“My Best Girl” (1927) : Mary Pickford and the Sound of Silents

Episode Transcript
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Tony Maietta (00:07):
Hello, I'm film historian Tony Maietta.

Brad Shreve (00:10):
And I'm Brad Shreve , who's just a guy who likes
movies.

We discuss movies and television from Hollywood's
golden age.
We go behind the scenes andshare our opinions too.

And, of course, being the average guy, my
opinions are the ones thatmatter.

As does your self-delusion.
Welcome to Going Hollywood.

Happy birthday to you.
Happy birthday, dear Tony.

Are we doing Boys in the Band again?
It's your birthday, it is, itis.

So which birthday is it?
Excuse me, tony, which birthdayis it?

Oh, it's mine.
It's mine, april 30th.

I know, tony, april 30th, april 30th, what?

April 30th period.

That's okay.

I added props.
That's a Lucy joke.
That's from I Love Lucy.
Someone asked Lucy's birthdayand she says August 6th period.
So yeah, that's a lot of fun.
Well, thank you.
Yes, indeed, this is a veryspecial podcast because it is my
birthday.
And since it's my birthday, Iget to pick, which is silly

(01:24):
because I pick all the timesometimes I get to fight my own
way sometimes you get one, youget one.
But this is very special becauselistener, dear listener, it's
our first silent film.
Wow, how about that?
And depending on how this goes,it may be our last silent film,
but I don't think so.

(01:45):
I think so.
I I gotta tell you, brad, Ithink I was pretty easy on you
with this.
I think I mean, it wasn't likeI gave you intolerance or birth
of a nation.
This is my best girl.
Yeah, I guess, you do, I guessyou do so well, I mean, I my
feelings about this and why Iwanted this to be my, my, my, my

(02:07):
birthday pick.
As I said, it's probably myfavorite film of this entire era
.
I think it's charming, it'stouching, it's beautiful to
watch, and if you don't think so, brad, then I think we're going
to do our first silent podcast,because I cannot Brooke no,
that's not true.
I can broke criticisms of thisfilm, but I do adore it.

(02:27):
I do love it.
In my opinion, it's not onlyMary Pickford's best romantic
comedy, it's one of the bestromantic comedies of the silent
era and it's also, sadly, maryPickford's last silent film but
she did continue, she did.

She did Not all, not all.
She did continue, she did.
She did Not all silent starsdid.

No, she did Well.
She went on to make films afterthis, but this is really her
last good film, and I'll talk alittle bit about Mary Pickford's
subsequent films.
After Sound came in, you know,she was only 35, and she looks a
lot younger than 35, I think.
Did you think so?
I mean?

Yeah, I thought she would have been younger the way
you said that.

Yeah, I thought she would have been younger the
way you said that, yeah, I meanreally.
I mean considering the womanplayed children frequently, you
know, but she's only 35, but shehad been acting since she was
seven and she'd been acting infilms since 1909.
So she was a veteran of over200 films by the time she
retired.

I know I saw that and if you want any idea how
many films they made back in thesilent era, that is a lot of
films.

Well, and we're not talking about, I mean, when
she started in 1909, they wereshorts.

Yeah, they were shorts, but most were back then.

Featured films, but I mean they made a film a
week.
Sometimes they made a film aday.
I mean, it was that fast.
So since we're talking aboutthis, I've got to ask you, brad,
is this the first silent film?

you've ever watched .
It is not the first silent filmI've watched, and let me tell
you about this.
I don't watch silent films andI don't watch foreign films with
subtitles.
And there's a reason for that.
Most silent films the words popup so fast and they go away

(04:09):
before you can read them.
It's irritating as hell.
I don't watch silent film.
I mean I don't watch foreignfilms, not because I don't think
they're great films.
There's so much in expressionswhen it comes to an actor and I
feel like when I'm reading, I'mnot gonna say I never watch them
, but when I'm reading I miss somuch.
Going to say I never watch them, but when I'm reading I miss so
much of that, and it just it'salmost like I'd have to watch it
twice.

That's a very astute observation.
I know other people who feelexactly the same way about that,
yeah.

And that's the only reason I don't mind reading.
But here's what I think of thisfilm.
Okay, I was very nervous whenyou said let's do a silent film.
I was very nervous when yousaid let's do a silent film I
loved this film.

Oh yay, Happy birthday, Tony.

It is a wonderful sitcom.
Before the word sitcom ever wasa thing.

Yeah, no, it's true, it's true.

It is delightful.
The story was great, thedirection is great, the cast is
great.
I wasn wasn't thrilled with,but the rest of them were just
great.
There's and the thing is one ofthe things first of all, the
cards were up very long timethat you could easily read them.
They were short because so muchwas said without any words well

(05:18):
, hello.

I think you just hit the nail on the head there
with the silent film, you know.

But not all silent films were this way.
A lot of them had, like thewords popping up all the time.
It was so unnecessary with thismovie.

You know, they didn't need words, they had
faces.
then as normally Desmondfamously says in sunset
Boulevard, and I think this is agood point to bring up and a
good time to talk up.
I don't want to go in too muchof the history of silent film,
but I I do want to put a fewlegends, rumors, to rest, and
one of them is the one that youjust said that we're going to
talk about.
But I think the first thing Ihave to say, and the first thing

(05:51):
that's most important to peoplewhen they watch a silent film,
is to realize that silent filmswere never silent.
That is a misnomer and peoplethink I can't watch this movie.
It doesn't matter where youwere.
There was always some sort ofmusical accompaniment and that
that, whether you be in.
You know, I always hate to pickon Peoria, I don't know why

(06:14):
Peoria always pops in my head,but you could have been.
Let's not say I'm PocatelloIdaho, there you go, um, so you
can be watching a film inPocatello, idaho and there would
be a piano or a three-pieceorchestra or an organ, or you
could be watching this in one ofthese fabulous movie palaces in
Times Square and there could bea full orchestra or a
philharmonic.

(06:34):
So that's what's so importantto point out, most people
experience silent films withorchestrations, because by this
time 19 there were.
You know there was recording,you could record a soundtrack.
And that's really how silentfilm uh talkie started.
It was not speech, it was musicso I think that's really

(06:55):
important to point out whenpeople talk about silent film,
and also what you said about um,about the title cards.
You, the title cards, were notin place of dialogue usually.
Sometimes they were, but thepoint of the silent film was the
actors, the faces, told you thestory.
You used your eyes to watch thestory being told.

(07:18):
So the title cards usually justpunctuated a point or they
acted as a to get you from onescene to the next.
They act as a transition, butthey were not.
They didn't replace dialogue.
That was the point was was thatthe actors told you the story
through their eyes, throughtheir gestures, and nobody did

(07:39):
that better than mary pickford Iam really still bowled away
from this film.

It's just, I laughed a lot, I uh, I can't say
enough and I'm really surprised.

Oh good, wow, that's good.
Well, this is, this is I'm, I'm, I'm surprised.
I'm pleasantly surprised,because I was a little nervous.
I like I like when we havehealthy debates about films, but
there are some films which Iprobably shouldn't give them to
us to talk about because theymean so much to me, and this is
one of these films that just hasa very, very special place in

(08:11):
my heart, and so I'm glad we'retalking about it.
And I would love to talk aboutMary, and I don't want to go too
deeply in depth about Mary,because Mary Pickford there are
some great books, websites.
There's one fantasticdocumentary in particular that

(08:32):
features one of the co-hosts ofthis podcast, and it is
available on Amazon and we'lllink below.
It's called Mary Pickford ABlessing or a Curse, but I think
what I want to say about MaryPickford is that you can't
really be hyperbolic when you'retalking about Mary Pickford.
Mary Pickford was the biggeststar the world has ever known.

(08:56):
I just want to say that fromthe beginning and that is not a
hyperbolic statement, brad, thatis fact, fact.

She was known everywhere, from pomona to saint
petersburg to peoria when Ilooked at her salary during that
time period, I was amazed.
Oh yeah, she was making 350 000per movie, which today equates
to 6.3 million.
Oh yeah oh yeah, well, I gotsome stats for you, believe me

(09:24):
well, it kind of confused me alittle bit, because this movie
it means that she almost was theentire cost of this movie,
which maybe she was.

Well, but what year was that?
By the time it came to my BestGirl, which is 1927, mary
Pickford owned the whole shebang.
Okay, this was Mary Pickford.
Mary Pickford was the producer.
This was Mary Pickford.
Mary Pickford was the producer.
Mary Pickford was the studioexecutive, mary Pickford.
This was part of MaryPickford's Pickford Film
Corporation, so she owned thisentire thing.
Back in 1917, she was the firstactress to get points.

