She's more than a bundle of rags!
It’s Mary Pickford again, this time as Rags, so-named because she’s so poor she wears ragged clothing. Pickford never disappoints, and she’s as fabulous in this as she has been in any film I’ve seen her in to this point.
The film opens with Paul Ferguson, a bank cashier proposing to Alice McCloud, who is played by Mary Pickford. Alice is the ward of Paul’s employer, John Hardesty. The day after the engagement, Hardesty discovers that Paul has made an error at the bank, and his accounts are short. Rather than having Paul arrested and leaving Alice heartbroken, Hardesty allows the couple time to skip town before calling the police.
We pick the story up two years later. Ferguson is now the town drunk in a Western mining camp, and Alice is pregnant. Alice dies after giving birth to a girl, whom she names Glory. Paul jokes that they should name her Rags, because that’s all she’ll ever be able to wear. His prediction comes true, as we flash forward another 16 years, and see that Glory is now a spirited tomboy known to everyone as Rags, who is also played by Mary Pickford.
Back East, we catch up with John Hardesty, who is sending his nephew Keith, a mining engineer, out West to check out an investment. Naturally, he’s being sent to the same town where Rags lives. Keith arrives, meets Rags, and the two promptly fall in love. Keith later encounters his business associate, who saw him canoodling with Rags, and teases him. In a moment of foolish defensiveness, Keith exclaims that he sees Glory as nothing more than a bundle of rags. He’s unaware that Rags is eavesdropping on their conversation, and she runs away, crestfallen, and later ends the relationship, believing that her low social station will prevent them from having a happy marriage.
Meanwhile, Paul and two lowlife friends attempt to rob Keith at gunpoint, but the Sheriff shows up in time to prevent the crime. In the ensuing shootout, Paul is killed, and Keith is badly wounded. With his dying breath, Paul tells the sheriff to send Rags back to Hardesty, who will look after her.
Now back East, Rags adjusts to her new life of luxury, and stops wearing rags. When she again encounters Keith, home recuperating from his gunshot wound, she is his social equal, and at last the two can marry.
To my knowledge, Rags isn’t available on DVD, but it is in the public domain, and can be watched on YouTube, which is how I watched it.
Next I’m watching: The Regeneration [1915], directed by Raoul Walsh.
Rags (Aug. 2, 1915)