User Reviews

"Rosita" is an enjoyable film--even with its faults. After all, think about the notion of having Mary Pickford playing a Spanish temptress! But despite this, the film is decent breezy entertainment and a change of pace from the typical roles played by this silent star.

The film is set sometime in the 18th century. The King is a bit of a dirty old man and, as usual, is up to no good. In this case, a priest talks about how wicked a local festival has become--so the King has to go to 'investigate'. His investigations add up to him falling in love with a fiery temptress, Rosita. He orders his men to abduct her--though a very honorable Captain sees what's happening and jumps to her defense--and is sent to prison for his troubles. When Rosita meets the King, he showers her with jewels and a castle and his intentions are mostly dishonorable. But, he seems willing to give her anything she wants--and she wants the Captain out of prison. What's next? Well, a lot of treachery and a happy ending that pops out of no where.

Like so many of Pickford's films, the sets are top-notch and it's an excellent production all around. In fact, Allied Artists even went to the trouble of bringing one of Germany's best directors to do this one and Ernst Lubitsch was on hand to give it his famous touch. My only complaint, other than the odd casting of Mary, is that the film seems a bit lightweight--though it is certainly fun.

Long relegated to incomplete 16mm reduction copies, "Rosita" was finally restored a couple years ago by the Museum of Modern Art after the repatriation from Russian archives of the only known surviving 35mm nitrate print. I'm elated to finally put a picture to the production history--and its somewhat notorious afterlife. To the bafflement of film historians, star Mary Pickford suppressed it--encouraging its demise into the obscurity it found itself after its initial release and up until its recent restoration--and in later years, such as for Kevin Brownlow's book "The Parade's Gone By...," stated her detest for the film. I took a class on Ernst Lubitsch in college, too, which only wet my appetite more for a film already on my wish list. While the classic studio system was emerging in Hollywood and elsewhere by 1923, it's important to remember what big deals director Lubitsch and actress Pickford were. He become unrivaled as having been the most esteemed director in two nations, Germany and, then, the United States, became the only director to head a major Hollywood studio, and at the time, he was fresh from a string of successful costume spectacles after having mastered classical continuity editing in "Madame Dubarry" (1919). He demanded complete control of his films and got it, including running his own production unit at Warner Bros. after making his first American film. "Rosita" is the exception to this authorial control.

That's because in emigrating to Tinseltown, Lubitsch ran into an even greater force of the movie world in "America's Sweetheart." Pickford was the author of her image. One of the four founding stars of United Artists, along with Charlie Chaplin, Douglas Fairbanks and D.W. Griffith--the four biggest names in 1919 Hollywood, in other words--she exerted far more control over her films and the business behind them than have just about every other movie star ever. She was already running her own production company, and Lubitsch became her employee. Later, she was also a founder of the Academy, later best known for the awards they hand out annually (take a look at a photograph of the Academy's founders sometime to see the one woman in a room full of men). In recruiting the German-Jewish filmmaker, the 30-some-years-old hoped to break away from her usual roles of playing prepubescent girls and otherwise non-sexual child-women. It was a formula that was largely established and continually repeated since at least "The Poor Little Rich Girl" (1917).

Contrary to later claims by Pickford and repeated by some writers, "Rosita" was a financial success--probably making over a million dollars, a healthy box office back then. One study (published in "An Evening's Entertainment" by Richard Koszarski, who ironically later repeats the falsehood that it was a failure) estimates that it was tied for the fifth most popular film of 1923. Moreover, as film historians like Kristin Thompson ("Lubitsch, Acting and the Silent Romantic Comedy") have discovered, Lubitsch and Pickford appear to have had a good relationship in the 1920s. If not for the financial shortcomings of United Artists, they planned to work together again--signing Lubitsch to make films for the studio, including Pickford vehicles. Even when that fell through, she later called upon him to help with the editing of "Sparrows" (1926). Correspondence shows her at the time claiming, "I still believe he is the greatest director in the world," which is in stark contrast to a quotation from Brownlow in her later years stating their supposed mutual dislike of each other and remembering "I thought he was a very uninspired director." Although, elderly Pickford was quite right that Lubitsch was "a director of doors." Seriously, nobody was better at it. For Lubitsch's part, biographer Scott Eyman claims that despite squabbles over production control and insensitive mockery during filming by cast and crew of his thick accent and poor English, he never spoke ill of her, publicly at least. Regardless, neither star would work on a film with someone with such comparable clout in the industry as themselves again.

