Mary Pickford: Rags & Riches Collection - Milestone Film and VideoThe Poor Little Rich Girl (1917) *****
Dir. Maurice Tourneur
The Hoodlum (1919) Dir. Sidney Franklin *****
Sparrows (1926) Dir. William Beaudine **********
Review By Julia Klymkiw
(Klymkiw Film Corner's 12-year-old Cub Reporter)
Mary Pickford was a really big movie star from Canada who made movies almost 100 years ago. She played the roles of kids a lot even though she was not a kid, but because she was petite and had really cute curly hair, she could do these roles very well. She was as popular as stars we know from today like Marilyn Monroe, Julia Roberts and Jessica Chastain, but I will tell you that she was very different from so many of the big stars we all know because she made silent movies before they had sound in them.
I love Mary Pickford and I think many girls like me will love her if their Moms and Dads let them see the movies on this Blu-Ray. She is someone who is so good that she always makes you laugh, but sometimes her stories can be sad too.
The Poor Little Rich Girl is so good because she plays a little girl whose Mom and Dad are very rich and they are afraid to let her go outside of the house. She just wants to be like other kids, but her parents are too busy for her. They love her and aren't really mean to her, but she sure wishes she could go out and play. Her nanny is mean though and Mary has to be pretty crafty at finding ways to sneak outside to play. Her Mom and Dad are angry and upset when they find out. She gets into some really bad trouble and needs to get out of it all by herself.
The Hoodlum is sort of like The Poor Little Rich Girl because in this movie, Mary lives with her grandfather and he is always too busy for her. This makes her very lonely. They move to a poor area of the city because her grandfather is a scientist who is studying poor people. He lets her be a real girl, but only because he is so busy. It's nice because she gets to meet her real Dad who is poor. When she goes to play with the poor kids in the neighbourhood they don't like her at first, but as she gets to know them better, they really begin to like her because she is a lot of fun and they always get into trouble. It's not bad trouble, but fun trouble. This movie is really exciting and made me laugh a lot. Mary not only gets to be like real kids, she gets to be like some of the poor kids and she gets to learn a lot about how other kids live.
Sparrows is so good that I gave it 10 stars. [Ed.note: Try arguing with a 12-year-old sometime.]
This movie has funny things in it, but it's not like the other two movies at all. This story is sad and scary. Mary plays a little girl who lives in an orphanage where a family of super bad people are very mean to all the kids. They buy kids and sell kids and this is not something orphanages should do, but in the old days this probably happened a lot. Even today it can happen, but only in countries like Russia and Ukraine.
In this movie, Mary is a bit older than the other kids and because she's a teenager, she always has to try to save them from the really horrible man who is the father of the family. He's not very nice. Well, that is being polite about it, because he is so evil. He makes the kids work really hard, he doesn't care when they are sick, he feeds them horrible food that is not nutritious and in such small amounts that Mary needs to sometimes steal extra food from the kitchen. The orphanage is completely surrounded by a swamp and I do not want to spoil the movie for you, but there are some horrible things in that swamp that want to eat kids.
This is a really great silent movie and I have to say it might be my favourite silent movie of all time. There are times when it is so sad you want to cry, but Mary is such a great hero that you always hope things are going to get better for all the poor orphans. Mary might be a kid, but she is almost like a real mother to the kids.
You really can't ever stop watching the movie. It's that good. Sometimes you laugh and other times it is so exciting and full of suspense that you almost can't bear it. And when the movie is scary, watch out! It's that scary!!!!!!
I think this is an amazing movie for all kids of today to watch. You see how people were very poor in those days, but even though it is from a long time ago, it is interesting to watch because you start to think about how poor people are today and that even today, there are a lot of kids who are treated badly. You hope that in real life there are characters like Mary plays and yes, there are brave people who help kids, but I think we probably need more of them.
Many movies and TV shows for kids have girls who are the main characters, but many of them only care about silly things. In Sparrows, Mary plays a little girl who is so brave, smart and caring. I wish more modern movies had actors like Mary Pickford who could play characters like the one Mary plays here.
Even though I think Sparrows is the best silent movie I have seen, I think the movie is so good that it is probably one of my favourite movies ever that's silent or sound. If you have not seen it, you need to.
This is such a good Bluray and I think all parents have to get it for their kids because they will learn a lot about how movies used to be so different, but were just as good as they are now. Even if the movies of Mary Pickfor are silent, they are not really silent. They always have great music and even the black and white has colour in it because in the old days they used to put colours on scenes in the labs. There is only one colour in the scene that goes on top of the black and white, but it is kind of cool because the colour is used to make you feel if the scene is happy, sad, sunny, cloudy or dark. My Dad explained that to me a long time ago when we watched other silent movies.
There are also a bunch of extra things on the Bluray that kids will enjoy because it explains and shows you how to watch silent movies. I do not mean to brag, but I did not really need this stuff because I have been watching silent movies ever since I started watching movies, but for kids who do not have a Dad who tells them all the stuff they need to know about movies then this is totally perfect. I enjoyed the little documentary things the Bluray plays before each movie starts and even though I knew most of the stuff I find it interesting to see how much stuff other kids don't know about it and how they should. The thing that's really cool is the extra sound on the movies that has the titles read out loud to you and gives you all kinds of cool information. This was good even for me because I didn't need to bug my Dad when I did have questions. He never minds when I ask him questions, though. ;-)
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