I applaud all projects that involve digitalization of media, whether it be old newspapers or audiovisual. Everyone should have the right to study history, as I argued in my previous post. Do you want to know what Rev. Dr. Charles H. Pankhurst had to say about D. W. Griffith's The Birth of a Nation in El Paso Herald (Texas) in 1916? Let's see!
[Do your own searching at Library of Congress. There you can find digitalized American newspapers from 1860 to 1922. Click on the "Search Pages" button, and write whatever you are looking for. I could sit there for hours.]
"A boy can learn more true history and get more of the atmosphere of the period by sitting down for three hours before the film which Mr. Griffith has produced with such artistic skill than by weeks and months of study in the classroom."
Well, about that... If I remember correctly, that film is not really historically correct? And wasn't it, if I'm not mistaken, kind of... racist? Dr. Pankhurst explains:
"The criticism that it exhibits the negro in an unfortunate light and that it is calculated to engender racial animosity is fully met by the consideration that it represents the negro, not as he is now at all, but as he was in the days when he had just had the chains broken from him and when he was rioting in the deliciousness of a liberty so new and untried that he had not yet learned to understand it and was as ignorant as a baby of the way to use it. It is in this respect exactly true to history, and if it reflects upon the negro as he was then it is a compliment to the black man of today."
Oh, I'm glad Dr. Pankhurst solved those misunderstandings! He has obviously also checked that all facts represented in the film corresponds with facts, since he claims that "[o]n Griffith's screen we see the real thing." Like he said before: schools should show this film when teaching about the Civil War!
And how did the audience react upon viewing this spectacle? Except for them being so excited that Dr. Pankhurst had "been crowded upon, pressed down and run over"?
"Every eye was dim with tears in the strangling hush that fell on the theater. What might not our country have been saved had the problem of reconstruction been left to the great heart - the one man who compassed within himself the resources of the intelligence, experience, breadth and sympathy of Abraham Lincoln!
'The Birth of a Nation' has my unqualified approval."
Not being one of the motion picture pioneer D. W. Griffith's usual mastodon pieces, this is an unobstrusive dramatic story about forbidden love between a poor, abused girl, Lucy (Gish), and a Chinese man, Cheng Huan (Barthelmess), who travelled to the United States to spread the learnings of Buddha.
When Lucy, after having been brutally beaten by her father, ends up fainting at the doorstep of Cheng's store, he instantly becomes fascinated with the beautiful, unhappy girl. He takes her up to a room above the store, treats her well and sees that she recovers. When her father, Battling Burrows (Crisp), finds out that she is having a relationship with a "simple China man", he takes her back and prepare to learn her a hard lesson.
Following is a hideous scene, one of the most frightening I've ever seen in a film. Scared to the bone, Lucy panics and hides from her insane father in a closet, desperately hugging a doll Cheng had given her. All the while her father bangs on the door, Lucy tries to appeal to her father's feelings, yelling that "They will hang you!" and "T'was nothing wrong!".
To prepare for the scene, Gish supposedly visited an insane asylum to learn how to imitate the feeling of pure horror. She managed so good that people walking by the studio during filming tried to rescue her when hearing her screams.
Lillian Gish and Richard Barthelmess.
G. W. Bitzer's photography is simly amazing. He and Griffith collaborated to find ways to soften the light and bring out the dreamlike feeling of the surroundings. They used different filters, they greased the camera lens and came up with tons of other ideas of how to make the perfect cinematography. It has to be seen to be understood.
For the untrained eye (i.e. to those who do not think much at all), this film might seem like racist propaganda. Racial slurs like "Chinky" are used, and the Asians (always smoking a hookah) are mostly played by Kaukasians in yellowface. This does however have explanations.
[Updated for clarification.]
The racial slurs are not meant as offensive, they are mearly a product of the time. Several times in the film Battling Burrows is actually pointed out as a common racist (see lines like "He didn't like people who were born in another country").
Why Kaukasians play the roles of Asian people is simple to explain: the production code at the time forbid non-Caucasians to kiss the Caucasian leading actor/actress on-screen, thereby reducing the possibility of a non-Caucasian having a romantic leading role at all. (At this time the only big Asian name in Hollywood was Sessue Hayakawa, and soon Anna May Wong [post about her and difficulites like these here] would enter the scene.)
Yes, it's racism - but it had however nothing to do with the director's choice directly.