As for the film itself, I wish I could say it was an artistic triumph. To be sure, it has its moments, and while Pickford couldn't quite pull off the Pola Negri type here of a vixen Spanish street singer turned concubine to a womanizing king in a royal love triangle, or rather rectangle, it's hardly the embarrassment she later made it out to be. If one wants to see "The Girl with the Golden Curls" give a truly humiliating performance, check out her Oscar-winning (proving the industry has always been awful at rewarding themselves) role in "Coquette" (1929), a creaky and ludicrous early talkie. And, if you want to see her successfully escape typecasting, try "My Best Girl" (1927), her last and one of her best silent films.

Lubitsch surely deserves some blame here, too. There is a brilliantly comedic scene where the camera remains stationary as Pickford repeatedly passes by a fruit bowl before plucking from it, which recalls a similar scene in "Lady Windermere's Fan" (1925), and the picture is mostly technically competent. All-time-greats cinematographer Charles Rosher and art director William Cameron Menzies are credited on the production, so it of course looks good. There's a good double exposure for a shot as seen through a mirror, and a camera pan does well to indicate further spying in the same sequence through a window. And there's some genuine carnivalesque atmosphere with scenes full of countless costumed extras amidst large sets. But, despite Lubitsch's later insistence that American silent films were too wordy, there are a good many title cards here, too.

Worse, there's a huge missed opportunity in the wedding scene. Earlier in the picture, when Don Diego and Pickford's Rosita are being arrested, there's an insert close-up of them holding hands. Later and since estranged, their marriage is a convoluted arrangement made, ironically, by her rival suitor, the King, to make her a countess before executing Diego. Y'know, so that her servants will respect her. And, Diego goes along with it because he wants to be shot to death like nobleman supposedly are, I guess, and not hung like an animal.... Anyways, the two are to be married without seeing or knowing who they're marrying. Of course, we know that won't work, but Lubitsch and company entirely blunder the opportunity for the two to recognize each other by touch--recalling that prior arrest scene--when they again hold hands during the blindfolded wedding ceremony. Instead, Pickford breaks into histrionics and wild gesticulation as she uncovers their masks. That right there in a nutshell is why "City Lights" (1931) is a masterpiece, and this isn't (if you've seen that Chaplin film, you know what I mean, and if you haven't seen it, see it already--it's a masterpiece).

Speaking of Chaplin films, Lubitsch would kick this pseudo-historical, costume quasi-drama habit after seeing another 1923 release, "A Woman of Paris." As Thompson, among others, discussed in her essay and I cover more about in my review of Lubitsch's next film, "The Marriage Circle" (1924), he hit upon the sophisticated romantic comedies, including the comedies of remarriage, for which he'd become best known--films full of visual wit and nuanced acting and that were directly influenced by Chaplin's film. One may see some hints of what's to come here, including with the amusing scenes of infidelity early on as the King chases after countesses and, better yet, with the reactions to such by the Queen. Interestingly, the Queen is played by Irene Rich, who would play a more elaborate variation on the game of looks she participates in here and in a more central part in Lubitsch's first American masterpiece, "Lady Windermere's Fan." By then Lubitsch understood and had the control to rely on visual humor and not on intertitles--to the point that his Oscar Wilde adaptation includes not one of the playwright's famous epigrams. Rich managing to steal the show in her few minutes in "Rosita," hinting at the comedy-of-remarriage formula, may've been instructive, too, for Lubitsch to give her the most important part in his later film.

