Century Film Project

Celebrating the movies our ancestors loved

Tag: Mary Pickford

November 25, 2018

Stella Maris (1918)

One of Mary Pickford’s biggest hits of 1918 was this drama, in which she not only gets to grow out her perpetual childhood, but also plays dual roles of young girls who become young women. It demonstrates differing audience expectations of the time to our own, especially in terms of “happy endings,” but displays Mary’s talents to their fullest.

At the beginning of the film, Mary’s characters are still in late childhood. The first, the eponymous Stella Maris, is paralyzed and lives in her bed. Fortunately she has been raised by wealthy guardians Sir and Lady Blount (Ida Waterman and Herbert Standing) dedicated to her happiness. Unfortunately, that dedication goes to something of an extreme – Stella is protected from any information about the world that might upset her or make her aware that there is “sorrow, poverty, or death” in the world. This tends to make her a bit spoiled and idealistic. The other young girl is Unity Blake, an orphan in a classically Dickensian orphan house who lives with all of the evils Stella is shielded from. The opulence and beauty of Stella’s world is contrasted with the squalor and hard work of Unity’s in a series of intercut scenes.

In one of these scenes, a prominent relative of the Blounts comes to visit Stella in her room. This young man (Conway Tearle) is referred to as the “Great High Belovedest” and tells her stories of his “castle” where he lives. In reality, he is John Risca, a prominent journalist who hides his alcoholic wife (Marcia Manon) in an apartment. He leaves her because he cannot stand her drinking or her cruelty, but he commits to continuing to support her. She decides to adopt a girl, because servants keep quitting on her and an orphan would have nowhere else to go. Of course, the girl she selects is Unity. Unity is sent over to her home without any guide, and we see her reactions to the world of London – in her way, she is quite as sheltered as Stella. She is quite crushed when she realizes that her new mother intends to give her more work, but no love.

Unity reacts as a customer sends back a steak in a restaurant.

This arrangement doesn’t last long, because one day some street kids steal Unity’s basket of groceries while she is out shopping. When she returns empty-handed, her adoptive mother reacts with rage, beating her to within an inch of her life. The neighbors hear the row, and the police are called. Mrs. Risca is arrested and sentenced to three years imprisonment. In the meanwhile, John agrees to take Unity on, and treats her with kindness and gentleness. They live together with “Aunt Gladys” who wants to punish the child when she lies, but John knows that she lies because she is afraid of getting another beating.

Joining the “family.”

Meanwhile, as the three years pass, Stella Maris is able to get an operation that allows her to walk. She has blossomed into a young adult, and her feelings for the “Great High Blovedest” have matured as well, and appear to be reciprocated. But, when John wishes to confess to her of his previous marriage, he is prevented by Mrs. Blount, who is still trying to protect Stella from knowing about evil. Stella is picking it up on her own, of course, now that she can walk. At one point she asks for “a few thousand pounds” to give to a starving family she sees near the house. Unity has also fallen in love with her new guardian, and tries to overcome her homely looks and poor education to get him to notice her.

Stella decides to go and visit the castle, which she dreams of living in with John. Of course, the limo driver takes her to John’s old address, where the newly released Mrs. Risca is once again residing. She looks about in horror, breaking down into tears when Mrs. Risca reveals who she is. She breaks off relations with John and rages at her family about all of the evil and pain in the world. Unity sees how heartbroken John is from this, and realizes that he will never forget Stella Maris. She also realizes that so long as Mrs. Risca is alive, he will forever be unhappy. She devises a plan and steals one of John’s guns, then uses the key she has kept all these years to the Risca apartment and goes in, threatening Mrs. Risca. When Mrs. Risca responds with more callousness and brutality, she kills her, and then herself.

This, of course, releases John from any obligations. Stella Maris comes to the conclusion that joy and wonder can only exist because there is also pain and evil in the world, and she forgives John and her guardians for lying to her. Aunt Gladys convinces Stella’s wealthy relatives to give John another chance and not think badly about Unity for she helped free him from his abusive wife. John is reunited with Stella and they marry.