(09:56):
You know what points are whenan actor gets points on a film.
No, it's a percentage.
They get a percentage of theprofits.
Okay, usually actors today get2%, 3%, 4%.
Mary Pickford got 50%, oh myLord, back in 1917.
So that's just for context, butwe'll go into that because I do

(10:17):
have some things I want to talkabout.
Well, the reason I think thatyou have to understand that Mary
Pickford was the biggest thingin the world was because silent
films were a universal language,and this is one of the things
that people were crying out whentalkies came in.
They're like we've lost ouruniversal language because all

(10:37):
you had to do was change thelanguage of a title card and a
film could play anywhere.
Oh, that's true.
So that's why people, people,it people knew when mary
pickford and douglas fairbankswent to russia.
They were mobbed I mean it'sinsane how famous this woman was
and today we think someone is acelebrity if they have 1
million followers on instagram.

(10:59):
Don't you think that's fair?
um, maybe more nowadays well, 2million, then let's okay, 2
million, 10 million followers.
I think you think would be acelebrity today if you had 10
million followers on instagram.
I think you're a celebrity.
Mary pickford would have had100 million followers on
instagram.
I mean, that is how famous shewas.
In 1915.
It was determined that her facewas seen by 12.5 million people

(11:22):
every 24 hours.
Wow, so that's pretty famous.

A little bit on the famous side.

So I'm just going to go a little bit into Mary's
background, just so we have acontext for this.
Mary Pickford famously calledAmerica's sweetheart, even
though she was born in Canada, Ithought.

Sandra Bullock was America's sweetheart.

There's always an America's sweetheart, but Mary
was the first.
Okay, mary Pickford was thefirst America's sweetheart and
she didn't take that name.
The distributors gave her thatname.
Mary did not take that on andshe always pointed that out.
So she was born in Toronto,canada, in 1892, as Gladys
Louise Smith.

(12:05):
She was the oldest of threechildren and her father deserted
the family and then he laterdied, and so there were three
children and her mother, andthey were in very dire straits.
And her mother, mary's mother,charlotte Pickford, who was
quite a force to be reckonedwith, very close to Mary, began
taking in boarders to help themmake ends meet, and one of them

(12:27):
was a theatrical stage managerfor a stock company in Toronto.
Now they had trouble makingmoney.
They were taking in boarders.
So he suggested.
He said the play that we'redoing needs a child in the cast.
Would you think about allowingGladys that was her name at the
time to be in the play?
And Mary's mother was horrifiedbecause acting was only

(12:48):
slightly better thanprostitution at the time.
But the money was very badlyneeded and so she allowed it.
And Mary's little sister,lottie, also did the play not
began it.
From then on, little Gladys wasthe breadwinner of the family
and the entire family begantouring in theatrical

(13:09):
productions.
Um, and it's interestingbecause when they were touring,
little Gladys met two otheryoung theatrical troopers, uh
sisters named Dorothy andLillian Gish, who kind of played
a small part in the history offilm as well.

I think I've heard of them.

Yeah, possibly so.
Anyway, fast forward many yearspast.
Gladys is now a teenager andshe's in a Broadway play, and if
you want to find out themachinations that she did to get
in the play, then you can watchthe documentary.
She's in a Broadway play calledthe Warrens of Virginia, which

(13:45):
also featured another futurecolleague, cecil B DeMille, by
the way, and it was under thetutelage of David Belasco, who
was a big theatrical impresario,and he is the one who said
Gladys Smith is not going to fly, we need to change your name.
And he's the one who christenedher Mary Pickford.
Pickford was a family name andMary liked the name Marie, but

(14:06):
he thought that was too fancy,so she became Mary Pickford.
Am I boring you yet with this,brad, or are we good?

No, actually I like that because Mary Pickford is a
little more down-home andrelatable than Marie.

Okay, but here's the problem.
So she's on Broadway.
You'd think she'd be doinggreat.
She's on Broadway.
You think she'd be doing great.
She's on Broadway in a DavidBelasco play, the family set.
But they weren't, becausetheater was seasonal and in the
summer there was no work.
The theaters shut down in thesummer because it was too damn
hot.
There was no air conditioning.
So about this same time, down on14th Street in New York, there

(14:42):
was this little thing happeningthat was soon to be called the
Movies, and the most successfulof these was a company called
Biograph, and it was run by aman named David Wark Griffith,
who you may have heard of as DWGriffith.
And, against her betterjudgment, but at the urging of

(15:03):
her mother, mary went down toBiograph.
She met with Griffith and theybegan working in a very
contentious relationship, butshe began working for him and
she fell in love with makingmovies.
She only went back to thetheater after that one more time
.
From then on she was in themovies, and this was in 1909, as

(15:28):
I said.
So just think about that.
Well, over a hundred years ago,this woman began making films.

And what amazes me about this movie is it's so
timeless.
Yeah, it is 98 years old andthis movie is timeless.

Well, you know why I think that is.
It's because of a lot of things, but the major reason is and
this is what's important aboutMary Pickford is Mary Pickford
basically invented screen acting?
So I want you to think aboutthis for a minute.
So back in the early 1900s,when movies first started, film

(16:03):
acting was very much liketheater acting of the day.
It's called Delsart method andwhat it means is gestures
indicate emotions.
So if you're angry, you clenchyour fists, or if you're sad,
you wipe your brow, you cockyour head, and Griffith wanted
Mary to act this way and this isone of the reasons why they had

(16:24):
such a contentious relationship.
And she said that's ridiculous.
She says I'm not a little child, I'm a young woman.
I don't do that, I don't gointo gesticulation over things.
She said that camera Mary knewthat the camera's eye was like
six feet away from her, so doingthese big gestures looked

(16:45):
ridiculous.
She just knew instinctivelythat if she really felt
something and if it were true,if she was really feeling it, it
would show in her eyes and herface and her body and the camera
would register it and it wouldbe transmitted to the audience.
So you know she was fired onmore than one occasion from
Griffith, because she refused todo things like that, and he

(17:08):
would hire her back again andwould say okay, do it your way,
do it your way.
And then he began to see thatshe was right and he gave her
more and more to do in biggerand bigger roles and, as I said,
she never went back to Broadwayexcept one more time.
She never returned to the stageagain and so, as she began to
be noticed, she began to becalled the biograph girl, the

(17:28):
girl with the golden curls.
She began to be known, and thisnever happened before.
There was a biograph girlbefore Mary, but not with the
level of fame of Mary's, and Ithink I want to say that out
because it was what Pickford did.
It was this acting style ofhers.
George Cukor remember, we'vetalked about George Cukor, the
director, george Cukor, before,right?

Once or twice.

Yeah, no slouch as far as directors go.
And George Cukor called her thefirst method actress.
Now she called it mood acting.
But what he meant was that.
What he meant was, as I justsaid, she felt she knew if she
really believed it it would comethrough her eyes to that camera
and out the projector and intothe hearts of the audience.

(18:12):
And she was right.
And more than any other actressshe was loved by her audience.
They formed an emotionalconnection with her through her
eyes.
Her eyes told you everything.
And did you find I mean, thisis what I love about this movie
that we will eventually get to?
I mean, her eyes, they tell youso much.

(18:33):
Every single emotion that sheis feeling is transmitted
through those big brown eyes.

I noticed that right from the beginning.
I didn't notice that her eyeswere brown.

Well, it's a black and white film, but yeah, her
eyes were brown.

But no, right from the beginning I'm like, wow, she
has great eyes, Her expressionsare great and you know it was
sillier than I.
I knew very little about Mary.
I knew about Mary Pickford froma historical standpoint but I
knew very little of her actingand I expected more of a romance
uh, haughty type of romance.

(19:09):
Really I didn't expect thiskind of it wasn't slapsticky
like or hardy, but I didn'texpect this much humor and there
was a little silliness Iwouldn't expect only because I
knew she was such a big star andit didn't seem like it would
have been appropriate for thetime well, you know that's a
myth about Mary Pickford.

Okay, another myth about Mary Pickford is that
she's cloying.
She was always a little girl.
She was a cloying.
It's so wrong.
And I think this film shedoesn't play a little girl.
In this film, obviously sheplays a young woman, but that
wasn't Mary Pickford.
Mary Pick was one of theaudience.
Another reason why they lovedher she was a working class girl
.
Now she was a huge star.

