The Poor Little Rich Girl (1917)
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The Poor Little Rich Girl Movie Review
The Poor Little Rich Girl is a 1917 silent film starring Mary Pickford as an 11 year old who is unhappy in a rich family mansion and wants to have some fun.
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“Now you’ve spoiled the best fight I’ve ever had“
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The plot is pretty simple and it is the biggest weakness of the film because it is way too simplistic. The subject matter is very ordinary. However, it is rarely done in movies so it is pretty intriguing. It is also very entertaining and involving from start to finish. But it is filled with very bad dialogue and some lines are simply laughable. Regarding the dialogue, the film seems as if it was made by a teenager. It is probably the biggest and most inexcusable flaw in the whole picture.
But the film is very unique in some aspects. The fantasy elements in the third act are very interesting visually and are well executed and they conclude the story perfectly. There is also something not a lot of people talk about and those are of course the intertitles. The intertitle design here is phenomenal and incredibly inventive. Especially in the sequence where she yells and her words literally come out of the doorknob as in comics. That is a wonderful touch. It, along with the humor, helped add a modern feel to this very old movie.
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Speaking of humor, it is quite good and even charming. The sequence where she plays with the children is very endearing and the bathroom sequence is simply hilarious and very well executed. The humor adds a certain childlike and innocent flavor to a film and it fits the overall story perfectly. The whole movie is incredibly fast paced and entertaining so it is quite ahead of its time.
The characters are pretty well developed and the main character is very likable and effervescent. And the acting is fine across the board. It is of course questionable that they chose Mary Pickford to play an 11 year old child whereas she was 25 at the time. I understand how some would fault that choice, but I liked it anyway because Hollywood does that often (Judy Garland as Dorothy comes to mind immediately as a great example) and it is understandable that they choice her because she was such a commodity at the time and she is a wonderful actress. She played the part very well and her acting abilities and charisma are evident.
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The editing along with the dialogue is the film’s greatest weakness. It is so fast paced, so incredibly rushed and the running time is very short, clocking in at just around an hour, that the whole film and story feel contrived and very rushed. I know that the fast pacing may feel modern and may satisfy today’s audiences, but I however found it as a flaw because it is too fast, the same way ‘The Thief of Bagdad’ is fast at times. It somehow diminished the effect of the whole movie which is a shame.
In the end, The Poor Little Rich Girl is incredibly entertaining and engaging, very funny and sweet, Mary Pickford is charming and her character is very likable, but the story is filled with so many questionable dialogues and bad lines, the pacing is awfully fast and feels rushed and contrived, it is also very short and it is full of these flaws that certainly affect the movie. But it is so charming and above all entertaining that it can be forgiven to some extent and the movie can be enjoyed by today’s audiences to a great extent which is an incredible and admirable achievement for the filmmakers.
