As a Boy Dreams (1911)
** (out of 4)
When Mary Pickford decided to learn Biograph and D.W. Griffith I'm sure she thought it was going to be a great move but by judging from this early IMP production it's easy to see why even she realized she had made a mistake. In the film a ship's crew has a mutiny so the cabin boy (Lottie Pickford) and the captain's daughter (Mary Pickford) jump into a small boat along with a treasure map. They wind up on the island with the treasure but they're taken hostage by some pirates so it's up to the old crew to rescue them. If this story sounds incredibly stupid to you then it's best that you know it's actually the most sane thing going on in the picture. I would have ranked this film much, much lower but Mary is just so divine here that you can't help but stay entertained even when everything you're watching, with the exception of Mary, is just downright horrid. Director Thomas Ince was just in his first year of directing so perhaps you can take comfort in knowing that he would eventually get much better. This entire production really does seem like a joke as the directing is bad, the performances worse and some of the staging is just downright embarrassing. Just take a look at the big battle between the pirates and the good guys and you'll be rolling on the floor laughing because there's not really much "fighting" going on but instead it's just a lot of actors in bad costumes waving these fake swords around. Everything about this movie is rather poor but it's still worth viewing for fans of Mary because she's just so charming in her bit role. Many of her shorts with Griffith had her looking like a rag doll and many of her future roles had her being a child or boy-like but she's actually given some tight clothing here to show off her figure and while watching her you can't help but think she would have made for a good vamp.