(19:53):
She was very, very rich by thispoint, but her image was that
of the working class and that'swhy she was so popular.
You know she was that.
The audience is identified withher because she was.
They saw her as one of them.
And I think that's what youresponded to.
Because Mary Pickford, herpersona, this persona as a sweet
young girl, is totally wrong.
She was a hellion.
You know she really was.

(20:14):
She was an energetic, feisty,optimistic, sometimes ornery
young woman and that's what sheplays here.
She plays a young, ambitiouswoman who loves her family but
who can be tough if she needs tobe.
And that's the thing about MaryPickford I'd like to dispel is

(20:35):
that she's not cloying.
It happened because ShirleyTemple remade a lot of Mary
Pickford's films in sound, andthat is Shirley Temple.
Shirley Temple is cloying.
She is, you know, the littlegirl.
That's not Mary Pickford.
Mary Pickford is hell on wheelsin many of her films and she's
a hell of a lot of fun too.
So I'm glad that you said thatand I think that's important to

(20:57):
point out.

Yeah, that was a pleasant surprise.
Good, I'm glad, I'm glad,that's right from the beginning
when she's walking around with apan on her foot.

Isn't that a great first scene.

I was like what.
I did not expect that.

I love that opening scene.
Yes, yes, the opening scene ofmy Best Girl takes place in the
department store.
You know all these departmentstores in the 20s.
They're just like madness chaos.
Anytime you see a departmentstore from a film in the 20s,
they're chaotic.
Everybody you see a departmentstore from a film in the 20s,
they're chaotic.
Everybody's climbing all overeverybody and they're so busy
and everybody's being pulled inall these directions and she's
carrying all these pots.
She's a stock girl and she'swhat happens to her.

(21:32):
She's carrying these pots andshe keeps dropping them and
trying to hold on to them andthen something happens which I
love, which sums up marypickford to a t.
Do you remember what happens?
That's like oh, what's going onhere?
She loses her underwear.
Oh my God.
Yes.

And that woman thinks it's hers.
Oh my God, I was laughinghysterically.

She's carrying his pod and she's like almost made
it.
And she's like what?
She feels something and shelooks down and her bloomers
start to fall around her anklesso she steps out of them and she
kicks them over and she'swalking over and a customer
comes walking and gets tangledup at them and looks down at
them and thinks they're hers.
So she pulls them up reallyquickly and backs out of the

(22:11):
scene.
It's this kind of humor, it'sthis kind of fun common man
humor that Mary Pickford did.
And you know a sad thing aboutone of the reasons why people
don't know who Mary Pickfordhave these misrepresentations
about Mary Pickford is the factthat and it's kind of her fault
she took all of her films out ofcirculation once talkies came

(22:34):
in because she thought peoplewould think they were
old-fashioned and they wouldlaugh at them.
So she's kind of responsiblefor this.
She actually was going to burnthem.
Can you imagine?
She was going to burn all ofher films because she did not
want to be laughed at.
She thought people are going tothink I'm old-fashioned I don't
want to be a caricature and itwas only because her good friend

(22:55):
Lillian Gish told her not to dothat and then slowly she
allowed them to be seen untilthey're being seen more and more
and more.
And after she died, thenthey've really come out and more
and more.
And after she died, thenthey've really come out and
people can reevaluate andrediscover Mary Pickford for the
true wonderful actress that shewas.

Well, and I think some people could mistake it as
being ridiculous you know theoverexpressions and the makeup,
but I think anybody smart enoughto understand that that's
actually a skill those reactionsbecause it was a silent film
and again they had to talkthrough their expressions and it
was a silent film I but I don'tthink about pickford is, and
this is why q core calls her thefirst, first method actors.

I don't think she's ever over the top.

No, no, no, I didn't mean, I didn't mean that
in that sense, but theexaggerations are more than what
we normally see.
I would say, especially what'shis name?
Buddy, buddy Rogers, charles.
Buddy Rogers, buddy Rogers,yeah, especially he did, but I
don't think it was bad, but hedid a lot of very exaggerated
emotions.

Well, okay, I mean , I see what you're saying
Despite being incrediblyhandsome.
Well, yes, buddy Rogers, we'llget to Buddy Rogers and his
relationship with Mary.
But, yes, but it's a style,it's a theatrical style.
You know, people also think,don't realize that silent films
are a different art form.
Yes, talkies did not replacesilent films.
They are two totally different,I'm going to say it, two

(24:23):
different entities.
Silent films were differentthan talkies, and so have to
remember that.
That's one of the reasons whytalkies had such a difficult
time, because people were usedto these incredible images of
silent film, these lush scoresand these beautiful, glorious
tinted images, and then suddenlythe camera stationary and

(24:44):
people don't move and they justtalk.
And that's why it took so longfor for sound film to get going,
because they had to find theirown style.

I equate that to black and white and color films.
They're two different art forms.
They colorize films, which justdrives me nuts, because those
old films were designed to befilmed in black and white.

Yeah.

So that's why, when they colorize it, no matter how
good a job they do, it doesn'tlook right.

No, they colorize it.
No matter how good a job theydo, it doesn't look right.
No, it doesn't, and we'vetalked about that too.
It's a it's to me, it's adifferent art form to me.
You're tampering with thedirector's vision, which I think
I feel the same thing about panand scan.
That's why I will only watchsomething if it's shot in
widescreen.
I will only watch it inside inwidescreen, because you're
missing half the movie.
Uh, when you don't when youwatch it in standard screen, I
don't think that's as much anissue now with widescreen tvs.

But before you go on, I want to.
I want to give my background onwhy I had the expectations I
did with this movie oh, pleasedo.
I want to hear them there's twosilent films that really come to
mind.
Are you familiar with laurenhardy hardy's the music box?
Yeah, of course.
Okay, I used to hike aroundSilver Lake and, for those that
don't know, silver Lake is knownfor these stairs that were
designed so people could getdown to the trolley cars Right,

(25:55):
and one of those long staircasesis called the Music Box Stairs.
Now, because Laurel and Hardyfilmed a movie where their job
was to get a piano from thebottom of the stairs to the top
of the stairs.
Now, there were very littlecards in that film because it
was mostly physical slapstickand it was very funny, it was
very cute.
Then I had the opposite sidewhere I watched I think it was.

(26:19):
I'm going to use Birth of aNation as one where there are a
lot of cards that you had toread because there was so much
involved in the story.
I thought this movie, becauseof my expectations of Mary, was
going to lean more towards thebirth of a nation side.
Now, I didn't think it'd be thesame movie, but I thought the
style would be the same.

(26:40):
I'm happy that it was in themiddle, probably lean a little
more towards Laurel and Hardy asfar as the simplicity of it,
but a better film, a better dumbfilm and there is slapstick but
it's not a slapsticky movie.
There is slapstick in it.
There is slapstick in it,whereas Lauren Hardy was a
slapsticky film.
Yes, yes, exactly.

There is a great deal of humor in this film.
There's also a great deal ofromance in this film and I'm
glad you point that out.
Now you also have to rememberthat this is 1927, the height of
the art of silent film, becausethis film was released in
november and the movie that amovie was released one month
before, in october, called thejazz singer.

(27:19):
So this film was truly whensilent films were at their peak.
You watch almost any film, anyuh celebrated film from 1927 and
you you're going to have thesame reaction they're glorious.
That's the peak of the art form.
So also, I wanted to give you afilm that shows them at their
peak, because it truly was thezenith of this incredible art

(27:41):
form which, by the way, would begone completely in a few years.
Gone completely, yeah, done.
I mean nothing.
It's crazy to think that an artform that was so beloved was so
quickly discarded so fast.
It's insane, it's insane.
So, before we talk about theproduction of my Best Girl, I

(28:01):
just want to say a couple.
I'm going to wrap up my MaryPickford session here because I
just To drive the point homeabout this woman and who
basically invented Hollywood.
Um, I I just want to point outa couple things.
The firsts, um and I'm notgonna have all of them because
there's so many, but, as we said, mary Pickford was the first

(28:25):
movie star.
She set the parameters formovie stardom.
Nobody, nobody, had ever doneit before.
So, julia Roberts, annetteBening, who's a movie star today
?
Meryl Streep, of course.
Yes, mary Pickford was first.
They owe that debt to MaryPickford.

(28:45):
No one had ever done it before.
The, the rise, the fandom, allmary pickford.
And also, since she was thefirst person to experience the
rise, she was the first one toexperience the fall.
So when her career began todecline, she's like oh, this is
what this is.
Nobody ever gone through itbefore.
Um, she was the first actor toreceive a million dollars in one

(29:08):
year, and I've said this onebefore she was the first woman
to run her own Hollywood studio,and the only one.
Until.
Who?
Brad?
Lucille Ball, that's right.
Ding ding, ding ding.
I was like you know this, don'tyou, brad?
I say it like every podcast.

