Hoodoo Ann

Friendless Mae Marsh has been left, as a baby, at "The Clarissa Parker Orphanage", on Friday the thirteenth. Due to the superstitions associated with the date, she becomes known as "Hoodoo Ann". Still, she "lives in sweet unconsciousness of her unhappy lot." Young artist Robert Harron (as James Vance) lives in the same town, on Peaceful Street. One day, Ms. Marsh steals Mildred Harris (as Goldie)'s doll, which seems to trigger some "hoodoo" (bad luck) in the form of a fire; actually, the fire is caused by stepping on matches. Obviously, they are the self-striking kind of matches. Although Marsh hides the doll under a dirty mop, it cleans up well. The fire sequence is well done; and Marsh becomes a heroine. This leads to her eventual adoption.

After riding in a very cool looking early 1900s Ford automobile, Marsh is taken in by a kindly couple. "You are going to stay here and be our little girl," they explain, dressing her in a very funny looking outfit. Marsh gratefully begins to scrub chairs. As luck would have it, Marsh discovers Mr. Harron is her new neighbor, and they begin to date. Harron takes Marsh to see a western move, which they enjoy; oddly, the other members of the audience seem bored. Then, a shooting incident makes Marsh think her "hoodoo" has returned…

The director of record is Lloyd Ingraham; but, it's a safe bet D.W. Griffith, who also wrote the scenario, helped out behind the camera. The story is rather absurd; it's difficult to accept the legend of "hoodoo" based on Marsh's arrival date, and the superstitious palm-reading of "Black Cindy" (Madame Sul-Te-Wan). The cast performs well, considering; notably, young Mildred Harris caught Charlie Chaplin's eye. The folks running that orphanage must have had a parallel place, where they kept the older boys and younger girls. Though "Hoodoo Ann" has charms, they're much better presented in Griffith's similarly-themed, and highly recommended, 1918-19 films.

****** Hoodoo Ann (3/26/16) Lloyd Ingraham, D.W. Griffith ~ Mae Marsh, Robert Harron, Mildred Harris

A star vehicle for Mae Marsh. Interestingly, this would be a fairly typical sort of movie for Mary Pickford in three or four years. Here, the first half, set in an orphanage, does not wear well, since the inmates consist of 12-year-old boys and twenty-year-old girls. Rather backwards girls for their ages, except physically. The second half is somewhat better, although the entire production rambles hither and yon and despite some excellent production values -- including a spectacular fire -- never quite makes up its mind as to what it wants to be.

Miss Marsh gives a fine performance, particularly in the comic bits. Robert Harron is, alas, rather wasted. Scripted and produced by D.W. Griffith.

Odd little melodrama written by D.W. Griffith but directed by Lloyd Ingraham for Fine Arts (which I guess was part of Triangle Pictures).

Mae Marsh plays Hoodoo Ann, an orphan girl born on Friday the 13th and seemingly jinxed. A servant foretells that all her life she will be cursed. She's always in trouble because of her nemesis, Goldie (Mildred Harris), who is a favorite at the orphanage. But after the orphanage burns (a great scene) and Ann saves Goldie she is adopted and gets to start a new life. She also meets Jimmie (Robert Harron).

The courtship is sweet and simple as suits the times, and there is a very funny spoof of "pictures" when the lovers go to see Pansy Thorne in her latest movie, a melodrama that boasts hideous acting. But Ann is very impressed and tries to dress and act like the movie actress. She is rummaging through an attic trunk when she finds a gun. It accidentally goes off. She traces the bullet through a door and into a neighbor's house, where the husband is missing.

Ann thinks she shot him and he dragged himself off to die (like the man in the movie). It seems her curse will never be lifted. But he shows up a few days later and the lovers are free to marry. The title cards tell us that the marriage will end her hoodoo.