I was quite honestly rooting for Unity the whole time, and I was pretty disappointed once I realized that the outcome would be her death and John marrying Stella Maris. Not that I wanted him to marry his adoptive daughter, either (because, ew), but I wanted Unity to realize that there were other possibilities for her happiness and grow up to pursue them. I suspect many modern viewers would respond the same way, but the logic of the time was that Unity had fallen in love with a man “above her station,” and this could only end in tragedy. Of the two characters, I found Unity to be more sympathetic and appealing. Stella is obviously spoiled (through no fault of her own, but still) and her development is far less convincing. She’s mostly there to be sweet and pretty, then to be heartbroken and unreasonable, and finally to provide the standard happy ending for the male lead. She has little sense of agency, and when she does try to do something on her own (feeding the family, for example, or visiting the castle), it is just a reflection of her ignorance.

Mary Pickford plays both roles excellently, however, and this movie decidedly demonstrates her versatility. I must admit with some embarrassment that the first time I watched it I didn’t actually realize she was playing Unity and I went to see who “that actress” was because I thought she had outperformed Mary Pickford! I think it’s a tribute to her and to the director that a modern viewer could be so bamboozled. Lighting choices reinforce the differences, and the different worlds the two girls occupy. The two don’t have a lot of scenes together, and of course “twinning” effects date back to Georges Méliès, so this isn’t so much a measure of special effects as it is of acting. Shots that do have them together are also carried  by the very natural way in which Pickford “talks to herself,” although it’s easy enough to see where the screen has been split.

The film was apparently the second highest-grossing film of the year (records from this period are not precise) and helped solidify Pickford’s already powerful position as a star. It was written for her by her friend Frances Marion and directed by Marshall Neilan, who had also directed “Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm,” “The Little Princess,” and later “Amarilly of Clothes-Line Alley”  and “M’Liss,” so this movie shows the power Pickford had to choose her productions and her production team. Although we often think of her in terms of her naively innocent characters, like Stella herself, she was a powerful businesswoman, with all the grit of Unity Blake and even the professional acumen of John Risca as well.

Director: Marshall Neilan

Camera:Walter Stradling

Starring: Mary Pickford, Ida Waterman, Herbert Standing, Conway Tearle, Marcia Manon, Josephine Crowell, Teddy the Dog, Gustav von Seyffertitz

Run Time: 1hr, 28 Min

You can watch it for free: here and here (without music) or here (with music).

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August 5, 2018

The Dream (1911)

This short film from IMP (the predecessor to Universal Pictures) is a simple morality tale about a philandering husband’s comeuppance. It is probably known today mostly because of starring a young Mary Pickford along with her then-husband Owen Moore.

The film begins by depicting a drunk couple out together in a restaurant. The man (Moore) staggers around and hands the waiter all of the money in his wallet. In the midst of their carousing, we briefly cut away to images of a woman (Pickford) sitting dejectedly at home alone, with dinner waiting on the table. She doses off for a moment, and checking the time, determines that it is getting quite late. An intertitle informs us that the husband returns six hours later, but the wife doesn’t seem angry or concerned, just happy to see him. That quickly changes as he yells at her, throwing the food she made on the floor and turning over a chair before passing out on a divan. She seems very upset by his behavior. Read the rest of this entry »

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July 29, 2018

Amarilly of Clothes Line Alley (1918)

Mary Pickford gets to play an adult girl in this movie with a screenplay by her buddy, Frances Marion, who wrote child roles for her in “The Little Princess,” “Poor Little Rich Girl,” and other films. As in those movies, much of the emphasis here is on a contrast between the rich and the poor, with a sense that poverty and honesty are linked, as are wealth and decadence.

The movie begins, like many of the period, with an extensive introduction to the cast of characters. In addition to Mary in the title role of Amarilly Jenkins, we also meet her mother (Kate Price) and brothers, and her boyfriend, Terry (William Scott), who works as a bartender in a big nightclub in Clothes-Line Alley. On the “other side of the tracks,” are the Society people, represented by Mrs. Philips (Ida Waterman) and her nephew Gordon (Norman Kerry). Gordon has a friend with the auspicious name of Johnny Walker (Fred Goodwins), who he spends time with drinking at the athletic club, and who appears to sleep at Gordon’s studio.  Mrs. Philips wants to set up her nephew with a debutante (Margaret Landis), but Gordon keeps putting off her invitations – apparently he prefers spending time with Johnny for now.

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June 3, 2018

100% American (1918)

Mary Pickford stars in this promotional film for the Fourth Liberty Bond during World War I. While it’s predictably preachy, the film does take advantage of its star’s charms and gives a brief narrative to hold the audience’s interest while arguing that it needs to “do without” in order to support the war effort.