Of course I knew it .

I just was stunned when you asked me a question
out of the blue, but I knew itright away Mary Pickford and
Lucy, and ironically, I thinkthe only other person in the
world whose face has been seenmore and more people is Lucy.
So that's kind of interestingthat these two, these women,
have a lot in common.
Lucy and Mary Pickford Well,they were both great actors and
both great business people.
Ah, incredible business people.
Adolph Zucker said that MaryPickford, if she had decided not

(29:54):
to become an actress she couldhave run US Steel because she
knew everything about thebusiness of filmmaking.
I said she was the firstactress to receive a percentage
50% before she owned the filmsoutright.
She and Douglas Fairbanks wereHollywood's first movie star

(30:15):
couple.
So Brad and Angelina and Taylorand Burton, Lucy and Desi all
go back to Pickford andFairbanks.
They were the first ones tolive in Beverly Hills at
Pickfair, which the press dubbedwith their two names, Pickford
and Fairbanks.
Pickfair, we have Bradgley.
And who is it?
Desilu?

(30:36):
Yes, that's where Desilu comesfrom.

Yeah, this was the first couple melding.
Name Pickfair Exactly, exactly.

Exactly.

And I have a question about, before I forget,
pickfair Studios.
Yeah, I know the studio doesn'texist.
Does that property exist, stillunder a different studio name?

Yes, it's on Santa Monica and Formosa Santa Monica
Boulevard and Formosa.
I think it's called the Lot.

Oh, okay, I know where that.
Yes, I know I'm familiar withthe.

Lot.
Yes, that was the PickfordFairbank Studio.
So when Mary Pickford andDouglas Fairbanks got married,
they brought their studiostogether and they made all of
their films at the PickfordFairbank studio.
Robin Hood was made there.
This film was made there.
The Thief of Baghdad was madethere.
Sparrows Mary's film beforethis was everything since 1920
was made there.
So she was the first major starto enter talkies.

(31:24):
So there's another myth blownthat oh, these silent stars
didn't want no Mary's like.
Ooh, something new, let me tryit.
She was one of the initialinvestors in the Chinese theater
and there are some legend thatthe footprints were her idea.

I don't know about that, but some people claim that
I always heard that was a stepby accident.
Well, somebody claimed I don'tknow if I ever believed that.

People have claimed that her little doggy
made footprints in the cement atPickfair, and that's where they
got the idea.

Well, you know that's fun.
Let's stick with it, it's alittle apocryphal.

She's one of the founding members of the Academy
of Motion Picture Arts andSciences.
She was instrumental in theformation of the first film
school in the United States, theUSC School of Cinematic Arts.
And here's the big one.
Okay, and here's the big one.
She, along with Charlie Chaplin, douglas Fairbanks and DW
Griffith, formed United Artists,which is still in existence

(32:18):
today.
This was the first time a groupof artists banded together to
take control over their films.
And you know, united Artistswas begun as a distribution
company, not a productioncompany.
People get that confused.
She had her own productioncompany, douglas Fairbanks had

(32:39):
his own production company,chaplin had his own.
They needed someone todistribute their films.
So they created United Artistsand it's been done time and time
again by other movie stars, butit was begun with them.
And finally, until we come backto it, she was instrumental in
the formation of the MotionPicture Home in Woodland Hills,
because many of her silent filmcolleagues were in very dire
straits and she saw that and shesaid these people like DW

(33:02):
Griffith, these people cannotend like this.
So she was instrumental increating the motion picture home
.
Whew, so that's just a couplethings about this incredible
woman whose film we're talkingabout today.

You know I'm such a history buff.
I want to tell folks when theybought this home in Beverly
Hills it was an 18-acre estate.
Go look at pictures of thehouse somewhere in the 20s and
it still exists today.
You can find it on Google.
It's not the same house.
It looks a lot different.

It's not the same house.

Oh, it's not the same house.
Okay, it looks similar.
I was wondering about that.
I thought maybe they justchanged it a little bit.
No, okay.

But the only thing that's the same is there's a
sign, a gate says Picf, piaZadora.
You know who Pia Zadora was?
Yes, terrible actress in the80s.
Yes, she and her husband boughtit and destroyed it.

Okay, so, but you can still see where it is.
Yes, if you Google Pickfair,look at where it is back then
and look what happened toBeverly Hills now.
It's crazy.
Well, you know, let's just sayit's not 18 acres anymore.

It was the only thing thing up there.
It was yeah, it was douglasfairbanks hunting lodge.
Okay, in the middle of beverlyhills it was his hunting lodge
and he gave it to mary pickfordas a wedding present when they
got married you know, what'sfunny is uh, I lived a short
time in a mansion in beverlyhill, or not.

I lived a short time in a mansion in hollywood.
I just rented a space and Ididn't own the mansion for sure.
I rented a space in it it wewere always told it was
Douglas's secondary home for hishunting and I'm like that's it.
I always thought that was true.
I found nothing to say.
That's true.
I hope it's true because it wasa pretty cool place.

Well, I mean, they all had a bunch of homes, but
pick fair was the place.
Let me tell you people, theywere so big by the time they
came together and got married,um, that they couldn't really go
places because they would bemobbed wherever they went.
So people had to come to them.
So I mean kings, dukes, headsof state uh, lord mountbatten,

(35:02):
the king of sweden, ameliaerhart they came to picfair.
Picfair was the place to gowith these two people.
So I mean, all of this wasstarted.
It was the first house inBeverly Hills to have a swimming
pool.
I mean, all these things wetake for granted.
They're even in the lyrics ofthe Beverly Hillbillies theme
song, movie stars.
It was started by Mary Pickfordand Douglas Fairbanks.

(35:24):
It's crazy.

And I want to give a modern equation to that, for
lack of a better word.
Okay, I saw oprah winfreytalking and she she was talking
about how people talked aboutmichael jordan being so
extravagant that he had a housewith a bowling alley and how
huge it was and you know absurdit was.
And oprah said you don'tunderstand.
Michael cannot go to thesupermarket, right?

(35:47):
Michael cannot go to a movie,he's swamped.
And she said so many of thesecelebrities have this space
because that's their only space.
And I was like, wow, thatreally makes sense.

Yeah, absolutely, I can totally see that.
Then I mean, I don't know ifthat was the case, for I don't
think Doug and Mary were goingto grocery stores anyway, but I
doubt that, but it's absolutelytrue.
It's absolutely true, brad.
I want to stop for a moment andsay how excited I am to be back
for our second season.

Me too, tony, and we should tell people that we
have many exciting new episodesscheduled for this year.

We should.
In fact, you just did, but whatyou didn't do is tell people
that really enjoy the show, totell their friends about us, and
what do you know?

You just did that.

See how that works .

Yes.
So please tell your friends andrate and review us, and you can
even send us a message atgoinghollywoodpodcast at
gmailcom.
They should do that Right.
They can even suggest a movieor TV show for us to talk about.

Oh, I like that.
It's interactive.

Right.

Well, I think that covered all our bases.
Let's get back to the show.
So let's give a little bit ofbackground of this film.
My Best Girl from 1927, unitedArtists, 1927.
What's really wonderful aboutthis film?
What I love about this film isit's a story of two people

(37:16):
falling in love on screen and inreal life, because Charles
Buddy Rogers, who plays theadorable Joe Grant, was the
third husband, eventually, ofMary Pickford, and we will get
into that.
She was married to DouglasFairbanks when they were making
this film.
But Rogers freely admitted tofalling in love with her during

(37:40):
the filming of this film andI've got to tell you you can see
it.

Don't you agree?
Yes, you can definitely see thechemistry between the two.
I want to step back a littlebit and talk about Charles
Rogers.
Oh, please do this man.
This is the second year afterhis first filming credit.
His first credit is in 1926.
In 1927, he starred in thismovie and in Wings Right, a not
too shabby film, no, no, not atall.

(38:07):
So he just went out like like arocket.
He did, he did and I don't knowabout his.
The rest of his career, I knowhe went until the set until the
1940s as a regular.
He showed up on petticoatjunction of the lucy show in the
60s playing himself.

Yes, he did, playing himself.

But you probably know more about his career after
the talk he started.

Yeah, buddy Rogers was a really wonderful guy.
I say that like I knew him, Iknew all these people in a
previous life.

You were chums.

