molly, was He cold an’ hungry like us?" " - - - an’ He was born in a barn – just like this."
Sparrows is marred by the addition of an unnecessary second ending, but the scenes of Pickford with the children in this dark and sinister setting are inspired and beautifully executed moments of choreography, while their flight across the alligator infested swamp is suspenseful and genuinely harrowing.
Ever the savvy businesswoman, Mary Pickford knew what her fans wanted, and gave it to them one final time in Sparrows

The Print …

The SFSFF screening promises to be an extraordinary event. A new print of Sparrows from the Library Of Congress Mary Pickford Project restoration will be introduced by curator Christel Schmidt. Over the past ten years the LC project has sought to catalogue archival holdings of Pickford’s work around the world and revive the memory of this strong, resourseful and independent woman whose iconic image has become somewhat distorted over time. Anyone seeking reassurance that at least some of our silent film heritage rests in thoughtful and competant hands should examine the wealth of information found in this report.
Live piano accompaniment for the SFSFF show will be performed by Michael Mortilla.
The Seattle show will feature Dennis James at the Paramount’s original Publix Wurlitzer.

Getting down to business on the set of Daddy Long Legs (1919), with Marshall Neilan, Charles Rosher and Henry Crunjager.