Suds

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.

A not-entirely-successful, offbeat, change-of-pace for America's alleged Sweetheart, Mary Pickford. Playing a Cockney laundress in an excellently re-created London, she is at her best with the comedy: falling in and out of laundry bins, hiding under baskets, keeping a horse in her apartment, etc. As for the pathos, our heroine is less sympathetic here than usual, mainly because most of the character's problems are brought on by herself and her own unhealthy fantasy life (some of which is depicted in a lengthy, but wonderfully loopy, imaginary flashback). There is no real villain to overcome but herself -- and she fails to manage a victory. The ending (or endings -- three different final scenes were filmed) is abrupt and not terribly convincing. The supporting cast, though competent, is unmemorable -- except, perhaps, for Lavender, the horse, who gets a couple of good bits, including a final sight gag in one of the endings: pulling a chair, and the movie, out from under poor Mary.

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.'

Mary Pickford abandons the cute visage of her curls and good looks and sweetness and adopts a severe ugly looking visage (aka Stella Maris) and remains fascinating. It is actually hard to recognize the woman as Mary Pickford. But it goes to show you are still fascinated with the girl even when she is looking ugly.

This was necessarily a fun movie with lots of gags and loonie moments - such as giving the horse the Pickford hair curls, spending a night with a horse some good slap-stick. Lots of banter with her work mates.

But as usual there are a number of Pickford moments in this movie. There was a momentary change in feeling when we see Mary realize her hoped for suitor is embarrassed by the way she looks dressed up in her best rags and the dialog that follows in that scene. And the rags Mary has to wear are really really rag rags - hard to imagine rags so bad.

In fact though this was a comedy they really did go to some effort to create the depressing dank and poor setting of a London laundry. It was oppressive but essential to the comedy.

The end came upon us suddenly and lacked development though of course it would have been predictable and could written itself but, it would have been nice to have gone through the process for the sake of feeling complete. I wonder if they had time pressures, or if they had just finished a reel and didn't want it flow over into part of another reel.

Despite the minor ending deficiency this was a very enjoyable movie and especially so because Mary didn't look like Mary.

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.