Yeah, Buddy Rogers , Buddy Pickford, I almost said
Buddy Rogers.
His moniker was America'sBoyfriend.
So you had America's Sweetheartwith America's Boyfriend.
And you're absolutely right.
Buddy Rogers had quite a yearin 1927.
Just started films second yearin Wings, which was the first
film to win the Best PictureAcademy Award, and personally

(39:00):
picked by Mary Pickford to beher co-star in my Best Girl.
Now can you imagine You're juststarting your acting career and
the biggest star in the worldpersonally picks you to be her
co-star.
I mean, good Lord, that's crazy, right, but it happened, it
happened.
And yes, their chemistry this iswhat's amazing.

(39:22):
This is a film which is 98years old.
This film is almost a hundredyears old and you can see the
chemistry between these twopeople the way it's.
It's.
It jumps off a hundred year oldfilm and I love that about this
.
I fall in love with themfalling in love with each other
when I watch this, because it'sso romantic, it's so sweet and I

(39:46):
think that's one of the mostwonderful things about viewing
this film is you have theknowledge, too, that these
people really did end uptogether.
Now they ended up together 10years later, but still, this was
the beginning of it and it'ssuch a sweet, sweet thing yeah
it's not the typical forced richboy falls in love with average
girl.

I wouldn't say she's poor, but average girl.
It is chemistry.
From the beginning it's likeboom.
They belong together.

It is.
Do you want to tell us a littlebit about the plot of my Best
Girl and don't feel like youhave to go, you know not plot
point by plot point, but justtell us, give people an idea.
So what this?

movie is is Charles Rogers plays Joe Grant, whose
real name is Joe Merrill.
Merrill is a five and dimechain you presume it's a large
chain because his father is verywealthy and he is engaged to
this woman named Millicent andhe is working in a Merrill

(40:42):
department store as Joe Grantbecause his father wants him to
prove that he can work his wayup in a store without the family
name, basically to show he canwork.
So he is undercover and MaryPickford works in the stockroom
a stock girl, as they say.

Right.

And that is where they put Joe in the stock room
and she trains him, and duringtraining they start liking each
other just a little bit exactlynow remember, he is still
engaged to mellicent, right?
Uh.
During this whole time, though,she quickly vanishes for a
while.
Well, they, you just get towatch these scenes of her toying

(41:25):
with him.

Right.

Yes, she toys with him.

Well, she's a jazz baby.
She's the jazz baby which playsin later when Mary Pickford
plays Maggie Johnson who, yes,is a stock girl at Merrill's
Department Store one of thesegreat 20s department stores
which I would love to go back toto experience because they
always were chaos and she'straining Joe.
She doesn't know he's theboss's son.

(41:48):
She thinks he's just some poorschnook that doesn't know how to
do anything.
He's really kind of incompetent.
But boy is he cute, boy is headorable with those big brown
eyes.

He is adorable.
Now Joe and his family live inthis large mansion beautiful
place.
They go to this club.
That is gorgeous art deco style.
Mary lives in a traditionalhome.
Her father is I think he's apostman.
He could be a engineer.
Is he a postman?

yeah, postman, but he doesn't.
But he doesn't do anything.
No, he doesn't.
He.
They're all ne'er-do-well.

They're all ne'er-do-wells, they're all
ne'er-do-wells, yeah they prettymuch are all, especially her
floozy sister Liz, who I justlove.
Yes, liz is great, liz is great.
Liz is the opposite of hermother, who I loved as well
played by Sunshine Hart Sunshine.

God bless Sunshine Hart.
What does Maggie's mother dowith her days, Brad, what?

does Maggie's mother do with her days?
Brad, do you remember thatMaggie's mother has a hobby?
Yes, maggie's mother loves togo to funerals.
She doesn't know she comes homefrom a funeral.
She's talking about how lovelyit was and how much she cried
and the father says who died?
She said I don't remember theirname, but it was beautiful.

It's cathartic for her.

It's the most beautiful one I attended this
week.
Yes, it's cathartic, here's thething.

Here's the really interesting thing about my Best
Girl and for Mary Pickard'sfinal silent film okay, the
summation of her entire silentcareer, her final silent film
it's got some autobiographicaldigs and the family, the entire
Johnson family, is kind of likea little dig to Mary Pickford's

(43:29):
real family Because MaryPickford was always taking care
of everybody From the time shefirst got that role on stage and
she said this many times in herlife she became the father of
the family and in fact PaJohnson says near the end of the
movie it's time I became thefather of the family, you know.

(43:51):
So there's that line in thereand, just like with her sister
Liz, mary was always taking careof her younger sister, lottie,
and her younger brother Jack,because they were always getting
in trouble.
She was always it wasn'tnecessarily jail, but she was
always paying money to squashsome story that was going to be
in the press or she was alwayscoming to their rescue.
So Maggie is very, very muchlike Mary Pickford was in real

(44:17):
life.
It's a really interesting kindof autobiographical slant.
Obviously Mary Pickford was notliving in this shanty near the
highway in the middle of allthis, this huge city, but yeah,
I always thought that was veryinteresting, that this
definitely has biographicalallusions to it.

And just to set up a little bit more, the story
begins.
It is in this very busydepartment store Well, the five
and dime, but it looks liketoday what we would this very
busy department store uh, well,the five and dime, but it's it
looks like today what we wouldconsider a normal department
store today.
Right, and she is a stocker,but the store is very busy at
the counters.
Uh, we see this, and actually Igotta say the opening is where
I really knew I was in for agood ride.
And she comes up with the stock, which is the pots and pans

(45:00):
that we mentioned, and she'stold to run the counter when I
knew this was going to gosomewhere.
Good is the cute, funny littlethings with the customers.
Yeah, we had the husband andthe very large wife and the
little husband next to her, thepeanut of a man next to her, and
she's shopping for rolling pins.

(45:20):
He holds up a small one and sheholds up a big one like no, I'm
going to buy this one, and yousee the fear in his eyes.

So there's that stereotype.

Then there's the woman that suggests a toothbrush
to this man and he smiles andhe's toothless and says not for
me.
And they were just.
I was like this is so cute.
Now, the one that reallysurprised me me, it wasn't
really humorous was the blackwoman that was dressed really
nicely in the store.
She was shopping for somethingnice and I'm like is this 1927?

(45:52):
I was so happy to see that yeah, yeah, I don't know how often
that happened.
I didn't expect it, in fact.
Uh, maurice and his mom werelike what?

Well, pickford employed many black actors and
actresses.
I mean this woman, you know shetruly I mean what an incredible
woman she was.
No, I love that scene, thatfirst scene.
I want to say that this filmwas shot by Charles Rocher, who
was Pickford's favoritecinematographer and he was the
winner of the first AcademyAward for cinematography Not for

(46:22):
this movie and it's sobeautiful.
This film, from beginning toend, is just lovely, gorgeous to
look at, and I think you knowthat lends a big reason to why
we find it so romantic.
It's so romantically shot.
Silent films were often tinted.
I don't know if you noticedthat, brad, when you were
watching this, but if a shot, ifa scene was to take place

(46:50):
outside, it was usually tintedblue.
If there was going to be sometrouble somewhere, the team was
tinted red.
So, again, another way that thefilmmakers communicated with
the audience the mood of a scene.
So they didn't need dialogue,because they would.
They would do these types ofthings, and this film is so
beautiful, uh, in thecinematography I I think that's
great and I love that firstscene because it shows you

(47:12):
though it's this boom economy,these department stores, and
that is what you call a starentrance, your star coming in
carrying these pans and thenlosing her underwear.
It's a star entrance, yeah, andI love, love, love that.

It set the tone like within seconds.

It did, it did and so, yeah.
So what happens is that Marybegins training Joe and they
begin to fall in love.
And there are two scenes inthis movie that I, especially, I
just adore, and the first oneis the love scene in the packing
crate.
Do you remember?
Do you remember that?

scene.
Yes, I most definitely remember.
I like the scene when she's onthe truck first.
But we'll get to that if wetalk about the packing crate.

Well, you talk about the truck scene.
I think that's a lovely scene.

So the scene is Maggie is leaving work and she
gets a ride on the truck.
So she's sitting on the back ofthis not a truck, a moving van
yeah, open moving van.
And he is standing outside theentrance and he's talking to
some women and she wants hisattention.
So, as they're driving away,she knocks I believe it was her

(48:18):
purse.
Yes, off the truck and she'sriding away.
Curse, off the truck and she'sriding away.
It was awfully trusting of herto assume that he was going to
see this, but he saw it happen.
He grabs it and he's chasingafter the truck.
And I love this because it'snot one of these old where
they're rolling and you can seethe set is scrolling Right right
.