Pickford is introduced a “Mayme,” a typical young American woman who likes to indulge in the pleasures of an affluent society. The story begins with her and a girlfriend or roommate at an amusement park, dazzled by all kinds of opportunities for meaningless consumption and fun. They are distracted by a man giving a speech – possibly a barker for some new attraction. He turns out to be a “four minute man” – a public speaker drumming up support for buying war bonds. At the climax of his speech, he points at the camera and asks, “What are you giving right now?” A reversal shows Mayme reacting to this question. Evidently she feels guilty for not doing enough. She and her friend continue along the boardwalk and Mayme window shops longingly, but resists the urge to go into a store and buy new clothes. Then she and her friend go to a soda shop. While her friend eats ice cream, Mayme orders water. Finally, she walks home alone to save car fare.

The next scene comes on “bond day.” Mayme stands in a line of people, ready to buy their war bonds. She has saved up a sizable wad of bills, but she gets nervous when an ugly man takes an interest in her, and she stashes the loot. When she reaches the head of the line, she looks in her purse and can’t find the money – she’s already forgotten that she hid it – and she accuses the ugly man of robbing her. A policeman comes over to shake him down and meanwhile, Mayme finds the money, buy her bond, and makes a hasty retreat after correcting her mistake.

The movie now looks forward to “after the war” when Mayme is qualified to go to a “100% American” dance with soldiers and other bond-holders. Her fashionable friend cannot attend this event, because she failed to buy bonds. But, Mayme has pity on her and lets her take her bond. After she leaves, Mayme collapses in remorse that she can’t even go to the celebration. Then, Mayme’s soldier boyfriend comes home. He has bought two bonds, so that they can still go together. The final scene is a live-action political cartoon, in which Kaiser Wilhelm II is suspended from falling into “the soup” on a thin high wire labeled “Hindenburg Line.” He tries to retreat from France to Germany, but is weighted down by various burdens, with labels like “brute force” and “clown prince.” Mayme takes out a baseball labeled “Fourth Liberty Bond” and knocks him off the wire, simulating the kinds of amusements she forsook at the beginning of the film. Then she points to the camera and suggests that, “Your’s may be the bond to knock him off his perch!”

By 1918, Mary Pickford was possibly the biggest star in the world (easily in the top five, at any rate). Her support of liberty bonds was well known, and she donated a considerable amount of her valuable (and expensive!) time to public appearances in support of them. There’s an irony to the title of this film, however, since she was in fact a Canadian citizen! Her home country had been fighting for almost four years by the time any American troops showed up, and perhaps that was the reason for her urgency in trying to get the war over as quickly as possible. Of course, she had already starred in “The Little American” and was known as “America’s Sweetheart,” so audiences probably didn’t see this as a big problem. She was an actress playing a role, and in this case that role was of a patriotic American girl who sacrifices her immediate pleasures for the sake of the war effort. Unfortunately, the concept of “100% American” would be used after the war to hound immigrants and leftists during the “Red Scare.”

Feet!

This sort of short propaganda film doesn’t show off the best in film making technique of the time, but there are some interesting bits. The reversal to Pickford after the four minute man breaks the fourth wall is particularly well executed in terms of editing, and handled very quickly, to keep the emotional verisimilitude high. There are a number of insert shots of Mayme’s fashionable shoes, perhaps to establish her as a person given to extravagance, or perhaps in the interest of titillating the male audience, as shoes and feet seem to have been a big deal since the days of “What Demoralized the Barber Shop” and “The Gay Shoe Clerk.” I found the final “cartoon” interesting as well, since it involved so many different ideas being integrated into a single image.

Director: Arthur Rosson

Camera: Hugh McClung, Glen MacWilliams

Starring: Mary Pickford, Loretta Blake, Monte Blue, Henry Bergman

Run Time: 14 Min

You can watch it for free: here.

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May 13, 2018

Ramona (1910)

This early short by D.W. Griffith was shot in California and adapts a highly popular novel which had come to be associated with the myth of Californian conquest. Although this is one of the longest movies released that year, Griffith was clearly feeling the constraints of the short format in trying to tell such a large story.

