George Sands' ‘wild child’ novel made a fine vehicle for Mary Pickford, though the film only comes to life about halfway thru. Director James Kirkwood settles for stilted ‘picturization’ setting up the story of village outcast Mary as Fanchon, hiding in the woods to play tricks on townsfolk who won’t accept an orphan girl raised by a hermit witch. Yikes! The old lady really her eccentric Grandmother. But Mary’s fallen for townie Landry Barbeau, engaged to Madelon and played by Mary’s kid sister Lottie. (Young brother Jack also in the cast, this long lost film the only time all three Pickfords appeared together.) But when Fanchon’s pranking doesn’t get her noticed, a trio of serious episodes comes to her aid: finding Landry’s ‘dim-witted’ brother, gone missing in the woods; then twice saving Landry, from drowning & from a fever. If only his father would accept Mary as a suitable match. Once the tableaux style of filmmaking (it is 1915) gears up for narrative purposes, incorporating kinetic Maypole dancing and mass village movement in hunt & revelry, the film erupts into life; so hang on. Mary is wonderful, of course, funny, touching, fully aware that film acting is less a force of gesture than of glances. And at the very end, we’re rewarded with one of the most magical shots in all film as Mary rises from a swaying field of wheat, part of the Earth. Ravishingly caught by cinematographer Edward Wynard, who elsewhere plays up backlighting to highlight Mary’s signature golden hair.
ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: Though not credited, this was apparently the first collaboration for scripter Frances Marion and Pickford. Mary already the world’s top-paid actress; Marion soon the top-paid writer.
DOUBLE-BILL/LINK: The Pickford/Marion partnership hitting its peak with a 1918 hat trick: STELLA MARIS; AMARILLY OF CLOTHES-LINE ALLEY; M’LISS, all three with Marshall Neilan directing & Walter Stradling on camera. https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2008/05/mliss-1918.html
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