They were in a real street.

This was a real street, a real busy street In
downtown LA.
Yes, and he's chasing after her.
In fact I could see some of thelandmarks that I know existed
from that time from studying la.
Uh, he's chasing after her, hecatches up, he hands her the
purse and he backs up kind of,and you know they wave away and
then she knocks something elseoff the truck and again he has

(49:01):
to, and I think that happenedthree times.

Yeah, because she wants him to catch up with her
and finally climb in the damntruck with her, which he does.

So finally he jumps in the truck with her and they
go over what must have been themost bumpy road in Los Angeles
because they're being tossed andturned and he's like, let's go
somewhere comfortable and it'sso sweet.
He puts her on I don't know,it's like a burlap bag or
something, I can't rememberexactly and he takes this ring
off a barrel and puts it on herhead.
It looked like it had nails.

(49:29):
I was a bit nervous for her atthat time.
Yeah, he puts it on her headlike a queen and she crowns him
with a broom.
It is so adorable.

It really is.
It's a moving truck.

Yes, that's what's so funny is.

They're on the back of a moving truck and
they're doing this adorablelittle place and she has no clue
that he's this rich kid.
I love that scene I love, but tome, I love this.
The next love scene is thescene in the packing crate, and
it's so beautifully shot, sobeautifully shot.
And it was during the filmingof this scene that
cinematographer Charles Rochersaid he first noticed something

(50:07):
other than collegiality betweenthe two of them, because he
couldn't get them to come out ofthe crate.
I'm amazed they didn't closethe crate.
I mean so yeah, and you can seethat when you're watching the
movie.
You're like she was a brilliant, brilliant actress, but some
things aren't acting, and youcan see that in her eyes.

(50:30):
And it's so beautifully shotbecause we start on a really
tight shot of the two of themand we're not really sure where
that we are, and then the camerapulls back to reveal that
they're in a packing crate in awarehouse.
Well, not before he says thiscafe is better than the Ritz,
exactly, in a warehouse.
Well, not before he says thiscafe is better than the Ritz,
exactly, exactly.
So we think, oh, they're insome romantic cafe and no,
they're in a packing crate inthe middle of a warehouse.

(50:50):
But they've created this ownlittle romantic picnic area and
what's so wonderful about thatis that they're in their own
world.
They're oblivious to the worldaround them, and I think you
know the way they look at eachother and then they have that
kiss.
Think you know the way they lookat each other and then they
have that kiss, and that kiss isso real and can I tell you as
an actor okay, actors kind of dothat if you're really attracted

(51:11):
to somebody, you know you mighthold the kiss a little bit
longer than the character should.
Uh, because you're human andyou know you have emotion and
that's so obvious there.
So the fact that Charles Rochercouldn't get them out of the
packing crate is indicative ofwhat was happening in their real
lives.
The second scene I want to talkabout that I love it's kind of

(51:34):
a famous scene is the walk inthe rain.
What did you think of thatscene?
Do you know which scene I'mtalking about?
When they're walking back andit's pouring rain and they're
walking through the city andit's nighttime and they're
walking down the street.

Remember that scene , and I'm wondering if this
movie was the one that set thestage for love stories to always
be in a rainy day.

Well, you know back then and Gene Kelly has
said this when it rains inmovies it pours because it has
to for the camera to pick up therain.
So I mean he talks about how hewas drenched after singing in
the rain.
Because they had to do it somany times and because they
really so that rain was falling.
But what's amazing about thatscene and that scene's often

(52:18):
used whenever anybody wants totalk about romance in silent
films, they always show thatscene Because it's a stunningly
choreographed scene, becausethese two again are truly in
their own world.
They're walking across a verybusy street in the pouring rain
and they are narrowly missing,getting hit by buses and
bicycles.

(52:39):
It's a stunning scene.
You're like, how did they letMary Pickford do this?

I mean, she's almost hit, but just in the nick
of time he pulls her back andthey're totally oblivious to it.
That's why I was thinking theywould never do that today.
They would make sure there wasa stunt double.

Oh, absolutely.
I mean.
One false move and an entireindustry would have been out of
work.
Oh yeah, I know, think of that.
That's kind of crazy, right?
It's nuts, it's nuts, it's nuts.
It's a beautifully tinted scene.
It's tinted blue, yes, toindicate the time of day.
It's such a romantic, wonderful, wonderful scene.
It really is so.
Anyway, I really love those aremy two favorite scenes the

(53:15):
crate and that walk in the rain.
I think are wonderful.
What are some of your favoritescenes, brad?

The other scene that I really enjoyed, because
it was so cute, was when he tookMaggie to his home I can't
remember, I think it's his home,but his parents' home To the
mansion and he said you know,the company's slogan is everyone
at Merrill's is family, orsomething of that nature.
And he said let's see if that'strue and go to their home for

(53:44):
lunch or for dinner.
Yeah, and she's like what?
Yeah, and she's game at first,because you know silly play.
But when they get there she'svery timid.
She's like wait a minute, thisis really their home.

Yeah, yeah.

So he rings the doorbell and the butler comes in
and he says hi, we're employeesat Merrill's and we want to
know if we can eat dinner here.
And he gives the butler a winka couple of times and the butler
figures out he's playing a gameand they go in there and
finally she's like OK, I'mbuying into this.
This is fun Because the butlershe says is it really true that

(54:16):
Merrill employees can just comehere for dinner or any time?
And the butler says he looks atJoe and says yes, in fact, one
is here almost every day.
So that's what she goes with it, you know.
And she said let's pretend thatwe're Mr and Mrs Merrill and we
live here.
And she goes up and she comesstrolling down the stairs and

(54:37):
talks about she made dinner forhim.
It's just so sweet because shedoesn't have a clue that she is
in his home and she's pretendingthat they are a couple in this
home.
It shows his fun-loving spirit,despite his hoity-toity parents
.
Yeah, they're playing,especially his mother.

They're playing house basically, they're playing
house.

It's so fun and I was waiting for something to go
wrong.

She's talking about the thing she's going to
cook him for dinner and it'sjust a wonderful romantic scene,
even though you know he'ssupposed to be on a date with
his fiance and his parents.
Yes, so you kind of have tooverlook the fact that joe's a
little bit of a son of a bitchwith his fiance, that he's
standing her up for this datewith maggie in the house, and

(55:22):
then, of course happens, theparents come home with a fiance
and let me say.

you just brought up one of the two things that
bothered me in the movie, andthey're two very minor things.
You know, I've got to findsomething.
I was very disappointed aboutthis part.
I first thought, okay,millicent's going to be a royal
bitch, which I kind of didn'twant, but at least it would have
sat better.
The other one was I wantedsomehow for her and Joe both
Millicent and Joe to realizethey were kind of being paired

(55:49):
together because of the wealthof their families and they
really just weren't made foreach other.
I wanted it to work out okayfor Millicent.
Instead, millicent was justlike hit the road, honey.

Well, it's a heartbreaking scene and you know
what breaks my heart isPickford in that scene.

Well, it's a heartbreaking scene and you know
what breaks my heart isPickford in that scene, when she
finds out the truth that notonly is Joe not Joe Grant, but
Joe Merrill.

The son of her boss of Merrill's department
store and he's engaged.
And what she tries?

to do, to sacrifice her history with him for his
benefit.
It's heartbreaking.

It's again, again, a primer.
I'm sorry, go ahead.
I know it's a.
It's a primer in brilliant filmacting.
Just to watch mary pickford'sface and the emotions that come
over the sudden like what wait,you're who?
And then to find out he'sengaged.
I mean, you've been stringingme on this whole time.
What a creep, you know.
But she doesn't overdo it, no,you get her heartbreak and your

(56:49):
heart breaks for her as she runsaway in the rain.
It's a heartbreaking scene.
It's a heartbreaking scene andyou really hate him for a minute
.
You for taking maggie on thison this ride you do, and I think
she handled it well.

I mean, she could have just slapped his face and
said you cad, and stormed out,and I think the way they handled
it with her uh, pretending shewas a gold digging hussy uh well
, yeah, so, so that's so.

So what happens is is that joe is in love with
maggie and he and he tells, hetells his father, he his fiance
I'm in love with this woman.
This is the way it is.
So Maggie's at home and Joe'sfather, mr Merrill, robert
Merrill, comes and he tries tobuy her off.
He tries to buy Maggie off andhe offers her $10,000 to leave

(57:45):
his son alone.
Now, just for context, $10,000today is like equivalent.
$10,000 then is the equivalentof $182,000 today.
So he's offering her $182,000to leave his son alone.
And what do you remember?
What happens when?
When he offers her the money?