Marsh is quite good as the unlucky girl and has a few terrific scenes and some really ugly clothes. Harron has little to do. Harris is good as peevish Goldie (in real life she was married to Charlie Chaplin. Co-stars include Anna Dodge (billed as Anna Hernandez), Loyola O'Connor, Elmo Lincoln, and the bizarre Madame Sul-Te-Wan as Black Cindy.

Neat little silent film at 65 minutes and with a good clean print.

This is fun little film, a rather early feature-length silent picture, "Hoodoo Ann". It's episodic and has some other shortcomings, but they don't seem to be as bothersome here. The first part, for instance, is of an orphanage where teenage girls and adult women pretending to be small children (like Mae Marsh, in her early twenties) live beside significantly younger boys. After the orphanage burns down (a rather sensational scene to progress the plot), the second episode is an idyllic coming-of-age romance between Marsh and Robert Harron, which is similar to other such pictures D.W. Griffith made, including "True Heart Susie" and "A Romance of Happy Valley" (both 1919). The final episode involves a dramatic gun accident and mystery, which completely deviates from whatever center the narrative may have once had a semblance of. It doesn't matter, though; it's all entertaining with a mostly light and breezy treatment.

Perhaps the best scene here involves the film-within-the-film, which is between the romantic and climactic episodes--inspiring the climax through life imitating art. Harron and Marsh go "to 'the movin' pitchers'", where they see a more than five minutes long film "Mustang Charley's Revenge". This inner-film is a clever spoof of contemporary William S. Hart Westerns. Carl Stockdale plays the Hart parody and even looks a bit like him. The woman, however, is unlike anyone I've seen in Hart's Westerns, which usually involved a more demure, pure Christian woman rather than the cowgirl Rose played by "Pansy Thorne". This burlesque mercilessly jabs at the plots of Hart's Westerns and at acting styles embracing broad gestures. I'm even one of the apparently few people who enjoy Hart's films today, but, then, that might be why I appreciate the parody as much. Hart seems to have been ripe for satirizing: Keystone, with Mack Swain, parodied him, too, the same year with "His Bitter Pill", and Buster Keaton later made fun of Hart in "The Frozen North" (1922). The entire construction of the film-within-the-film scene is quite good, too, in comparison to similar scenes. It includes cutting back and forth between the projected movie to shots of our surrogates Harron and Marsh watching it. The double-exposure effect is rather seamless; except for when the two enter the theatre, the superimposition is betrayed by overlapping the tops of their heads.

Griffith-veterans Marsh and Harron are very good here. They played similar coming-of-age roles in Griffith's directed films, including Marsh in "The Birth of a Nation" and "The White Rose" and Harron in "A Romance of Happy Valley" and "True Heart Susie". In 1916, they also co-starred in the modern story in "Intolerance". I don't think "Hoodoo Ann" is good just for its good parts overshadowing what would otherwise be problems of an episodic narrative and other unconvincing or far-fetched elements, either; rather, they're insignificant, as they don't interfere with the fun. This is one of my favorite non-"special" pictures, or "programmers" from its time.

The movie is not the best. The print I saw was choppy, which may have been due to bits being cut out of it by different people as the years went by. (Projectionist sometimes did this in the early days of film, to make a collection of bits that they particularly liked.)

There is a very thin and predictable plot which distracts from the film. However, there are always some interesting bits in a film that Griffith has something to do with. In this case the fire scene is quite spectacular, especially for the time and particularly when you realize there is no trick photography here. The scene of the lovers on the porch going in and out of the frame is visually creative and works very well. There is also a rather funny parody of the movies from that period and several other surprising comic situations. These also work very well, mainly due to the skills of Mae Marsh.

Some actors/esses are always interesting to watch, regardless of if they are good looking. That is what sets a star apart. Mae Marsh is such an actress, In this film she is very sympathetic and shows an excellent comic gift. She is not a beauty but she still seems desirable and very charming. The comic sequences are successful because of her.

Mae is the main reason for watching this film. She was an unusual actress and it is a pity that only a few of her staring films are available.