Nevertheless, this is a fine restoration, including tinting/toning and some hand-coloring for fire and fireworks. The score, too, was reconstructed from the original. It's a pleasure just to finally put a face to the production narrative oft repeated in silent film history writings.

The restoration is a thing of beauty, with sharp images, good tints, a Handschlegel sequence that is charming, beautiful set design, and photography by Miss Pickford's regular cameraman in this period, the great Charles Rosher. Ernst Lubitsch, in his first American film, directs to show off everything, offers a few grace notes, and has turned out an overlong movie.

I admire Lubitsch's comedies endlessly, but I am not so fond of his historical epics. I understand their popularity at the time. With Europe in the last days of the Great War, and a couple of years coming out of it, looking at luxury on screen was all the escape audiences could get from a devastated continent. Yet showing that luxury takes up screen time, and Lubitsch seemed to feel no need to fill it up for those of us who exhausted that pleasure quickly. As a result of this, while the opening sequences of Carnival, waiting for Miss Pickford to appear amidst the innumerable extras, is exciting and fun and even a bit suspenseful, the constant barrage of magnificent clothes and high glass shots while Miss Pickford shows she is a great actress palled on me. She had already shown her range in an assortment of roles eight years earlier, when she played Indian girls, Scottish lasses and Madame Butterfly. In those movies, she had shown her range by offering her audiences drama and comedy. In this movie, it's Mathilde Comont and George who get the giggles, while Miss Pickford gets to do an 18th Century Suffering In Mink role in slow motion. Her features had been an hour in length. This one stretches to 100 minutes.

One of the reasons that Miss Pickford wanted to make this movie is she was tired of the popular movies she had made over the last few years, in which she played children or adolescents. "That little girl killed me" she later said. Did she understand the irony? An actor performs many roles, but when people go to see a star, they have expectations about what they'll be seeing. Miss Pickford was not going to play Lady MacBeth, even though she was undoubtedly capable of giving a bang-up performance. She stretched here to please the critics, and her fans accepted it and even enjoyed it, because it showed she was as good as they thought she was. Yet if it's that little girl killed her, it's equally true she made Miss Pickford one of the half dozen biggest stars in the history of cinema.

Legends abound concerning the contentious on-set relationship between superstar Mary Pickford and director Ernst Lubitsch during the filming of Rosita. Despite Pickford's later efforts to keep the film out of circulation, screenings of the picture revealed a delightful surprise: the great German filmmaker had provided Pickford with her wish -- the showcase for a juicy role miles away from her "little girl with the curls" persona. Only the tiniest indications of what would later evolve into the "Lubitsch touch" exist in the tale of a street singer who rises to prominence in the court of a philandering king (skillfully portrayed by Holbrook Blinn), but Rosita is a handsomely mounted production with charm, wit, and plenty of romance to spare.

Mary Pickford was a stickler for preserving a large body of her films. She prized almost every movie she was in, and, unusual for an actress, she collected scores of prints of her work. One notable exception was September 1923's "Rosita." She demanded and was handed over almost every existing print distributed a few months after the movie was released. With the exception of one: a print 90 minutes long was found in 1960 in the Soviet Union, and given to New York's Museum of Modern Art, much to the consternation of an aging Pickford.

No explanation for Pickford's obsession in destroying the film was given. It wasn't because of any negative reviews. In fact, it was just the opposite. "Nothing more delightfully charming than Mary Pickford's new picture Rosita has been seen on the screen for some time," wrote the film critic for the New York Times.