The movie begins with a Biograph title card, which includes the subtitle “A Story of the White Man’s Injustice to the Indian.” The next card informs us about the source, the novel by Helen Hunt Jackson, and the fact that the movie was shot “on location” in Camulos, California, “the actual scenes” where the novel is set. The first shot shows Ramona (played by a very young Mary Pickford) and her meeting with Alessandro (Henry B. Walthall), one of the Indians who works at her stepmother’s estate. Ramona is sewing, and as the Indian workers file past, Alessandro notices her and is struck by her beauty. Ramona goes into the church to pray, and Alessandro follows her. An intertitle informs us that the next scene is “the meeting at the chapel,” in which we witness their “meet cute.” Ramona also seems fascinated, but demure, and her stepbrother Felipe (Francis J. Grandon) introduces them and then leads Alssandro away. The next scenes show their growing attraction, and we learn that Ramona has rejected an engagement with Felipe over Alessandro. But, when Ramona sees Alessandro playing guitar under a tree, she runs away in horror, running to the church to ask forgiveness. But, after praying, she returns to him and embraces him, only to be violently separated by her outraged stepmother (Kate Bruce).

A sane Alessandro.

A sudden shift in the plot takes place as the next intertitle informs us that “The Whites” devastate Alessandro’s village. We see this event at a great distance, with burning tents visible from a cliff. The main focus of action is on Alessandro in the foreground, who emotes his loss with gestures.  Now, Ramona’s stepmother tells her the truth: she is half-Indian herself. This makes her love for Alessandro a possibility, and she goes to him to tell him, after somehow “intuiting” the burning of the Indian village. Again, they embrace, and now Ramona chooses his life over her own, joining him in poverty and effective exile. At first, Ramona’s stepmother wants to send workers out to search for her, but Felipe calls it off, forcing the family to accept Ramona’s choice. We see a brief scene of domestic bliss for Ramona and Alessandro, and they have a baby, but soon the whites come back to inform them that they now own the land. Now, they are homeless with a tiny baby to care for. They wander out into the mountains, and soon the baby dies and Alessandro is driven mad. In this state, he runs into one of the whites, who shoots him down. Ramona is grieving over his body when Felipe arrives to take her home.

An insane Alessandro

The movie as shown is very hard to follow without some background information or familiarity with the novel. Felipe’s role is particularly obscure, but also the “intuition” that drives Ramona to Alessandro the second time and various other events are hard to deduce from the intertitles. Scenes like the eviction from their house seem to drag on, but there are big jumps in the plot as it proceeds. Still, the movie has some interest. I’ve always felt that Griffith worked better in a short format (in part because he refused to write scripts or storyboards in detail), and this movie shows some of his developing strengths as a director. There is good use of inter-cutting to set up simultaneous events, and suspense is effectively established, as when Ramona prepares to sneak out of her stepmother’s house and one wonders if she will make it. Pickford is quite early in her acting career, and while she doesn’t dominate the screen the way she will later, she manages some nice touches as Ramona, especially when she seems to be vacillating between guilt over her feelings for Alessandro and a desire to give in to them. Walthall, who would go on to become a very successful leading man, still seems a bit rough around the edges to me. There’s no denying his screen presence, but he seems to go in for gesticulating over facial expressions. A bit more subtlety on his part would go a long way toward making this more watchable.

Once again, we have one of those D.W. Griffith movies that “prove” he wasn’t racist, because the whites are bad guys and the Indians are held up as noble. The problem with this is the degree to which the myth of the “noble savage” is bound up in American colonialism and the fact that this movie makes no attempt to depict the reasons behind the white people’s actions and the degree to which they are motivated by American values into attacking and victimizing the indigenous people. Reviewers at the time noted that it failed to truly transmit the intended message of the novel, focusing only on the elements of tragic romance that transcend race and situation. Undeniably a movie of historical interest, it may not live up to its reputation as a classic.

Director: D.W. Griffith

Camera: Billy Bitzer

Starring: Mary Pickford, Henry B. Walthall, Francis J. Grandon, Kate Bruce, Mack Sennett, Dell Henderson, W. Chrystie Miller, Dorothy Bernard, Gertrude Clair, Anthony O’ Sullivan

Run Time: 16 Min

You can watch it for free: here (no music) or here (with music).

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March 31, 2018

M’Liss (1918)

Mary Pickford is a feral, bratty tomboy in this comedy-western from Artcraft. While in most of the movies I reviewed in 1917 she played a little girl of ten or eleven (taking advantage of her stature to seem younger than her co-stars), here she is a girl on the cusp of woman-hood, but the movie handles this somewhat awkwardly.