Broken Blossoms was the first film to be produced under the name of United Artists, a production company founded by Griffith, Mary Pickford [post], Douglas Fairbanks and Charles Chaplin. Initially it was supposed to be released through Adolph Zukor's Artcraft company, but when Zukor saw the final production he got furious.
"How dare you deliver such a terrible film to me!"
Griffith returned to Zukor's office the next day with $250 000 in cash and bought the film back from him, releasing it himself.
Well done, lucky us. It's a fantastic film, even though it's a true tearjerker.
D. W. Griffith.
Adolph Zukor.
I went through the trouble to put together the famous closet scene from Broken Blossoms with a Mike Oldfield song, since I think it's such fun to mix old and (relatively) new. The song is called "Evacuation", and you can find it on the soundtrack to The Killing Fields (1985). I kind of liked the result!
You can call it blasphemy if you want, but then you should know that I at first considered The Beatles' "Help!" and The Pixies' "Here Comes Your Man"...
Plot: A father (a young D. W. Griffith!) and a mother (credited as Miss Earle) lives in a cabin on a mountain. The father sets off to work with a lunch box, and the mother walks into the cabin again, leaving their little infant (Jinnie Frazer) outside. We thereafter see a clip of men cutting down a tree. Suddenly a black eagle appears, grabbing a-hold of the baby and flies away. The mother sees what is happening, fetches her hat and runs off to find her husband. The parents and all the lumberjacks set off to find the eagle's nest, which they find half-way down the wall of a cliff. A woodsman (Henry B. Walthall) is lowered down to the nest with a rope. He has an intense fight with the eagle, which he at last manages to kill with a stick. He grabs the baby, and the other man pulls them up to safety.
This is an amazing little silent short, made in the birth of the cinema at the Edison Studios. The scene were the eagle flies off with the baby is one of the first immortal pictures in cinema history.
The intertitles of this YouTube clip are different from the information on IMDb, but I depend on the latter one and used that information.
This early film by the legendary D. W. Griffith (the man behind The Birth of a Nation, Intolerance and Broken Blossoms, and later a co-founder of the independent film production company United Artists) is set on the seaside, with Mary Pickford as the net-mender on a fishing boat. She falls in love with a man who also works in the docks, but their relationship is threatened by the fact that he is already married. Which he of course haven't informed his new lover about. A young Mabel Normand, later to become a famous silent film comedienne, also features in this film as the betrayed wife.
The Net-Mender (Mary Pickford) thinks about her loved one.
The lovers.
Complications when the wife (Mabel Normand) finds out about her husband's affair.
The wife's brother finds out about his brother-in-law, and decides upon revenge.
It is hard to say whether this film is good or not. The plot is stereotype, the acting is often quite melodramatic and the act moves very fast forward. On the other hand, the film is very interesting to see from a film history perspective. Mary Pickford is always great (even though she hardly gets the chance to show her potential here), and to be able to compare this film with Griffith's later masterpieces have to be invaluable to a cineast.
See it! It is only thirteen minutes, if that. It's always nice to have your own opinion. (Even though mine is always right.)
The Net-Mender sees a man with a gun go after her lover and is terrified.
She doesn't know what the quarrel is about, but have to interfere to save her lover.
The dramatic resolution of the story with two betrayed women.
"The little girl made me. I wasn't waiting for the little girl to kill me."
Mary Pickford
Mary Pickford was an Academy Award winning Canadian born actress. She was the first motion picture movie star, introduced with many nicknames such as "The Girl With the Golden Curls", "Little Mary" (she was only 1.54 m tall), and most famous - "America's Sweetheart". She was a co-founder of the film studio United Artists (together with Charlie Chaplin, husband Douglas Fairbanks and D. W. Griffith), and also one of the original 36 founders of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in 1927. In all, she was not only the first movie star, but also a business woman and one of the greatest pioneers in film history.
Jack and Mary Pickford with silent western film actor William S. Hart.
Mary Pickford was born Gladys Louise Smith in Toronto, Canada 1892. She had two younger siblings, Jack and Lottie Pickford, who also became actors. Her father was an alcoholic who left his family in 1895 and three years later died from cerebral hemorrhage. Her mother started renting out rooms to boarders, and it was one of those house guests who introduced 7-year old Gladys to the Princess Theatre in Toronto. In the early 1900's the family began touring the United States as actors by rail. In 1907 Gladys got a supporting role at a Broadway play, written by William C. DeMille (brother to the then unknown Cecil B. DeMille, who also acted in the play). It was at that time the producer of the play gave Gladys the stage name Mary Pickford.
