The Poor Little Rich Girl is the last of four Mary Pickford films being screened as part of “Mary Pickford and the Invention of the Movie Star,” an exhibit dedicated to the silent icon (and Toronto native), currently running at Toronto’s TIFF Bell Lightbox. The exhibit is located on the fourth floor of the Lightbox, in the new Canadian Film Gallery, and features some 300 items, including photographs, posters, memorabilia, postcards, and products endorsed by Pickford, assembled over a 30-year period by private collector Rob Brooks. It’s curated by Sylvia Frank, Director of the Toronto International Film Festival’s Film Reference Library and Special Collections.
TIFF Bell Lightbox screens The Poor Little Rich Girl this Sunday, January 23rd, at Noon. The series also includes Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm; and Sparrows; screened January 15th and 16th respectively, and Daddy-Long-Legs, screening January 22nd.
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Though Mary Pickford’s career didn’t take off until her late-teens, she’d spend much of it playing children. Her fans accepted her in these roles because they didn’t need realism to suspend their disbelief—just a consistent, honest evocation of youth they could see through the guise—and Pickford usually delivered. In The Poor Little Rich Girl, she doesn’t, quite. Its heroine, Gwen, is a mystery not only to other characters in the film, but to Pickford herself. Her performance is uneven; oddly so from a pro like her. So odd that I think you should see it happening, and judge for yourself. You may end up siding with poor Mary against her own script, as I did; for I believe it did her no favours.