The movie opens, as many silent features did, with a kind of visual credit sequence in which each actor and character is introduced with an intertitle and a brief vignette that shows them in character. Pickford is shown in a raggedy dress, firing a slingshot at a bear in the woods, and we are told that her name means “limb of Satan” to the local populace. We also meet her pappy, “Bummer” Smith (Theodore Roberts), a  bearded man who trades eggs for booze, the local judge (Tully Marshall) who also enjoys a drink, and the villain, “Mexican” Joe (Monty Blue). Shortly thereafter, the new schoolteacher (Thomas Meighan) rides into town on a stagecoach that is robbed by M’Liss at slingshot-point, largely due to the winking cooperation of the stagecoach driver, Yuba Bill (Charles Ogle). We now learn that “Bummer” Smith has a rich brother in San Francisco who has willed “Bummer” all his money, but the evil nurse (Winifred Greenwood) and her husband (Val Paul) have plans to get it for themselves. Got all that? Good.

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March 4, 2018

Best Leading Actress 1917

Women in silent movies were exotic, strong, beautiful, and courageous. Many, if not most, of the recognizable iconic images of the period are of women: Clara Bow, Louise Brooks, Theda Bara. The men have no equivalents, except perhaps among the silent clowns (Chaplin, Lloyd, Keaton). In Europe, an entire genre (the “Diva film”) was dedicated primarily to looking at women posing in varying costumes, and although this genre didn’t get the same level of recognition in the US, it influenced film making everywhere. To be a star was to be looked at, and women stars used their visibility to become forces of power and even authority.

Yvette Andréyor played the significant role in the “Judex” serial of being the unrequited love interest of the hero – and the daughter of his worst enemy. In “Jacqueline’s Heart,” she unknowingly confides her distress to the woman who was the prime motivator for Judex’s vengeful plans: his mother. She handles this scene, and the emotional drama of the series masterfully. Mary Pickford had her own ideas for the character of Gwendolyn in “Poor Little Rich Girl,” ideas that sometimes conflicted with those of the director, Maurice Tourneur. Mary was enough of a heavyweight in Hollywood that she got her way, and the result is a highly sympathetic and moving performance. Edna Purviance was Chaplin’s leading lady throughout this period of his short films, and once again turned in a thoughtful, funny, and charming performance for “The Immigrant.” She’s a fellow newcomer to the United States, who Charlie meets and pursues, and her reactions are really the emotional center of the romance for the audience. Gloria Swanson was still a rising star when she made “Teddy at the Throttle,” and she’ll be back many times in future years. Here, she gave a comedic twist on the “girl tied to the train tracks” cliché that demonstrated timing and physical ability as well as the acting skill she’s remembered for today. Vera Karalli appears as a mute ballerina in “The Dying Swan,” whose tragic life is a fascination for a mad artist. She conveys her sadness, and its transformation to joy and then to horror, through body language and dance.

The nominees for best actress in a leading role are:

  1. Yvette Andréyor in Jacqueline’s Heart (Judex)
  2. Mary Pickford in Poor Little Rich Girl
  3. Edna Purviance in The Immigrant
  4. Gloria Swanson in Teddy at the Throttle
  5. Vera Karalli in The Dying Swan

And the winner is…Mary Pickford for “Poor Little Rich Girl!”

Having declared 1917 “the year of Mary Pickford” in an earlier post may have been a dead giveaway to regular readers how this was going to go. It was not a no-brainer, though, because all of the women nominated had definite strengths. Pickford in “Poor Little Rich Girl” really makes the whole story work. It’s impossible to imagine another actress pulling it off so well. Even in the context of a fairly schmaltzy story that isn’t really my cup of tea, I was decidedly moved by the end, and genuinely wondering/worrying if the script was going to let her die at the end. That’s the power of her acting.

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February 7, 2018

Best Makeup and Hairstyling 1917

Makeup and hair styles of the movies both reflect, and to some degree determine, the styles of the day. As we move into the Silent Classical Era, the importance of the close-up and the growing star system assures an increased focus on having actors who look “just right” for their roles. Not only for beautiful leading ladies, but also for villains and those in comic roles, having just the right makeup and hair helps to create a character that audiences will respond to and remember after the flickering on the screen is over.

