My Best Girl

My Best Girl is Mary Pickford's last silent film...the last big go around for America's Sweetheart. In this film, she goes back to her roots...she plays someone her own age. Unlike the gothic Sparrows, or the poor low class lady in Suds, Mary comes off as striking and fills the screen with her beauty and charm. She plays a stock girl in a large department store, who falls in love with the owner's son, which at first she doesn't realize. She has to deal with her strange family, where they all look to her for leadership. The owner's son (Buddy Rogers, whom Mary later really marries) must deal with his parents and other girlfriend when he too returns her love. What's charming about this picture, is when I watched it late at night recently, is to notice how much the world has really changed since 1927. Remember when a family actually owned a department store instead of faceless boards of directors and changing CEOs? And how the cash registers rang up 5 cents for a total purchase? How the department stores has sales people every few feet to help you? How the street was filled with cars that now can only be found in museums? How innocent the dating was reflected in film...kissing was like...going all the way! It is also interesting to notice how the rich were shown on film in the 1920s. I'll bet most people in the audience could only dream of homes like those shown. And that all the actors and actresses you see are now gone, their image lives on in film..which is a moment captured in time forever.

Beautiful romantic comedy starring the great Mary Pickford, alongside her future husband Buddy Rogers. As a silent it is one of the best, a perfect example of the art of silent cinema, and as a film, it transcends all time and languages, the perfect love story.

There is a bittersweet quality to "My Best Girl" which has nothing to do with the on-screen action. This was Pickford's last silent film, and as such heralds the end of an era. Though she would continue with her career until 1933, sound and its early limitations really knocked her off her exalted pedestal.

It is also the film in which she co-starred with Buddy Rogers who became her husband for over forty years. (In the process she had to divorce Douglas Fairbanks, and anyone who cares even vaguely about silent film will have certain pangs of regret about that.)

In itself it is a beautifully constructed, engaging romance. Unusual for a Pickford feature, it tends to outstay its welcome towards the end, where Mary's histrionics are laid on a little thick. Buddy I find irritatingly enthusiastic - can't the man just laugh without slapping his knees?

But let's not nit pick. "My Best Girl" is a totally engaging piece of fluff; not up to the standards that Mary set in "Sparrows" and "Stella Maris", but still amongst her most accessible features today. See it if you can with the Gaylord Carter organ track.

"My Best Girl" is the downright American love story, with Mary Pickford (the America's Sweetheart) and Charles 'Buddy' Rogers (the America's Boyfriend) wooing each other on screen in 1927, and ten years after, they were married to each other - a union lasted 42 years for the rest of Pickford's lifetime through 1979. An enviable love story.

The (silent) film is directed by Sam Taylor (who collaborated on many a Harold Lloyd hilarious fun capers). On the DVD case, it has "Script: Hope Loring, with Mary Pickford and Charles "Buddy" Rogers." Charles Rogers, so handsome, young and charming, and quite an athletic runner. Director Taylor included familiar treatment with main characters standing in the stream of traffic, cars swishing by near-miss, not lacking in car chase or chasing after car scenario - but done in a most endearing way, especially the sequence between Pickford's Maggie Johnson riding at the back of a truck, while Rogers' Joe Grant repeatedly trying to catch up with her. Clearly two persons quite smitten with each other - so lovely together without a care in the world.

The DVD restored version (supervised by Keith Lawrence, 1999 Milestone Film & Video) has an outstanding symphonic score by David Michael Frank, performed by the Bohuslav Martinu Philharmonic Zlin (Czechoslovakia), conducted by Bill Motzing. Simply love the music! It is so appealing and perfectly fitting to the fairy tale tempo of "My Best Girl": love at first sight, rags to riches, family strife and love obstacles, humor and dramatics, tears and joy all rolled into one. Mary Pickford is THE quintessential star, queen of the silent film era. She's so good at what she does, romantic comedy or tough drama (as in "Sparrows" 1926), and adept in physical moves, too. The introduction of the Shop Girl in the beginning: the juggling of the pots, that foot in the pan 'gag', the slips a-slipping thing, all delivered with such impeccable timing. Storyline progression played on mistaken assumptions, with timely humor and sweetness of the heart.

Don't let 'silent film' deter you: it's a lively piece, with lots of plot turns and dramatics, and the cast, besides the adorable pairing of Pickford and Rogers, the supporting roles from Pa Johnson and Ma Johnson, sister Liz and sleazy John Junior, down to the sidewalk 'crippled Pencil Peddler' (actually a critical small part in the love story of Maggie and Joe), are engaging as any talking pictures, maybe more so. The "Breaking Joe's Heart" segment - just watching how Mary Pickford played her scenes, running the gamut of emotions, is satisfying by itself.

Everything about this film is quality: the cinematography (the montage composition and angles following the couple, the multiple street scenes - sweet rainy or sad rainy), set design (that crate of a box where Joe and Maggie had their lunch seemed like Paradise till the camera pulled back and revealed wide) and sound (the punctuated cash registry bell, the entry of door bell rings matching pauses in the music) all contributed to "My Best Girl" being a not to be missed cinematic experience. Have a dose of fairy tale now and then. Check out the DVD, relax and enjoy it!

Mary Pickford (as Maggie Johnson) is a lowly "5 & 10 cent" stockroom worker. One day, while covering a salesclerk's station, she encounters cute Charles "Buddy" Rogers (as Joe "Grant" Merrill). Ms. Pickford thinks Mr. Rogers is a customer; so, she tries to sell him on a Devil Doll - blowing it up for size! The two are mutually attracted; and, Rogers is happily assigned to be Pickford's stockroom ward. Pickford doesn't know it, but Rogers is actually millionaire store owner Hobart Bosworth (as Robert E. Merrill)'s son, posing as a "commoner" in order to earn some business sense. Moreover, Rogers is engaged to marry his societal equal, Avonne Taylor (as Millicent Rogers)…

This was Pickford's final silent film; and, in hindsight, she might have been wise to end her career right here, on top. "My Best Girl" is an indispensable film, one of several late 1920s films which show the silent film had achieved a considerable level of artistic sense. It's difficult to point out single pieces, since the entire film works so well; however, the rainy location scenes are notably exquisite. Director Sam Taylor and Pickford shine throughout. Dave Kesson, Charles Rosher, and Jack Schulze make outstanding contributions. This is one of Pickford's finest performances; and, she forms an extraordinary partnership with relative newcomer Rogers. Their scenes together are magical, rivaling the more rustic Lillian Gish/Robert "Bobby" Harron romances directed by D.W. Griffith.

Pickford and Rogers later took the chemistry evident on film to heart, and formed a more long-term partnership; their wedding and "newsreel" footage provide a lovely coda for "My Best Girl"...

Life imitates art.

********** My Best Girl (10/31/27) Sam Taylor ~ Mary Pickford, Charles 'Buddy' Rogers, Lucien Littlefield, Hobart Bosworth