Was Mary Pickford's Drag Act The First One On The Screen??????????????????

                                 She may have been "America's Sweetheart," at one point, but I think Mary Pickford was naughty.  Now, look at this shot.  From the settings, furnishings, set design and lighting, one might take this for a silent version of "The Song Of Bernadette."  But this was 1922; a good twenty years before Franz Werfel wrote his book.  Hollywood, I am sure, at this time, had never heard of Lourdes.

                                 No, this is a scene from a silent version of "Little Lord Fauntleroy."   Pickford is 28 here, and the whole thing looks ridiculous.  Stick with the 1936 version, with Freddie Bartholomew and C. Aubrey Smith.

                                  Around fourth grade, I developed a fondness, not only for this story, but for the two other famous works of Frances Hodgson Burnett--"The Secret Garden," and "Sara Crewe" (also known as "A Little Princess," which became "The Little Princess," when 20th Century-Fox filmed it with Shirley Temple, in 1939; her last good childhood film, by the way--because all these stories portrayed children who were lifted out of their dismal surroundings into greener pastures.  Now, my surroundings were hardly dismal; banal, is how I would describe it, so to go from that to an inherited Earl, or the mistress of a Victorian manor house with a magical, secret garden, seemed pretty good to me.
"Sara Crewe" was more heartbreaking; it was like a female version of "Oliver Twist."  With a gaggle of school matron bitches and students!  Who get theirs, thank God!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

                                  For a brief period, I was taking "Little Lord Fauntleroy" out of the library, reading it again and again.  The illustrations in my edition drew the character similar to Mary, although while the body and features were perfectly masculine, the hairstyle was perfect and feminine.  The kind girls and queens would pay to have!  Maybe this is what also set me on my propensity to notice hair styles.  Right now, I would like to have Amy Sedaris'!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

                                 If Mary's 'Fauntleroy' turns up at, say, the Film Forum, I might go see it.  But I bet now it would be a camp hoot!  Stick to Freddie.

                                  Yes, I did love stories of children being lifted out of banal situations.  From here, it was just a short step to the cast album of "MAME."

                                    And, then, of course, to that ambitious bitch we all know and love--Veda, in "Mildred Pierce!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"