Sparrows

Sparrows (1926)

*** (out of 4)

An evil man, his wife and son are stealing orphans and taking them into the deep swampland where the children are treated as slaves. The latest kid they've kidnapped turns out to be the child of a rich man. Fearing the police, the family plans to kill the kids but the oldest orphan (Mary Pickford) plans a daring escape through the swamp. The villains of this film have to rank as some of the most hated in movie history. Pickford does a wonderful job in her role and director William Beaudine also adds several nice touches. The escape through the swamp is full of suspense as the children must face quicksand as well as alligators. The final act hurts the film but everything leading up to it is very well done. It's interesting to note that Pickford had Beaudine blacklisted in Hollywood because he forced her and the children to risk their lives by acting with real alligators. This here probably explains why a respected director ended up making "B" and "Z" films like Bela Lugosi Meets a Brooklyn Gorilla.

Although this is Mary Pickford's film, it also presents Von Seyffertitz with the best role of his career. Needing little in the way of make-up, the gaunt actor adds to his frighteningly sinister appearance by flourishing his claw-like hands and limping in awkward yet forceful strides. Child actor, Spec O'Donnell, who usually played comic roles, is also most effective. But it is, of course, Mary herself who focuses most of our attention, not only in the hair-raising scenes in which she is pursued by Grimes but in the many heartrending sequences in which she protects her "sparrows".

William Beaudine later became Hollywood's number one hack, but in silent days—indeed until around the mid-1930s—he was a very polished director who could not only draw great performances from his players but add immeasurably to a film's atmosphere and visual effect. Here, his compositions are indelibly terrifying.

This is an excellent melodrama, with a fine performance by Mary Pickford and much more besides. The settings, characters, and photography create an interesting and memorable world in which the adventures of Molly (Pickford) and the orphans take place, in a story with plenty of drama and suspense.

Molly was an ideal role for Pickford, who could make such a character appealing and very sympathetic without going overboard. Though most of the film is quite serious, she also makes good use of the occasional comic moments. The settings in the swamp and on the farm run by the vile Grimes are nicely conceived and created. The sets are filled with careful atmospheric detail, and the photography is excellent. The Grimes family are very good villains, and Gustav von Seyffertitz gives a fine portrayal of the nasty farmer.

There is plenty of action and there are some fine scenes, leading up to an excellent suspense sequence in the swamp, with plenty of thrills and excitement. The only thing that keeps it from being a nearly perfect film is that the last part does drag on just a bit, becoming rather anticlimactic, and it would have been an even better movie if it were maybe 5-10 minutes shorter. But that doesn't change the fact that overall it's great fun to watch.

If you are a fan of silent melodramas, make sure to see "Sparrows" if you get the chance.

An introduction explains: "The Devil's share in the world's creation was a certain swampland, a masterpiece of horror; and the Lord, appreciating a good job, let it stand." The Devil's swampland is where Mary Pickford (as Molly) lives, with some orphans and a baby. Ms. Pickford has managed to avoid being thrown in the swamp, over the years, and has assumed the role of "Mother" to the young children. They are kept, as "baby farm" slaves, by wicked Gustav von Seyffertitz (as Mr. Grimes). Mr. von Seyffertitz, Charlotte Mineau (as Mrs. Grimes) and Spec O'Donnell (as son Ambrose) make a frightfully wicked family.

Pickford employs too many of the girlish pouts and lip-twisting grimaces to make this one of her best characterizations; playing "Molly" as a young woman of indeterminate age would have been fine (something Pickford would do in her next film, the extraordinary "My Best Girl"). Otherwise, the Pickford persona works. As might be expected, the production is first class. Harry Oliver's swampy set is magnificent. The direction of William Beaudine and photography of Charles Rosher, Hal Mohr, and Karl Struss likewise superb. The too long conclusion is noticeably anti-climatic.

The special effects and editing are still convincing viewers that Pickford and the children were in some kind of danger during the "alligator-infested swamp escape" sequence. In Booten Herndon's "Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks" (1977) Mr. Mohr explains, "There wasn't an alligator within ten miles of Miss Pickford. Do people think we were crazy? I shot that scene myself… It was hard work for all of us, but the only thing those alligators came close to biting was a chunk of horsemeat." Fewer people questioned Pickford's meeting with Jesus Christ, in an earlier scene.