"Rosita" was certainly a landmark motion picture, mainly because it was German director Ernst Lubitsch's first United States film after directing scores of German movies for nearly ten years. Pickford, just turning 30, had yearned to escape her popular child roles (played as an adult) and witnessed Lubitsch's sophistication on the screen as the panacea to that change. She contracted him to come to America and apply his craft with her as a lead. Once on shore, Lubitsch learned the actress wanted to make a film on the then popular genre of an elaborate costume drama. The director shot down one Pickford suggestion, while his desire to direct a version based on Faust was nixed by Pickford's mother because of a baby-killing scene. They settled on a 1872 opera about a libertine Spanish king who falls for Rosita (Pickford), a poor but very popular singer in Seville, Spain.

Pickford gave no reason for her unusual confiscation of "Rosita." One theory is she realized after seeing the finished print that she wasn't the heroine of the story; the Spanish queen is. Another is she wanted to forget what she later claimed was Lubitsch total authoritarian behavior. "I detested that picture," said the elderly actress years later to biographer Kevin Brownlow. "I disliked the director as much as he disliked me." But contemporary sources at the time of "Rosita's" production claim, beside a language barrier between the actress and the director, the two got along charmingly on the set. She wrote after the completion of "Rosita" that Lubitsch was " the best director in the world." They had planned to make more films together, but tight funds at Pickford's United Artists precluded such a working relationship.

"Rosita" turned out to be a tremendous hit, gaining the number six best box office position of 1923, and established Lubitsch's America's credentials. Warner Brothers signed him to a three-year, six picture lucrative deal, with total freedom to select his actors, crew and most importantly, final say in the finished product.

Pickford did, however, preserve one reel of "Rosita," a sequence that has gone down in classic film lore where she uses a fruit bowl as a prop to ward off the aggressive king as he tries to seduce her in his suite.

"Rosita" (1923) stars Mary Pickford and is directed by Ernst Lubitsch; so...it should be a dynamite piece of film viewing. It's certainly not bad, but it's no masterpiece. Mary is a street singer during what appears to be some century in Seville hundreds of years ago. She is a sort-of François Villon poet/singer who chooses to snipe at the reigning king and his government and the taxes imposed which siphon the wherewithal out of the peasant class. By the upper classes Mary is constantly monikered 'harlot'. She is eventually dragged away by nasty government agent during Carnival festival, but a noble steps up, one who is recently returned from serving military service, and he stops the agent; then gets into a sword duel with him; kills him; then is put into prison where in the morning he will be hanged. Mary is put into the same prison. I'll let it hang there so you can find the film and watch to see what occurs!

Begins slowly. The story is a good one. What happens, though, is that this should have been a good drama. Even a few Pickford light moments would have worked to make this work if it had remained a good drama. Instead...it turns into a second rate meller/romance. Mary doesn't seem happy during this film. Something must have been up. We know historically that is true.

Well worth the watch. But this one does NOT have the Lubitsch touch. Instead, this one's 99 minutes is simply too long. I enjoyed the ending, but I knew it would happen the way it did. Probably would have been better with the Hitchcock touch; or simply letting Mary do her own version. This is on the new Blu-Ray release from Grapevine Video, a Kickstarter project with work done by Jack Hardy and a piano musical score by David Drazin. Score is good, though the Carnival scene music is a tad overwrought.

Also appearing with Pickford are Holbrook Blinn as the king; Irene Rich as his wife, the queen (and who is the person I think did the best job of characterization, and was a pleasure for the little time she appears); George Walsh as Don Diego, Mary's love interest; Mathilde Comont as Mary's mother; George Periolat as Mary's father; and many, many others. Supposedly Charles Farrell and Marion Nixon are here somewhere.