Later in 1909 director D. W. Griffith at the Biograph Company saw a screentest with Mary Pickford and immediately became interested in her. After only one day of shooting she got twice as much money as other actresses ($10 a day with a guarantee for $40 a week). She however began her career by playing the same kind of roles as others: rejecting women, slaves, prostitutes etc. Even though her roles from the beginning wasn't credited, the audiences recognized her. Movie theatres soon advertised the films shown by writing out that the films featured "The Girl With The Golden Curls", "Goldielocks" or "The Biograph Girl". In 1912 her career started to blossom, and she gave some of her greatest performances in D. W. Griffith films like The Mender of Nets (also featuring a young Mabel Normand), Just Like a Woman and Friends (with Lionel Barrymore). Pickford also introduced her friends Dorothy and Lillian Gish to Griffith, which proved successful for their careers.
Film clip: Lillian and Dorothy Gish with Mary Pickford and her mother, ca 1927.
Left to right: Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks. The fourth founder, D. W. Griffith, is not in the picture.
In 1913 Mary Pickford took a chance on Broadway again. That experience lead her to the realization that she really wanted to be a motion picture star. She returned to film making and joined Adolph Zukor's group of famous players in his newly started company Famous Players Film Company (later Famous Players-Lasky, and even more later Paramount Pictures). Their she made, among other films, the comedy Hearts Adrift (directed by Edwin S. Porter 1914, the director of the film history milestone The Great Train Robbery from 1903), which brought in so much money that Pickford, the first time of many to come, a pay raise. That film was also the first one to put Pickford's name above the the title on the movie marquees. After a few films more, she was the most popular actress in America, if not in the world. Only Charlie Chaplin could compete with her. During the 1910's and 1920's Pickford was believed to be the most famous woman in the world, or as a silent-film journalist said:
"the best known woman who has ever lived, the woman who was known to more people and loved by more people than any other woman that has been in all history."
In 1916 she signed a contract with Adolph Zukor that granted her full authority over the production of the films she starred in. Her salary was now record-high $10 000 a week. Two years later she broke with Famous Players ans started producing her own films, and in 1919 she founded the independent film production company United Artists, alongside Charlie Chaplin, Douglas Fairbanks and D. W. Griffith.
"We were pioneers in a brand-new medium. Everything's fun when you're young."
Her first film as an independent producer and distributor at United Artists was Daddy-Long-Legs (1919). Mary Pickford was the first actress to receive more than $1 000 000 dollars a year.
Scene: Mary Pickford as orphan Judy Abbott in Daddy-Long-Legs (1919).
Mary Pickford behind the camera.
Little Mary needs a stool to reach the camera!
Mary Pickford was married three times. Her first husband was Irish-born silent actor Owen Moore, whom she was married to 1911-1920. That marriage is believed to have been scattered because of Moore's alcoholism, violence and shame to live in the shadow of Pickford's success. The couple lived separately for years, and Pickford became romantically involved with Douglas Fairbanks. Pickford and Moore divorced in early 1920. 26 days later Pickford was married to Fairbanks. Douglas Fairbanks became an international success after starring in movies like The Mark of Zorro (1920), so both parties of the couple were extremely popular. The couple was referred to as "Hollywood royalty" and their Beverly Hills mansion was popularly called "Pickfair".
Mary Pickford made the step from silent pictures to talking without problems, and so did Fairbanks. 1929 Pickford played the reckless socialite Norma Besant in Coquette. Before the film Pickford had cut her long, curly hair (in connection to the loss of her mother the year before) into a 1920's bob hair cut. That move covered front pages in all the world. Although Pickford won an Academy Award for the part in Coquette, the audience didn't like the film as much. Probably because of the difference between the part of seducing Norma Besant and the more cute film parts the audience was used to Pickford playing. Pickford felt however that the cute girl parts were over. She made her last motion picture in 1933 called Secrets, and then never returned to the screen again.
"I'm sick of Cindrella parts, of wearing rags and tatters. I want to wear smart clothes and play the lover."
The marriage with Fairbanks ended in 1936, after many years of struggling to have time for each other between film making and producing and world touring. Pickford had had enough when Fairbanks had an affair with English model Sylvia Ashley, which became big news. Fairbanks' son, Douglas Fairbanks Jr, stated later that both Pickford and Fairbanks regretted not trying to fix their relationship.
