Daddy-Long-Legs is the third 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 Daddy-Long-Legs this Saturday, January 22nd, at 11 am. It will be followed by The Poor Little Rich Girl (January 23rd). The series also included Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm and Sparrows, screened January 15th and 16th, respectively.
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An infant is found in an ash can, nameless, with no note attached to her blankets. Mrs. Lippett, matron of orphans, must give her a name. She takes ‘Abbott’ from the phone book and ‘Jerusha’ from a nearby gravestone. Jerusha Abbott, nicknamed ‘Judy,’ grows to be a bright, capable twelve-year old in the orphanage; and her past—no more than the name, a fiction borne of expediency and luck—will never really impact her. Daddy-Long-Legs isn’t about the past, or very much else, besides the furtive push through life of a very talented, determined young woman. This is one of Mary Pickford’s best films.
