Hoodoo Ann

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.

In some ways, this film starring Mae Busch reminded me a bit of some of Mary Pickford's films--such as "Daddy Long Legs" (which actually came after "Hoodoo Ann"). It's like that in that the main character is an older teenager who is worked like a dog at an orphanage and who eventually finds happiness through some nice benefactors--but otherwise, "Hoodoo Ann" is much more of a silly but sweet comedy.

The film begins in the orphanage where, oddly, Ann is treated a lot like Cinderella. However, instead of having two mean step-sisters and a step-mother, all the female residents (who look too old to be there as well as frolicking on a playground) and the matrons treat Ann like a sort of slave--making her do all the work. However, when there is a fire at the place, Ann rescues another girl and is a hero. In response, a nice old couple decide to adopt Ann and take her to live with them. There she meets a nice neighbor (Robert Herron) and they fall in love. There is a subplot involving a doll and a black lady who talks about 'hoodoo' (sort of like a voodoo curse) on Ann--but this really is pretty unimportant to the story.

Now towards the last half of the film, the movie takes a really weird shift--away from a sad tale to a funny film. Ann and her new boyfriend go to the cinema and see a film. As Ann is a bit backward, she takes the film way too seriously. She thinks it's all a bit too real and she also goes home and pretends to be an actress. In the process, she dresses up and plays with a gun she thinks isn't loaded--leading to funny circumstances that really improve the overall film. It's rather inconsequential and silly, but also satisfying--and I don't want to say more as it might give away too much.

Overall, Busch was a very pleasant actress with a nice flair for comedy and pathos--and helped to make the film worth seeing. I liked the film very much--but didn't love it. Incidentally, the film was written by D.W. Griffith but not directed by him.

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.

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.

Whenever silent fans around the world talk about the Amerikan actress Dame Mae Marsh, inevitably the name of Herr D. W. Griffith is part of the silent chatter due to the importance that the Amerikan director had in Dame Marsh's career, a close and fruitful collaboration indeed. Both silent celebrities started their careers during the pioneers times with Dame Marsh being discovered accidentally by Herr Griffith and then later becoming one of his most distinctive classical heroines.

After having worked with her mentor in the milestone film "The Birth Of A Nation" (1915), Dame Marsh played "Hoodoo Ann" in the silent year of 1916, a film actually directed by Herr Lloyd Ingraham but with a scenario by Herr Griffith. The Dame Marsh character in this small film production has many recognizable elements of Herr Griffith's heroines (not surprising considering who did the script) that this count mentioned before: a little orphan girl ( it is well-known that Herr Griffith has a special fondness for little orphans… ), an innocent and long-suffering child who will overcome many problems during her life with her special persistence.

So we have a classic Herr Griffith heroine who is outspoken and encounters some unexpected misfortunes but finds a handsome and rich fiancée who will bring about a happy ending. However, first an intriguing mystery will have to be solved.

But not all the credit of "Hoodoo Ann" should go to the Griffith/Marsh duo; Herr Ingraham did his part too, directing the film with resolute hand, using elaborate film narratives techniques to entwine comedy with tragedy.

In spite of Dame Marsh being too grown up to be playing a little girl, her performance is honest and unpretentious like the film itself. After all, "Hoodoo Ann" is a small film whose principal intention is to entertain, much like what happens when our heroine attends a "moving pitcher" show, in which she can escape from reality, like so many others, and be fascinated by such an odd invention. Surprisingly, the movies play a strong part in resolving the plot when a curious incident happens in the vicinity; after all, reality is stranger than fiction.

And now, if you'll allow me, I must temporarily take my leave because this German Count must act as godfather to a little but rich German orphan.

Herr Graf Ferdinand Von Galitzien http://ferdinandvongalitzien.blogspot.com/