Brad, yes, she is initially somewhat timid, but
she accepts it.
Accepts it but it's not.
She doesn't accept it becauseshe's greedy.
She accepts it because she hasa family to take care of.

Yeah, she's heartbroken.
She's heartbroken, so she putson this whole big facade.
When Joe shows up, that sheactually took him in.
You know that.
She's been playing him allalong.
She's trying to give up.
She's saying I'm going to livea jazz life, a jazz life.

(58:38):
And she puts on this record.
And the record she puts on iscalled red hot mama.
And so she pretends to be this,this jazz baby.
You know she, she smears herlipstick on and she takes a
cigarette out, but she can'tquite figure out how to smoke
the cigarette and so she's notconvincing no, she starts
dancing and mock, laughing atjoe.

(58:59):
It's yeah, it's very, it's veryextreme and silly, but you know
what?
It's heartbreaking at the sametime.
But Joe is not buying any ofthis.
He knows it's not true.
And Joe's father is still there, and Mary won't take his text.
She just wants Joe to move onwith his life, so she can move
on with her life.

(59:19):
And when, eventually, though,she keeps trying to do this, and
eventually she, she just can'tgo on anymore, because she looks
at joe and she sees the love inhis eyes and she just breaks
down and oh, she's so sweet.
She breaks down and she saysI'm not a bad girl, joe, I

(59:40):
didn't mean a word.
I said, you know, and it's just, it's's so, it's so sweet.
And they come together, andthat's when the father takes the
check back.
Did you notice that he takesthe check back?
So he's like, well, give me thecheck back if you're going to
be together.
But he gives them his blessing,the blessing to be together,
and so, at the end, they end uptogether.

(01:00:05):
But now, here's what.
Now, here's what is interesting, here's what confuses me about
this movie.

Brad Shreve (01:00:09):
Okay, I want to hear it.

Tony Maietta (01:00:10):
So so they're together and they're, they're
going.
Joe's going on a boat trip andthe ship is about to leave.
So they have to quick pack upmaggie's things to go away with
Joe on this boat.
Except one thing they forgotthey're not married.
So they're in this car andthey're racing to get to the
boat.
And this is a very primitiveprocess, shot racing to get to

(01:00:35):
the boat, which is just.
It was a new technique at thetime and it's obviously they
hadn't worked out all the kinks,but people believed at the time
.
So they get to the boat andwe're saying goodbye to them at
the boat and again you'rethinking but wait a minute, you
two aren't married.
I guess we're assuming that theship's captain will marry them,
because if you notice, the lastmusical notes of the film are

(01:00:58):
the wedding march.
As the film fades out, it goesduh, that's how you're like.
Okay, it's implied they'regoing to get married on the ship
, the ship's captain will marrythem and that's the end of the
movie.
They sail off to be togetherand married by the captain and
live happily ever after.
And that is my best girl.

You know, I think the captain marrying them was
just an automatic thoughtprocess.
For me, I just it's where mybrain went.
But the one thing that Ithought was funny and askew in
this was that they got to herhouse and you know they have the
whole issue with the family andthe father finally taking
charge and telling liz he'sgoing to straighten things up
and he spanks her as a matter offact, and yeah, and then he
tells mother she's no longergoing to go to funerals, he's

(01:01:41):
going to straighten things upand he spanks her as a matter of
fact.

And then he tells Mother.

she's no longer going to go to funerals.
He's like I'm the father, I'mgoing to be the man now.

I'm going to be the father of the family is what
he says.
So when Pa Johnson, who'splayed by Lucian Littlefield, pa
Johnson, finally grows somecojones here and takes charge,
it's because Maggie says andthis is a title card, I can't
marry you, joe.
My family needs me more thanyou do.

(01:02:12):
And that is when Pa Johnsonstands up and says, like hell,
we do, and that was a title card.
Did that shock you?

Not at first.
I read it and started going onwith movie and I said wait a
minute, I actually rewound it.
I'm like, wow, in that yearthey said profanity it's crazy.

Right, well, it was.
This was 1927 and the officialhayes code had not been written
yet.
But there was, there was stillregulation.
But I, to tell you, that stilltook me back.
You know, profanity in a MaryPickford film on a title card.
It's like take that ShirleyTemple.
It's crazy.

It's crazy, I know, and also crazy when they decide
that Joe and Maggie are goingto catch this ship.
To what was that?
I think Hawaii.

Yeah, yeah.

They say we have 10 minutes to get there.
Yeah, so they have 10 minutes.
And in that time she goes intoher bedroom, she changes her
clothes and she then packs herbags.
They then get in the car, theythen drive to the ship.
They must be awfully close tothe dock.

Well, they didn't live in the best neighborhood.

So probably.
Well, it didn't seem that bad.
And now I'm going to bring upthe one thing I'm going to give
negative about this film and ithas to do with Pa Johnson.
So I'm glad you brought him up.
Lucian Littlefield yes, I don'tknow his acting history.
I meant to look it up before westarted.
No-transcript.

(01:04:11):
And there is a character on theshow I can't stand her.
When I'm watching her, I'mwatching somebody acting.
There's the same thing withthis father the whole time.
I'm like he's terrible, he'sterrible.
Now, maybe others may disagree,but I wasn't fond of him worked

(01:04:44):
until the the 50s.

I think he was in television, you know, and that's
that's the character, comedytoo, you know he's, he's painted
very broadly.
But but I, you know, I get whatyou're saying, I get it it's.
It's just a bit like you know,it's like some of the other
conceits in this movie, it'sit's theatrical, that style.
Again, he's a bit of acaricature.
You just kind of have to say,okay, I mean, not everybody is
as real as pickford was.
There's still a little bit ofthat leftover air quote, you

(01:05:06):
know, silent film acting thatPickford kind of blew away.
So I get what you're saying.
It's, you know, the mother isalso very funny and very broad
too.

I thought the Mother was good and actually I
thought everybody else wasreally good.
I just really liked the Mother.
I think they're all good.
I will say I can complain aboutLucien, but he has 294 acting
credits.
Obviously some like him yeah.

Well, I think he was around since 1914.
So he was around almost as longas Pickford Do you want to now
talk about?
I know this movie is from 1927,so record keeping not
necessarily the most accurate,but do you have numbers on this
film?

I do, and that was something I was a little
concerned about because I had tosearch and the numbers were a
little suspect to me and Iwasn't expecting anything to be
like they are today.
Where you?
I won't say to the penny, butthey have a pretty good idea of
how much these movies cost andhow much they made.
So the numbers that I can findin this movie was it cost

(01:06:12):
$480,000.
And it made about a milliondollars or a little over a
million dollars, so not shabby.
As I said, the million dollarsis equal to about 19 million
dollars today.
It was directed by sam taylorand he started directing in 1924
, so this is only his third yearof act of directing, and what a

(01:06:32):
great film for that time.
And he was active up until the1940s he was, he was.

Look at you with your sam trivia.

Yeah, he did some great writing.
He actually did Well.
He wrote some things after the40s, but only one or two things.

There's a very funny, famous story about Sam
Taylor in writing, but I'm goingto tell you because you know
what you brought him up.
I was going to skip it, but youbrought up Sam Taylor.
So yeah, Sam Taylor was a veryaccomplished comedy director and
writer.
He worked a lot with HaroldLloyd and he worked a lot with
Pickford.
During this time he directedthis film, he directed her next

(01:07:09):
film, Coquette, and he directedher second film, her second
talkie, her talkie afterCoquette, which was a version of
the Taming of the Shrew whichshe made with her husband,
Douglas Fairbanks version of theTaming of the Shrew which she
made with her husband, DouglasFairbanks.
And there's a very famous storyabout one of the first
screenings of the film, becauseSam Taylor was not only the

(01:07:31):
director of it, he alsocontributed to the screenplay,
like directors do.
And allegedly the opening titlecard went up and said the
Taming of the Shrew by WilliamShakespeare, with additional
dialogue by Sam Taylor.
Now, that might be apocryphal,but that's just one of those
funny, funny stories aboutHollywood, oh, Hollywood.

But that actually may be fair to Will.

Yeah.

If Sam threw some words in there that Shakespeare
didn't?

write.
Well, you know, I think it'sthe, with additional dialogue by
Sam Taylor after the WilliamShakespeare, so anyway.
So yeah, my Best Girl was a hit.
As I said, it was Pickford'slast silent film because, as I
said before, the jazz singer wasreleased the month before my
Best Girl and changed everything.

