User Reviews

"Pollyanna" was a film hated by both the star, Mary Pickford, and the writer Frances Marion (according to Marion) and I think it showed in the movie. To me it seemed a bit rushed and patched together, there is even a title out of place - when Pollyanna scares her aunt during her first night, there is a title saying Pollyanna hopes her aunt forgets (about her punishment)! Lo and behold toward the end of the movie a title appears "Her Aunt didn't forget but now months have passed"!!! The movie was also not a patch on the later Disney remake with Hayley Mills - and I don't really care for remakes!! I also wasn't keen on the organ music which seemed to have no relation to the actual movie. It seemed to be a series of circus songs and the movie was what I would call dramatically sentimental. I agree with other reviews, a new score would have enhanced this movie no end. Paul Powell was probably not one of Mary's more inspired directors and also by the end of 1920 she was hoping to break away from the child photoplays that the public loved. She wanted to explore more dramatic, adult roles and although her public refused to let her grow up, during the twenties she was able to play more diverse characters ie "Suds" (1920) and when she had to play a child ie "Little Lord Fauntelroy" she made sure she also played his mother "Dearest" as well.

Pollyanna Whittier (Mary) a little orphan girl from the Ozarks goes to stay with her cranky Aunt Polly in New England. Pollyanna gets on her bad side immediately, tramping mud into the house, unravelling her knitting and using her knitting patterns as galoshes!! The next day she meets Jimmy Bean, a runaway orphan who is looking for a real home. Pollyanna takes him to the Ladies Aid Society, hoping that Aunt Polly will adopt him as well - she doesn't but she is fast coming under the young girl's spell. Even though the movie is episodic, it has little linking stories ie Mr. Pendergast is the richest and loneliest man in town, he shut himself away from the world when the girl he loved married a preacher and went to live in the Ozarks. He is just one of the many people she helps by playing the "Glad Game", a game taught to her by her father. Aunt Polly is eventually helped as well, she had been engaged to the town doctor, Dr. Chiltern but due to a falling out they had not spoken for many years. When Pollyanna faces her greatest challenge, she pleads with Aunt Polly that Dr. Chiltern is the only one that can make her well.

Some of the fantasy sequences were cute. Jimmy being chased by giant turnips and when Pollyanna and Jimmy dream about when they are married with about a dozen children all piling on to Jimmy's street car. I have an early edition of "Pollyanna" (Pages of Boston) from 1915. Even though it was first published in 1912, by 1915 it had gone through a phenomenal 26 editions - really a staggering amount. Apart from that, at the back of my book there is a page of "Glad" calenders, diaries etc, so the success of Pollyanna and the Glad Game cannot be under estimated.

At this point in her career, Mary Pickford hadn't played a little girl throughout a picture since "The Little Princess" made three years earlier. Her fans had been clamouring for years for Mary to do Pollyanna. Mary's mother Charlotte, had bought the rights to the novels Pollyanna and Daddy-Long-Legs, and Pickford was determined that her films would match the wondrous fame of these beloved books. Pickford plays the glad girl very well through this fast paced film, but admitted growing tired of the saintly Pollyanna and decided to inject a moment of deviltry to the character. She writes in her autobiography, While the cameras were grinding away one day, I caught a fly on the table, scooped it up and said, " Little fly, do you want to go to heaven?" With that I smacked my two hands together and said, "You have!" That fly in the ointment of Pollyanna's purity was definitely not in the script, but it remained in the picture. Mary also talks about the difficulty, to keeping up the facade of looking like a little girl. It was while they were shooting a scene of Pollyanna at the railroad station in Pasadena, that she overheard a child make a remark she never forgot. The little girl of about seven, was one of the many spectators who had gathered to watch. Mary distinctly heard her say, "Mama, she's not a real little girl, she's got long fingernails." Mary promptly lopped off the incriminating nails. Even though Mary Pickford grew tired of playing the glad girl, her fans certainly weren't disappointed by her outstanding and sensitive portrayal of the ten-year old orphan. It should also be noted this was Pickford's first film released through United Artists, and grossed more than a million dollars in 1920. For fans of Pollyanna and Mary Pickford, this is a very delightful movie to watch.