The King of Spain (Holbrook Blinn) visits the carnival in Seville where he listens incognito to Rosita (Mary Pickford) singing a cheeky song that criticises his rule. Rosita is arrested, though Don Diego (George Walsh) intervenes while she is being dragged off to jail, only to be jailed himself. Of course the lecherous king has become interested in the pretty street singer - but so has Don Diego, who is now being sentenced to death because he killed the officer who had arrested Rosita... and so on. What follows is a quite convoluted affair, and that is one of my points of criticism. The whole setup is so complicated that there would have been material enough for a couple of films. As it is the whole thing feels rushed, despite the one hour forty minutes it takes. A consequence of this is that the characters remain pretty one-dimensional (this is my second point of criticism). The king cannot control his sex drive, Don Diego is noble, Rosita not above accepting favours but nevertheless sweet, pretty and lovable. At the end of all this the queen appears more or less like a deus ex machina to resolve the complications. The settings of the film are sumptuous, as are the costumes that place the story roughly in the Napoleonic era (when Spain had other problems than the king's libido). In sum: Fundamentally this is a watchable picture, but there are a number of weaknesses that make it more difficult to enjoy than many other silent films.

Pickford is impressive as the poor peasant entertainer with whom the King becomes ridiculously obsessed. Having seen some of Pickford's earlier 'little girl', romanticism movies this was a refreshing change and demonstrates how she was able to extend her range given the opportunity, utterly convincing as she is playing the fiesty young rebel as a woman with attitude. She reminded me of our contempory performers such as Madonna. Always amusing and beautifully composed by Lubitsch, whilst not a classic a highly enjoyable film.

Mary Pickford loved Ernst Lubitsch's Anna Boleyn and wanted to work with the German director, so she imported him to Hollywood to give him a contract at United Artists, the production company she founded with Charlie Chaplin, Douglas Fairbanks, and D. W. Griffith. She was also dead set on changing her image which, at the time, was one of a child. She wanted to play adults, and so she wanted Lubitsch to direct her in a film adaptation of Dorothy Vernon of Haddon Hall by Charles Major. Lubitsch had little interest in the property, and an adaptation of the opera Don Cesar de Bazan became a compromise project. Neither seems to have been excited by it, and Pickford would say many years later that she and Lubitsch hated each other through the shoot (true or not, I don't know, but she said it). The end result is a film in the same tradition of his German historical tragedies (though this doesn't quite end the same way) with many of the same issues transplanted to a Hollywood production facility with a Hollywood star.

The King of Spain (Holbrook Blinn) is a frivolous man who happily spends his time with the young women of the court with the quiet and begrudging acceptance of the Queen (Irene Rich) who only wishes for the king to keep his dalliances in check. When news of a carnival being thrown in Seville, a celebration that will last for days and be filled with debauchery, the King decides that he must inspect the moral travesty himself. In Seville lives the pauper singer Rosita (Pickford) who sings bawdy songs, dances suggestively, and is all around happily a sex object (yeah, Pickford ain't playin' no child here). Her performance and audience on the street is ruined by the arrival of the king, and she sets out to get even by singing insulting songs about the sovereign. There's a delightful moment when the King, determined to hear this song for himself, goes out into town and ends up participating in the singing while masked.

I'll say that the first third or so of Rosita is my favorite part of the film which is a flip from my usual reaction to these types of movies in Lubitsch's early career. I usually found the early parts rough, under developed, and in desperate need for dialogue. Well, that's not entirely untrue here, especially the dialogue aspect, but it works best in Rosita because the characters seem to be better defined through their visuals and a more pointed usage of intertitles. There was something that Erich von Stroheim liked to do with his intertitles which was to employ a lot of poetic construction when setting scenes, and Lubitsch follows that example here which helps with the setting of the scene during carnival in Seville as well as establish Rosita in particular. Her flamboyance, cheekiness, and devil may care attitude are demonstrated well by Pickford in her performance as well as the intertitles, creating a surprisingly full character early and quickly.