(01:08:23):
So Pickford, unlike some ofthese other people, pickford was
not afraid of talkies at all.
I mean, she started on stage soshe knew she could talk.
So she was one of the veryfirst major stars to jump into
talkies with Coquette in 1929.
And she won the Oscar for BestActress, the second Oscar for
Best Actress that was given.
And also Coquette was herbiggest moneymaker ever, which

(01:08:45):
was not unusual with SilentStars, because audiences, as you
can imagine, were very curiousabout what they sounded like.
So their first talkies werealmost always huge hits.
It was the second one that wasthe real test and her second one
, the Taming of the Shrew.
As I said, it was a bit of adisappointment.
It's actually a good film.

(01:09:06):
It's not a bad film, it's just.
You know, it's an early talkieand audiences were used to these
lush, beautiful moving filmswith a camera swooping all over
the place and, you know, walkingin the rain and suddenly place,
and you know, walking in therain and suddenly it's all one

(01:09:26):
shot, the camera doesn't move,it's static, dialogue static, so
it's very stiff.
And Pickford, despite her geniusat film acting, did have some
trouble with Coquette.
She won the Oscar, but that wasreally for her career
achievement, I think, that shewanted.
And after that she just kind ofseemed to lose energy.
She made a few more films, acouple of which I really liked.

(01:09:49):
She did a fun film called Kiki,which I think is a lot of fun,
and her last film was a picturecalled Secrets in 1933, which
was also a very good film.
But she just seemed to bewinding down, you know.
But I mean, give her a break.
She'd been making films since1909.
And she was getting older andthere was a whole generation of

(01:10:10):
younger actresses coming upbehind her nipping at her heels.
But you know, I think more thanthat, mary Pickford, more than
any other star probably, wasemblematic of the silent film
era I want to jump in, though.

It sounds like this transition was very similar to
when somebody transitions fromstage to screen or the other way
around well, you have to learna different style of acting.

Yeah, so these people who who had been acting
with their faces and acting withtheir, their eyes, you know, as
pickford, they either had toreturn to using their voices or
they had to learn how to do itcompletely.
Now, pickford had been on stageso she knew.
She just had to remind herself,but I mean, she had been making
silent films for over 20 years,so she was a little bit rusty.

(01:10:57):
She's still good in CoCat,don't get me wrong.
It's just the technology of thetime and the fact that it is
very static.
So it's it's kind of you, it'skind of difficult to sit through
now, um, but you know, also, atthis time she she had a lot of
personal things happen to her.
She know, you know, right aftermy best girl, her mother, who

(01:11:19):
was her rock, charlotte, waswith her entire life.
She was diagnosed with cancerand she died, and then her
marriage to Douglas Fairbankswas unraveling and then I guess
most tragic of all is she fellprey to an old family disease
which also her father and hersister and her brother fell prey
to, and that's alcoholism.

(01:11:39):
And she unfortunately spentmany of the last years of her
life holed up in a room atPickfair, drinking and isolating
.

Oh no, I didn't know that.

Yeah, I mean it's so sad because this woman
invented Hollywood.
I mean there's a book calledthe Woman who Invented Hollywood
.
I mean, right, she did, and sheended up incredibly rich
because I think she owned halfof Beverly Hills, but it's still
kind of sad.
But before all that sadness, in1936, after her marriage to

(01:12:14):
Fairbanks ended which was very,very difficult for her, but who
was there for her?
Her good friend, buddy Rogers.
And they reconnected and theygot married and they adopted two
children and Buddy Rogerseventually gave up his film
career and he had a verysuccessful career as a
bandleader and a musician forthe rest of his life.

(01:12:35):
But here's somethinginteresting so, like a lot of
other silent film icons, when itcame time to cast the role of
Norma Desmond in SunsetBoulevard, billy Wilder offered
her the part and she's like yeah, thanks a lot, billy.
No thanks Too real.

(01:12:55):
She had no desire to do thatand she didn't need to.
As I said, she owned half ofBeverly Hills.
She still had a hand in UnitedArtists and she was the last of
the original four founders tosell her shares in UA in 1956.
And then she had herphilanthropy, as I said, the
Motion Picture Home.

(01:13:16):
She did a lot of charity andshe did radio occasionally but
she just kind of faded into thebackground to the point where
nobody would really ever see her.
And you know there's storiesabout people, stories about near
the end of her life, aboutpeople coming to pay her a visit
at PicFair and they wouldn'tsee her.

(01:13:36):
Buddy would come in and bring atape recorder from upstairs and
put it on the table and play apersonal greeting from Mary to
her guests.
Oh, wow.
Because she just didn't want toleave her room.
She was just in that alcoholhaze.
So her last air quotes publicappearance was in 1976.

(01:14:00):
She received an honorary Oscarand it wasn't really a public
appearance because the Oscarsactually went to Picfair.
The mountain went to Mohammed.
She didn't leave Picfair.
You know, and it's on YouTube.
It's very sad because she lookslike, well, she's propped up in
this chair like a Muppet.

(01:14:21):
It's just sad and you think God, this woman who created this
entire industry.
It was just sad, it's a sadending.

Have they made a movie about this?
Because this is a really sadrise and fall story.

Well, they kind of made a film called Sunset
Boulevard.
Oh well, yeah, well, yeah, Imean, you know, not really the
mary pickford story because,yeah, but still, it's still sad,
though it's still sad, you know, this woman who has such energy
and was so vital and was and,as I said, created this entire
industry, ends up kind of alonein a room drinking, uh, but

(01:15:01):
anyway, she died on May 29th1979.
And Buddy Rogers remarried andwhen Buddy Rogers died his widow
got Mary's Oscar for Coquettebecause she inherited his things
.
You know, and this happened alot.
You know, the second spousealways gets the first spouse's

(01:15:21):
things.
So, that's why today, if you winan Oscar, you have to sign a
release before they give it toyou that says when you die, it
goes back to the Academy.

Because people were auctioning them off.
I've heard those stories.

Yeah, yeah.
But there's one wonderful thingabout Buddy Rogers is that
Buddy Rogers, as I said, wasalways there for her.
He was her rock through thoselast, very difficult final years
and to the end of his life.
Whenever anyone would ask himabout Mary, buddy was always
very effusive about Mary.
He was always verycomplimentary and very loving in

(01:15:56):
his comments and he wouldalways say at the end of the
conversation and you know what?
She's still my best girl.
Isn't that beautiful?
That is beautiful.
It's very sweet, it is.
It is Well, brad, wow, that wasmy best girl.
We talked a lot for a silentmovie.

Yeah, and you know I could go on and on about the
rest of the cast, but I thinkwe've covered a lot.
Yeah, we have, we covered a lot.
You know I can go on and onabout the rest of the cast, but
I think we've covered a lot.

Yeah, we have.
We've covered a lot.
You know I can't tell you howmuch it means to me talking
about this film for my birthday.
It's the best birthday presentI could get To talk about this
film and talk about this womanthat I just adore and I really
urge people go watch a MaryPickford film, Watch my Best
Girl, Watch some of her latersilence.

(01:16:43):
You will be stunned by them andby this woman.

She was a true, true original and genius, you're
right and it is in publicdomain so you can go.
It's all over on YouTube.
Go watch it guilt free.
But I want to give a warning onwhich ones you pick, because
there are a lot of them thathave no music.
It's just silent, and I watchedthis film three times, and the
second time I was going to watchit, I picked up one of the

(01:17:09):
other channels than what I didoriginally and it was silent and
it was very difficult and Iended up having to turn it off
and go back to a differentchannel where they had the music
again.
It makes a big difference.
Make sure you have the music,yeah.

Absolutely Silent.
Films were never silent,Exactly.
Don't do that to yourselfpeople.
Yes, and if you get theopportunity to see it in a
theater?
I mean, that's the first time Isaw it was in a theater.
My God, that's just amazing.
That would be lovely.
Yeah, it's even better.

It's your birthday, but I want to thank you for the
gift, because now I want to gowatch some more Mary Pickford
films, and I never had a desirebefore.

Well, I'll send you some links.
I'll send you some links.
Please do Good.
Well, brad, I guess in thatcase there's only one thing left
to say, but I don't want to sayit.
So let's not say goodbye, let'sjust say If we were on video,

(01:18:19):
you would see Tony holding up atitle card that says Au revoir
and to that.

I say no, let's just say goodbye, that's all
folks.

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“My Best Girl” (1927) : Mary Pickford and the Sound of Silents

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