SECRETS (1933)

Mary Pickford was a decidedly stubborn person.  After basically inventing what it meant to be an artist in commercial silent cinema (actress, producer, studio founder), she certainly wasn’t about to let Talkies get the better of her.  Sure, she won an Oscar and earned those big early grosses silent film stars got when they first spoke on screen, but she must have known her two attempts were well below her best silent work.*  (Her last silent, MY BEST GIRL/’27, as delightful as her 1912 breakthru in D.W. Griffith’s THE NEW YORK HAT, so age not the issue.)  Third time 'round also not the charm as a remake of silent diva Norma Talmadge’s SECRETS/’24 (retitled FOREVER YOURS/’30) abandoned; replaced by another Talmadge vehicle, KIKI/’31 (https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2018/06/kiki-1926.html), an overcooked disaster.  So, back to SECRETS, now with its original title and original silent director Frank Borzage.  Francis Marion, Pickford’s old pal & top Hollywood scripter, who’d adapted the silent, also came on to revamp the script.  Moved from England to New England, the running time lost twenty minutes (and the prologue) from the superbly produced*, if slightly overstuffed silent version; still at heart an actress showcase in sub-Edna Ferber style.  ACT ONE: Social Comedy as wealthy daughter falls for Dad’s ambitious office assistant.  ACT TWO: Cattle ranch dramatics Out West with infant lost amid a cattle rustlers’ shootout.  (No match for the silent’s stunning set piece.*)  ACT THREE: Middle-aged infidelity confronted & conquered before a quick old-age epilogue so our long married couple can morph into their past selves in an unexpectedly emotional farewell.  Mary in excelsis riding off with Leslie.  It’s good, rather than great Pickford, partially as Borzage had yet to hit his past silent form.  But Mary makes it work.*

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID:  *With then-husband Douglas Fairbanks, Shakespeare’s TAMING OF THE SHREW/’29 was so unsatisfactory to Mary, she reedited & rescored it decades later before allowing it to be re-released. 

DOUBLE-BILL:  *Alas, the stunning physical production and near-mint condition of Tony Gaudio’s showcase cinematography highlighting the possibilities available to panchromatic stock in the 1924 version is currently unavailable in any home or streaming edition.

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY:  *Just not at the box-office as everything came to a dead stop the week this came out when FDR declared the first of his Depression Era Bank Holidays.  The film never recovered any momentum.