The plot turns when Rosita is picked up by the king's troops (in front of the king, who is masked and gets drowned out by the crowd) for insulting the king, and Don Diego (George Walsh) comes to her aid, killing one of the soldiers in a duel. Both Diego and Rosita end up taken away into prison, and the two have a nice, friendly moment when they are both in handcuffs. They speak a bit (almost none of it in intertitles, so we get almost no actual dialogue between them) and they shake their hands behind their backs to introduce each other. I only have issue with this later when it becomes the basis for true love stuff that the final third hangs on, especially when, like in Madame DuBarry, Rosita completely forgets Don Diego for a third of the film's runtime, but the moment in isolation is actually quite nice.

The King, smitten by Rosita, brings her to his castle, dresses her up in finery, and expresses his desire to keep her around him. She insists on bringing her entire household with her including her adopted mother (Mathilde Comont), father (George Periolat), and several children. The situation grates on the servants of the villa that the King gives her, and it drives the family to demand more of the King, namely a husband for Rosita, one with a name to help raise her station. Well, the King has no desire to give her away so easily, so he agrees but only to Don Diego the morning of his execution, with an execution to follow. Part of his agreement with her is that she is to not know who she is marrying either, so when the two people in true love do get married, they don't know they are marrying their true loves. I mean...I get the whole chivalrous need for a woman to be with a man who saved her life, but this is, again, where the lack of dialogue really bites Lubitsch. Their entire relationship is his defense of her and then a few untranslated words while they're handcuffed next to each other followed by a brief exchange through some prison bars. It's thin.

But, true love it is, and we must go through the motions of it with Rosita pleading for Don Diego's life when she finds out the identity of her husband, something the King is not really happy about doing. He did accidentally marry his latest conquest to the man she actually loves. That's a cruel irony for him, so once Rosita is out of the room he demands that the ruse he promised to Rosita will not go forward. All of this is witnessed by the Queen just outside the door who swears that she will not let the King's infatuation with the beggar singer go too far.

Well, the final act plays out across a couple of different twists, the first one being relatively predictable and the second being rather delightful, giving the final moments of the film a cheery and really amusing quality that feels like the sort of thing that would attract Lubitsch to the material in general. I wouldn't go so far as to say it saves the film or is great, but it honestly put a smile on my face. The first act had been quite entertaining, the second act capable and competent, and the bulk of the third act had relied too much on the underdeveloped relationship between Rosita and Don Diego to really work. However, the final few minutes of the film just turned it into something of a delight for a few minutes.

I'm still not convinced that the silent historical romance was all that in Lubitsch's wheelhouse, but he could obviously manage well enough. Of course, Pickford brought him to America because she had greatly enjoyed his handling of the genre, particularly in Anna Boleyn. I am glad she did because he later went on to make much better films within the Hollywood system, but I just don't really see what Pickford saw. He handled the productions well, like any competent filmmaker would, but the only spark from his early work was really in the weirder comedies like The Doll. Rosita has its charms, including an ending that stands things on its head while giving a minor, thankless role the last laugh, and it's far from the worst Hollywood debut. However, Lubitsch was still really aching for spoken dialogue, even if he didn't quite realize it at the time.

I'm sorry, but the audience who rejected this movie in 1923 were right: Mary Pickford just can't play it sexy. Neither is she convincing as a fiery ridiculer of authority. Her usual childlike impishness is sorely out of place here; when the king lusts after her, you have to suspect him of child molesting tendencies. However, the movie does have its funny moments, in a very Lubitsch way; the amusing efforts of the king to avoid the monogamous-minded queen make up for some deficiencies.

"Set the table for three. Tonight we feast with death!"

It's a simple story and it moves a little slowly at times, but to see Mary Pickford playing a street musician and dancing a little jig, flirting with a traveling nobleman, and fending off the advances of the horny king, all under the direction of Ernst Lubitsch, hey I'm in. It's actually kind of hard to tell it's from Lubitsch, though the sets are gorgeous and the crowd scenes suitably lively, with the exception of this intertitle, which I chuckled over: "Good news! His Majesty graciously consents to your being shot." This is Pickford's show though, and she's as charming as ever.