Mary Pickford with her future husband Charles "Buddy" Rogers in The Best Girl (1927).
However, Pickford married a third time, and that marriage would last until her death in 1979. Her last spouse was actor Charles "Buddy" Rogers (male lead in Wings, 1927, with Clara Bow), with whom she had acted with in The Best Girl (1927).
In the 1930's many people around Pickford died, which changed her persona radically. In 1933 her brother Jack died because of "progressive multiple neuritis which attacked all the nerve centers". Three years later Lottie died of a heart attack, possibly due to large amounts of alcohol during the years. 1939 Douglas Fairbanks also suffered a heart attack and died. Upon the hearing of Fairbanks' death it is reported that Pickford had burst into tears in front of her new husband Rogers and stated that "My darling is gone". According to Pickford herself, though, she had held her tears back, afraid to hurt her husband, and didn't allowe herself to cry until she was alone on a train. These deaths, the divorce from Fairbanks and the end of her film career left Pickford in a great depression.
Pickford and Rogers adopted two children in 1943 and 1944. According to several documentaries and the children's own words she wasn't the greatest mother, often remarcing their physical imperfections. The children left Pickfair at a young age, but they later in life stated that they had loved their mother, even though she wasn't very maternal.
Pickford at a Bing Crosby performance at the Coconut Grove nightclub, 1934.
During her life, Mary Pickford used her social position for many political causes. During WWI she, her then soon-to-be husband Douglas Fairbanks, Charlie Chaplin and Canadian actress Marie Dressler promoted the sale of Liberty Bonds by giving public speeches, kicking off in Washington DC 1918. Five days later Pickford gave a speech at Wall Street to a crowd estimated to 50 000 people. She also posed for cameras kissing the American flag and auctioning one of her golden curls, bringing in $15 000. In the end of WWI Pickford co-created the Motion Picture Relief Fund for financially needy actors, together with the usual gang of Chaplin, Fairbanks, Griffith, but also other movie people.
Douglas Fairbanks making a speech to a great crowd in New York City, April 1918.
Mary Pickford gives President Herbert Hoover a ticket for a film industry benefit for the unemployed, 1931.
In addition to re-shaping the motion picture art (at the time when Pickford entered the movie business the film industry was all concentrated on film adaptions of Broadway plays and nothing else), Pickford proceeded with producing films even after her retirement as an actress in 1933. She and Chaplin remained partners in United Artists for decades. In 1955 Chaplin left the company, and the next year Pickford followed his example. She sold her remaining shares of the company for $3 000 000.
News 1956: Mary Pickford sells United Artists... and a little commercial for Camel cigarettes.
Pickford with her Honorary Oscar, 1976.
In her later years Pickford developed alcoholism, following the footsteps of her father, mother, two younger siblings and her ex-husband Owen Moore. The more the years went, the more isolated Pickford became. Soon she only allowed visits from old friend Lillian Gish and stepson Douglas Fairbanks Jr, and later on only communicated via her bed room phone. Husband Charles Rogers often gave guests tours of the Pickfair, one of the attractions being a genuine western bar Pickford once bought to Fairbanks. In 1976 Pickford received an Honorary Academy Award for life time achievement, in addition to the one for Best Actress she received in 1930 for Coquette.
Mary Pickford died of cerebral hemorrhage in 1979, aged 87. She was buried in the Garden of Memory of the Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetary in Glendale, California. Alongside her lies her mother, her sister Lottie and brother Jack buried.
The American Film Institute named Pickford 24th among the greatest female stars of all time. Edward Norton, Richard Dreyfuss and Marlee Matlin talks about the greatness of Mary Pickford.
Personal quotes:
We maniacs had fun and made good pictures and a lot of money. In the early years United Artists was a private golf club for the four of us.
If you have made mistakes . . . and there is always another chance for you. . . . you may have a fresh start any moment you choose, for this thing we call "failure" is not the falling down but the staying down.
I never liked one of my pictures in its entirety.
Adding sound to movies would be like putting lipstick on the Venus de Milo.
[on Douglas Fairbanks] In his private life Douglas always faced a situation in the only way he knew, by running away from it.
[on Charles Chaplin] That obstinate, suspicious, egocentric, maddening and lovable genius of a problem child.
Hollywood royalty, and the ideal couple of Hollywood history - Pickford and Fairbanks.
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