This year the nominees run the gamut from comedy to crime to horror to family fare. Max Linder nearly always had the perfect look of an upper-class dandy, and the hair and makeup for “Max in A Taxi” supports him and the characters who populate his bizarre world. In “Fear” Conrad Veidt becomes a mysterious Hindu magician who haunts a foolish European art collector. “Love’s Forgiveness,” the climactic finale of the serial “Judex,” uses makeup and hair to show the trials our characters have survived, and that they can still come off looking stylish and beautiful (even in death!). Mary Pickford always had her trademark locks, but in “Little Princess” we see this attention to grooming extended to a host of other characters as well as some unusual examples of makeup and hair for the “Forty Thieves” fantasy sequence.

The nominees for best makeup and hairstyling of 1917 are:

  1. Fear
  2. Love’s Forgiveness (Judex)
  3. Little Princess
  4. Max in a Taxi

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December 28, 2017

Year in Review 1917/2017

Once again, a year of reviews and movie watching  is winding up at the Century Film Project. Although I’ll talk in a larger way about the movies when I do my Century Awards in February, I’d like to reflect a bit on the year that just passed, and on the one whose centenary is now nearly over.

At the beginning of the year, I stated that there was “no one big name” that dominated the movies in 1917. I would now have to disagree. The one big/little name that seems to have really taken over this year is Mary Pickford. I haven’t even managed to watch all of the important movies she released this year (might get a couple more in before the Century Awards – we’ll have to see), but the three “little” ones I watched were huge: “The Little American,” “Little Princess,” and “Poor Little Rich Girl” were big audience-pleasers and box office successes. She also released “Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm” and “Romance of the Redwoods” this year. She also became even more confident in terms of taking on producing responsibilities, telling directors where to go, and running her “brand” as a business. 1917 really seems to be her year, so far as I can see. Douglas Fairbanks and Charlie Chaplin remain major forces in the industry as well (as well as being friends to Little Mary), but she seems to be the most noticeable breakout of the year.

From a global social-political perspective, this has been an earth-shaking year, which may explain why audiences wanted the reassuring fantasies Pickford was offering, wherein simple child’s morality is upheld and everything turns out OK if you believe and try hard. The United States was finally drawn into war (although they haven’t done much fighting yet). The war itself has been especially brutal this year, with masses of men dying on the French front and ongoing actions in the Middle East and Eastern Europe. Meanwhile the Revolutions in Russia have finally knocked that combatant out of the war, and have placed a whole new kind of government into power: one dominated by radical Communists. The world’s largest country by landmass is officially in upheaval and no one knows what to expect.

This kind of social unrest wasn’t limited to Russia, nor to just one side. Germany was now facing anti-war protests and jailing some of its protesters. The “Civil Peace” that had been established between the working class parties and the Monarchy was now broken, as the Independent Socialists (USPD) broke with the Majority Socialists (SPD) and began to demand reform or revolution on a mass scale. Soldiers for France staged mutinies against the officers’ orders that they throw themselves at German machine-guns again and again. Even quiet England saw the rise of a pro-socialist, anti-war party (small, by comparison), and elites throughout Europe watched events in Russia with trepidation, wondering which other nations might fall to the cry of revolution.

2017, meanwhile, has been another year in which “other interests” (aka my real life) have interfered somewhat with blogging and with century-watching. I suspect that will continue, but compared to some blogs, I still have pretty regular content. Each new year brings a new crop of centenaries to celebrate, and 1918 will be another big one. Growth in views and new followers has continued, but slowed, and it seems like there are more frequent “likers” than there were in previous years. It’s nice to know someone appreciates it! Thank you all for reading, and I look forward to what another year will bring us!

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December 1, 2017

Little Princess* (1917)

The classic tale of a young scamp in a snooty all-girls school is given the star treatment by Mary Pickford in this movie. Pickford had made her name playing girls well below her actual age, and here she really stretches things, pretending to be a child of only 10 or 11.

As the story opens, Mary, as Sara Crewe, is still in India, hiding in an urn and spying on her father (played by Norman Kerry) as he decides to move back to Britain after years of service in the colonial forces. She is opposed to the idea, being accustomed to a privileged life of servants and a large house, but children don’t get to make those decisions for themselves. She is enrolled in the Minchin boarding school for girls, where she is very shy and uncertain at first, and this is perceived as standoff-ish, which, along with the vast wealth her father provides for her comforts, earns her the nickname of “little Princess” from the other students.

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