Sparrows Movie Review

Mary Pickford was the only woman among the original founders of United Artists. (Her three co-founders were D.W. Griffith, Douglas Fairbanks, and Charlie Chaplin.) Since all four wanted to make movies free of studio interference, their original goal in 1919 was to release movies they produced themselves. Sparrows, for which Pickford served as star AND producer, was one of several attempts to change the image of Little Mary. At 34, she had every right, but audiences cherished the notion of her remaining a child with golden curls forever, and boxoffice receipts for Sparrows suffered as a result. Director William Beaudine has a miserable reputation today, but he did a credible job on Sparrows. The appealing element about Sparrows is that Pickford singlehandedly rescued a batch of abused children from Grimes, a villainous farmer (vividly interpreted by Gustav von Seyffertitz, who had played a memorable Moriarty in 1920's Sherlock Holmes opposite John Barrymore and Roland Young). Pickford could afford the best, so the children's escape through the swamplands of Louisiana was convincingly and eerily photographed by the great Charles Rosher, Karl Struss, and Hal Mohr. The eloquent portrayal of Mrs. Grimes by Charlotte Mineau reveals the stark desperation of a woman who knows there is no escape from her marriage to a brute. (Pickford wears braids throughout most of Sparrows.)

1926 81m/B Mary Pickford, Gustav von Seyffertitz, Charlotte Mineau, Roy Stewart, Mary Louise Miller, “Spec” O'Donnell, Mary Frances McLean, Camilla Johnson, Seeseell Ann Johnson; D: William Beaudine; W: C. Gardner Sullivan, Winifred Dunn; C: Charles Rosher, Karl Struss, Hal Mohr; M: William Perry. VHS, LV