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Love Light, The (1921)

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Mary Pickford Season: FD Cinematheque

Love Light, The (1921)

Director: Frances Marion

Cast: Mary Pickford, Evelyn Dumo, Raymond Bloomer, Fred Thompson, Albert Prisco, George Regas, Eddie Phillips, Jean De Briac

89 min

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Plot

Based upon a summary in a film publication,[2] Angela (Pickford), an Italian girl, bids goodbye to her second brother, who is the youngest, as he goes off to join the troops. Then comes news that her older brother has been killed in the war. Giovanni (Bloomer), who loves Angela, tries to comfort her, and then he too is called. Left alone, Angela is made a keeper of the lighthouse. Joseph (Thomson) arrives and says that he is an American and a deserter. They are later secretly married. One night he has Angela flash him a “love” signal using the lighthouse.

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The next morning an Italian ship carrying wounded men is reported as having been destroyed at midnight, the hour when the signal was sent. Angela steals some chocolate from Tony (Regas) for Joseph to take with him. When she arrives home, she hears Joseph murmur in his sleep “Gott mitt uns,” and it dawns on her that her husband is a German spy. Tony traces the theft to her, and after he says that her wounded brother had been on the ship, she realizes that it was the signal that sent her brother to his death. She gives up Joseph, who still proclaims his love for her. Joseph breaks away from his jailers and plunges over a cliff to his death. Later, with her and Joseph’s baby, Angela is happy with her old sweetheart Giovanni, who has returned from the war blind.

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Cast

Reception

Photoplay published a very critical review by Burns Mantle. He wrote, in summary, “The Love Light is a poor picture in the sense of being quite unworthy of the star’s talents. The story is developed without reasonable logic and filmed with only the value of the pictures in mind. The Love Light’s one value to my mind is that it takes the nation’s sweetheart out of curls and short frocks and makes a woman of her.”[3]

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See also

References[

  1. Jump up^ Progressive Silent Film List: The Love Light at silentera.com
  2. Jump up^ “The Love Light: They’re Going to Like the Production and Mary Too”. Film Daily. New York City: Wyd’s Films and Film Folks, Inc. 15 (14): 7. Jan 16, 1921. Retrieved 2014-03-05.
  3. Jump up^ Mantle, Burns (April 1921). “The Shadow Stage”. Photoplay. New York: Photoplay Publishing Co.

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Poor Little Rich Girl, The (1917)

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Mary Pickford 1

Mary Pickford Season: FD Cinematheque

Poor Little Rich Girl, The (1917)

 

Dir: Maurice Tourneur

Cast: Mary Pickford, Madlaine Traverse, Charles Wellesley, Gladys Fairbanks, Frank McGlynn Sr., Emilie La Croix, Marcia Harris, Charles Craig, Frank Andrews

76 min

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The Poor Little Rich Girl is a 1917 American comedy-drama film directed by Maurice Tourneur. Adapted by Frances Marion from the 1913 play by Eleanor Gates.[1] The Broadway play actually starred future screen actress Viola Dana.[2] The film stars Mary Pickford, Madlaine Traverse, Charles Wellesley, Gladys Fairbanks (returning from the play) and Frank McGlynn, Sr.

The film was shot in Fort Lee, New Jersey when early film studios in America’s first motion picture industry were based there at the beginning of the 20th century.[3][4][5] In 1991, The Poor Little Rich Girl was deemed “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant” by the United States Library of Congress and selected for preservation in the National Film Registry.

Plot

Gwendolyn is an 11-year-old girl who is left by her rich and busy parents to the care of unsympathetic domestic workers at the family’s mansion. Her mother is only interested in her social life and her father has a serious financial problem and is even contemplating suicide. When she manages to have some good time with an organ-grinder or a plumber, or have a mud-fight with street boys, she is rapidly brought back on the right track. One day she becomes sick because the maid has given her an extra dose of sleeping medicine to be able to go out. She then becomes delirious and starts seeing an imaginary world inspired by people and things around her; the Garden of Lonely Children in the Tell-Tale forest. Her conditions worsens and Death tries to lure her to eternal rest. But Life also appears to her and finally wins.[6]

Cast