|
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Most Charming Silent I've seen Yet!, Jun 4 2003
I'm just sobbing like a baby! My husband just surprised me for my birthday with 'My Best Girl'. I have been building my silent movie collection for almost 2 years, and not one actress has ever moved me so much as Mary Pickford! I adore her in every film I've seen thus far, and all the others are DEFINITELY worth buying--bad prints or no, but this...this film is now my favorite Pickford film and in my Top 10 for all silents. I am not a sappy girl, nor do I fall for romance-type films, but 'My Best Girl' is SO winsome, and SO charming! Please go off and read at least one Pickford biography and then rewatch 'My Best Girl'. I was so skeptical, b/c I'm not a big girly movie fan, but this is one you HAVE to own if you love Pickford! Her leading man in the film is Charles 'Buddy' Rogers, the man she married 10 years after this film was made. At the time, her idyllic marriage to Douglas Fairbanks was just beginning to falter. They divorced in 1935, and two years later, she became Mrs. Buddy Rogers. Buddy is so smitten (in a tastefully restrained way) in every scene, in real life, and it's so lovely to watch him falling nutty-head-over-heels for Mary. It's anyone's guess if Mary felt the same--a tribute to her gifts as an actress--but it was pure bliss trying to guess if she had been! Funny, smart and BEAUTIFULLY shot (if you've seen a lot of silents, you can tell that this one was made toward the end of the era. You're in for SUCH a treat--the shots are nothing like any in other silents of the same age.) I laughed out loud, and shed big ol' 'I'm not a girly movie fan' tears! Treat yourself, and buy the Milestone copy. An excellent, clean print, with wonderful sharpness and great picture quality. The few and far between muddy spots go away SO quickly. And the score is so thoughtful, and complements the action and the period impeccably. Buy it up, and send a message to the Pickford Foundation that we want more of these DVDs QUICK! There are a few home movies & newsreel clips from the Pickford Foundation collection included on the MILESTONE DVD, and watching them just tickled me to no end. All of them were private reels of Mary and Buddy at their wedding, their honeymoon, and later. Again, being not a terribly romantic girl, I sure surprised the heck outta myself by sobbing out loud after reading that "Buddy was always fond of saying that he'd married his 'best girl.'" A sap I was not, until now!
|
