Century Film Project

Celebrating the movies our ancestors loved

Tag: ZaSu Pitts

March 4, 2018

Best Supporting Actress 1917

In a society in which the “male gaze” is dominant, women are common subjects for visual media. In the silent era, women could surprise you with their boldness, their strength, and sometimes their villainy. Often, the most interesting roles for women were not the leads, but were to be found in the characters that make up the world of action in which they play. The women actors of 1917 had opportunities to add complexity and color to the movies that audiences went to see.

ZaSu Pitts stands out in a supporting role for Mary Pickford in “Little Princess.” She is Becky, the scullion maid with no parents, who is excited by her new friend and also helps her survive her new condition of poverty. Musidora, who won a Century Award for her supporting role in “Les Vampires” is up again for “Judex.” In “The Atonement,” her character, Diana Monti, tries to escape her fate when Judex arrives on the boat where she is holding his true love captive. In “Polly Redhead” Gertrude Astor navigates a fine line between being jealous of Polly and being her benefactor when she brings the existence of Polly’s doppelganger to the attention of her employer, setting the end plot into motion. May Emory is over the top as a jealous rival for Gloria Swanson in “Teddy at the Throttle,” displaying comic timing and ability and getting a face full of mud for her efforts.

The nominees for best actress in a supporting role for 1917 are:

  1. ZaSu Pitts in Little Princess
  2. Musidora in The Atonement (Judex)
  3. Gertrude Astor in Polly Redhead
  4. May Emory in Teddy at the Throttle

And the winner is…ZaSu Pitts in “Little Princess!”

Pitts completely blew me away with her deferential, demure, yet nuanced and perky performance. I think she actually stole the show from Pickford a couple of times, and that’s quite an accomplishment. It probably helped that the two of them had real chemistry and became good friends after this film. I believe this is the first time Pitts has appeared on this blog, and she came in with a bang. I’m happy to honor her performance with a Century Award.

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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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July 16, 2017

A Modern Musketeer (1917)

Douglas Fairbanks extends his brand of good-natured athletic all-American comedy into the realm of swashbuckling with this feature from 100 years ago. No doubt Fairbanks saw the potential in a story setting him as an adventurer in the Grand Canyon as soon as he read the source, a piece called “D’Artagnan of Kansas” by Eugene P. Lyle.

The movie begins with an extended flashback to the “Three Musketeers” which is almost a short movie in itself. Doug plays D’Artgnan, and he makes a point of mocking his own mustache and long locks in what seems to be a kind of wink at the audience. He rides into a tavern where he sees a woman inconvenienced by a nobleman of some sort, then starts a fight that leads to fencing and stunts, including leaping up to the rafters and continuing the fight from there. This is the first time I’ve seen Fairbanks with a sword in his hand (he’s had plenty of fights with guns and fists, up to this point), and it’s easy to see that he was a natural to Hollywood-style swordplay. His sword flashes and leaps, parries and thrusts, and never seems to draw any blood as he disarms and dispatches his foes. I can’t imagine that any fan of later action movies would be disappointed in this sequence or find it slow-moving. And, again, it includes Doug’s now-patented physical comedy touches, as when he grabs the beard of a sleeping drunk to steady himself during the battle.

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