Director: SAM TAYLOR. Adapted by John Grey and Allen McNeil from the 1928 stage play by George Abbott and Ann Preston Bridgers as produced on Broadway by Jed Harris. Dialogue: Sam Taylor. Photography: Karl Struss. Song, "Coquette", by Irving Berlin. Other songs: "L'il Liza Jane" by Ada De Lachau; "My Old Kentucky Home", "Swanee River" by Stephen Foster. Film editor: Barbara McLean. Art director: William Cameron Menzies. Production manager: Walter Mayo. Dialogue director: Earle Browne. Assistant director: Lucky Humberstone. Producer: Mary Pickford.
Copyright 30 March 1929 by the Pickford Corp. Released through United Artists. New York opening at the Rivoli, 5 April 1929. U.S. release: 12 April 1929. 9 reels. 6,993 feet. 77½ minutes.
SYNOPSIS: Southern belle falls for a man hated by her father.
NOTES: Academy Awards, Best Actress, Mary Pickford (defeating Ruth Chatterton in Madame X, Betty Compson in The Barker, Jeanne Eagels in The Letter and Bessie Love in The Broadway Melody).
The stage play opened on Broadway at Maxine Elliott's on 8 November 1927 and ran a smash 366 performances. Helen Hayes established her reputation as one of the nation's strongest dramatic actresses in the title role. Also cast: Eliot Cabot, Charles Waldron and Una Merkel. The director was George Abbott.
I waited sixty years to view this film and it turns out to be absolutely dreadful. It is impossible to believe that any Academy voters in their right senses would prefer this hammy, posturing Pickford to the likes of Jeanne Eagels, Ruth Chatterton, Betty Compson and especially Bessie Love.
Pickford's exaggeratedly stilted, scenery-chewing performance here seems a long way from the fresh-faced, engaging highlights of her silent career. True, this was her first sound film, but the director should have restrained her incessant, over-the-top mannerisms. The rest of the players seem equally ill-at-ease with sound, though none approach the amateurish depths to which Miss Pickford constantly sinks. Her "acting" is so embarrassingly bad, we shudder every time she comes on stage — I mean on-screen!
Copyright 30 March 1929 by the Pickford Corp. Released through United Artists. New York opening at the Rivoli, 5 April 1929. U.S. release: 12 April 1929. 9 reels. 6,993 feet. 77½ minutes.
SYNOPSIS: Southern belle falls for a man hated by her father.
NOTES: Academy Awards, Best Actress, Mary Pickford (defeating Ruth Chatterton in Madame X, Betty Compson in The Barker, Jeanne Eagels in The Letter and Bessie Love in The Broadway Melody).
The stage play opened on Broadway at Maxine Elliott's on 8 November 1927 and ran a smash 366 performances. Helen Hayes established her reputation as one of the nation's strongest dramatic actresses in the title role. Also cast: Eliot Cabot, Charles Waldron and Una Merkel. The director was George Abbott.
I waited sixty years to view this film and it turns out to be absolutely dreadful. It is impossible to believe that any Academy voters in their right senses would prefer this hammy, posturing Pickford to the likes of Jeanne Eagels, Ruth Chatterton, Betty Compson and especially Bessie Love.
Pickford's exaggeratedly stilted, scenery-chewing performance here seems a long way from the fresh-faced, engaging highlights of her silent career. True, this was her first sound film, but the director should have restrained her incessant, over-the-top mannerisms. The rest of the players seem equally ill-at-ease with sound, though none approach the amateurish depths to which Miss Pickford constantly sinks. Her "acting" is so embarrassingly bad, we shudder every time she comes on stage — I mean on-screen!