******** Sparrows (5/14/26) William Beaudine ~ Mary Pickford, Gustav von Seyffertitz, Charlotte Mineau, Spec O'Donnell

We take home video and DVDs for granted now, but for film buffs who grew up prior to the video era it wasn't easy to track down silent movies. They were seldom aired on TV, and when they were shown, unfortunately, they were sometimes treated as laughable relics with "funny" interpolations. Thankfully, vendors such as Blackhawk offered good prints of many vintage titles in 8mm and 16mm, and museums in some cities would schedule occasional screenings. Consequently, as a kid I was able to catch memorable performances by Lon Chaney, Valentino, William S. Hart, and most of the great comedians. Mary Pickford, however, remained elusive. Aside from a few early Biograph dramas most of her movies were locked away in vaults, and shown infrequently. Awareness of her phenomenal fame lingered, but the movies that inspired that fame were difficult to see. I had only a vague sense of Mary's screen persona, and imagined she must have been an earlier incarnation of Shirley Temple, a goody two-shoes with blonde ringlets whose vehicles were mostly tear-jerkers. Eventually, of course, the situation changed, restoration efforts commenced, and Mary's films began to emerge from hibernation. In the 1980s Sparrows became one of the first Pickford classics to become available on good quality VHS, and once I saw it I understood Mary's appeal. Viewing it again recently on the big screen, at a Pickford festival at the Museum of the Moving Image in Queens NY, only confirmed my first impression that this is one of the most beautifully produced silent dramas ever made. It isn't flawless, and it isn't for all tastes, but it's powerful, moving and unforgettable, and the leading lady gives one of her definitive performances.

Sparrows is essentially a thriller, at times almost a horror story. Our setting is a bleak "baby farm" in a swampy bayou that looks like a landscape by Hieronymus Bosch. Mary plays an adolescent known as Mama Molly who acts as a protective maternal figure to a gang of scruffy, starving kids. These are children who have been sent away by families too poor to care for them, well-intentioned folk who naively believe their children will be raised properly. The farm is run by the most evil family you'll find in the movies: old Mr. Grimes, his wife, and her son, played by character actors Gustav von Seyffertitz, Charlotte Mineau, and Spec O'Donnell. Both Mineau and O'Donnell had backgrounds in comedy, but their performances here are deadly earnest and without a trace of humor. Good as they are, however, they're topped by Von Seyffertitz in what he must have recognized as the role of a lifetime. Grimes is a Dickensian monster: a greedy, spindly, limping man with dead eyes and no conscience. His prison-like farm is surrounded by quicksand and alligator infested swampland. The children in his keeping are treated as his property, and he'd sell any one of them down the river for a few coins. At the screening I attended a child in the audience responded to Grimes' evil-doing by loudly announcing: "He's baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaad!" It got a big laugh, but the kid only said aloud what we were all thinking.

Mama Molly occupies the story's moral center, but she's no goody two-shoes. She's been toughened by adversity, and she's fiercely protective of the youngsters in her charge. When Grimes' horrible step-son bullies them she is quick to stand up to him. And when Grimes threatens to punish the children by withholding their dinner, all because of a minor infraction on Molly's part, she volunteers to go without food for two days rather than see the children suffer. She is also the primary caregiver for a sickly baby who, despite her best efforts, dies one night in the loft of the old barn. In a scene some viewers may find a bit sticky, an image of Jesus appears at the moment of the baby's death and carries him away to the after-life. Sentimental? Sure, but it's performed with absolute conviction, and the close-up of Mary that concludes this scene is deeply affecting. (At the recent museum screening I attended we were shown several rejected takes of an earlier version of this scene in which the baby's spirit is carried away to the heavens by a phosphorescent angel. The out-takes were fascinating, but I feel the scene works better as it stands.)

Much of the credit for this film rightfully belongs to the scenic designer, Harry Oliver, and to the crack team of cinematographers, Charles Rosher, Hal Mohr, and Karl Struss. All of these artists have numerous impressive credits to their names, but their collaboration in this case produced something extraordinary, a movie that is exceptionally beautiful in design as well as beautifully photographed and edited. It's said that the production was influenced by the work of such German auteurs as Murnau and Lang, and indeed Sparrows has a distinctly "Germanic" atmosphere, but with greater emphasis on audience empathy; that is, the filmmakers really want you to feel for these kids. Our emotions peak during the climactic escape, when Molly leads the children through the swamp to freedom. Pursued by Grimes' dogs they dash across rocks, narrowly missing the quicksand, then climb trees and crawl over branches hovering just above alligators that swarm and snap. It's an amazingly suspenseful sequence.

Unfortunately, this is not the film's finale. The escape is followed by a gratuitous action sequence involving kidnappers attempting to flee the police by boat, and when this concludes we still have a couple more scenes meant to tie up the plot's loose strands. If the last twenty minutes or so had been reduced to a brisk seven or eight, the movie would have been just about perfect. Nothing can top the escape through the swamp, and it's too bad they made the attempt. Even so, in my opinion Sparrows stands as one of the most memorable works of the silent cinema, and Mary Pickford's crowning achievement.