Suds

Not wanting to be pigeon holed in little girls' roles, Mary Pickford immediately took on the part of a laundress working in a dingy laundry in the January 1920 film "Suds." She's constantly picked on by co-workers because of her fantasies associating with handsome men and members of the upper class. Pickford makes her character, Amanda, look as plain as possible by wearing worn out clothes and hunching her shoulders. Saving an old white work horse from the glue factory by taking it to her apartment opens doors of opportunities for Amanda in potentially realizing her dreams.

The studio was criticized for using the play's original ending and immediately filmed and tacked on an upbeat conclusion that still leaves today's viewers a bit confused.

"Suds," based on the 1904 English play 'Op o' Me Thumb," was revamped into a musical opera in the late 1990's using 1960's songs such as 'Please Mr. Postman' and 'Chapel of Love.'

Okay, so I've checking message boards and after seeing pretty much all of the Mary Pickford films one can get on video-which is just a small percentage-I have to say Suds is one of my favorites. It's really goofy, and yeah, a little uneven, but in a way that's it's charm. It has some real goofy charm, I like that Pickford plays a total screw-up. Most of her intentions are good, but she's also a liar, she's a very dynamic person. Often I get bored of Mary Pickford films because she would get stuck playing one-note characters. Amanda is an interesting character because she's such a dork. It's a little sad because seeing odd but charming choices she makes as Amanda, such as the scene where she can't stop scratching the itch on her arm, or the scene where she stitches a portrait of guy she likes into his own shirt show that while she got more opportunities than most women of her time if things had been different she may have been female Charline and not a footnote in cinema history-a title she doesn't deserve anyway. it's a good film.

SUDS is one of Mary Pickford's finest hours, a multi-faceted comedy-drama that runs the gamut from slapstick to heart-touching poignancy. Set in 1800s London, Mary stars as Amanda, a homely little laundress in a dump of laundry. Her only friends are the boy and an old, half-dead horse that deliver the cleaned clothes. Amanda gets through her grim existence nursing a crush on a well-dressed if smug customer, her only link to a better world, who eight months earlier dropped off a shirt to clean which he's never returned to pick up. Twice weeks she washes the shirt in hopes of his eventual return. The other women laugh at her delusions as she claims he's her boyfriend and they are both from the upper classes, her father having kicked her out for their romance to see if anyone will love her for herself and not her inheritance. It's all baloney, of course, but it seems Amanda half believes it herself. There's an enchanting segment where Amanda tells her coworkers her story that allows Mary to be beautiful and glamorous (her faux boyfriend's looks and clothes also having improved from reality) as she is shown in her castle of her home, with Amanda, the beau, and her father all speaking via screen titles in the broken Cockney English of Amanda and her earthy associates. Misfortune continues to plague Amanda and when she least expects it, the phantom "boyfriend" returns for his shirt at long last (or rather, comes in with another shirt to clean).

Mary is wonderful in this charming movie often compared to a Chaplin vehicle but perhaps more of a realistic fairytale with touches of D. W. Griffith and Mack Sennett, often wearing a tight grin that suggests a poor girl hiding bad teeth and also force optimism. The supporting cast has only small parts but then Mary never did really need any help to make a movie an extraordinary experience.

I love silent films, but I have to admit some of the old films don't translate well to the 21st century. Some of the older "classics" now seem antiquated and dull. However, I am happy to report that this is not the case with SUDS. Despite being an 86 year-old film, it still is good fun and is one of the most watchable Mary Pickford films because it doesn't take itself very seriously.

Mary plays a rather homely laundress and there is absolutely no hint of her beauty in this film. This laundress is pretty clumsy but nice. However, because her life is so drab, she dreams of a better life--even going so far as making up a fictitious boyfriend out of a guy who forgot his shirt there over 8 months ago. She described him as being a duke and talks of how he will whisk her away.

At the same time, there's a parallel plot of the horse cart that delivers the laundry from this business. The driver seems to like Mary but his feelings are not professed. Also, Mary adores the old broken-down horse and laments that it's about to be sent to the glue factory by the nasty owner of the business. She runs to its rescue and buys the horse--keeping it in her apartment! Then, the film offers two different endings on the DVD from Image Entertainment--one the American ending and the other the European ending. Both are different--one is a little sweeter, the other funnier. I recommend if you have a chance, view both endings--they are both worth seeing. There apparently was a third melancholy ending that was suggested by Chaplin that was also used, but apparently it is no longer in existence. I actually am glad, as I liked the more up-beat endings.

The bottom line is that the film is amusing and touching and well worth your time. Though a "slight film" with modest pretenses, I actually preferred it to many of the big reputation silent films.

A Mary Pickford vehicle. I've seen a small handful of her films, and this is probably my favorite of them so far. It's no great work of art, but it's a cute little comedy and Pickford's performance is quite funny. Here she plays a Cockney laundry girl. She dreams of being wooed by a nobleman, and has even told stories to her teasing co-workers about her dream man being real. A subplot about a horse Pickford saves from the glue factory leads her to find true romance. While that description sounds more like typical silent melodrama, it's really lightly handled and goofy, with a lot of slapstick. It never reaches the kind of brilliant humor of the great silent clowns, but it's quite enjoyable.