This is my first true foray into the phenomenon that was Mary Pickford. I know she showed up briefly in The Country Doctor, but this is the first time I’ve seen her in a major role. Her appeal is immediately obvious. Besides her famous curls, her charm leaps out at you from the screen. Her fame was well-deserved.
The film opens with a convict creeping out of some bushes, clad in the staple black and white striped prisoner’s uniform. He’s being pursued by some policemen, one of whom he overpowers and forces to switch clothes with him. Meanwhile, we meet Mary Pickford and her Ideal Man. He becomes less ideal in her eyes when he refuses to fight a tramp who insults him. As she is dropping him off at a train station, she chastises him for his cowardice, then drives away. Before she’s gone far, the convict, clad as a policeman, stops her and forces her to give him a ride. The Ideal Man sees this, at which point the pursuing policemen join him. They see the car speed off, the escapee having kidnapped poor Mary Pickford.
Being that it’s 1912, they commandeer a train and give chase, reasoning that the train tracks run parallel to the road. Hardly a conceit that would work today, but it made perfect sense then, and the ensuing chase is one of the most masterfully filmed action sequences I’ve seen to date during this podcast project.
The convict eventually holes up in a shack with Pickford, with her Ideal the first to arrive on the scene to rescue her. As he starts hinting to her that he’s going to molest her, the Ideal shows up and struggles with him. The police show up during the struggle and arrest the convict, and Pickford beams at her man, who has proven himself to be brave after all. In an incredibly adorable final scene, she points to where her wrist was hurt in her struggle with her kidnapper, and he kisses it. She then points to the back of her head, and finally the side of her mouth as a slyly cute way to be kissed by him.
An interesting observation: I found two versions of this on YouTube, both of which show the complete film. One, fortunately the better-looking version, runs for 13:10, while the other, rougher-looking version runs 17:53. Both are identical. How is this the case? The shorter version is playing faster. This is not unusual for films of this era, which were filmed at varying speeds. Theaters ran them at all kinds of speeds, not always knowing the correct rate at which to show them, meaning a film that ran for 10 minutes in one theater might run for 16 minutes next door.
Here is the better-looking version that I watched on YouTube.
Next I’m watching: The Cameraman’s Revenge [1912], directed by Wladyslaw Starewicz.
A Beast at Bay (May 27, 1912)