The Little Princess (1917)

The Little Princess (1917), directed by Marshall Neilan, 3 stars

Ten year old Sara Crewe (played by Mary Pickford, “America’s Sweetheart” and 25 at the time) is left at Miss Minchin’s boarding school by her father who is heading off to war.  A widower, he adores his only child and has pampered her like a little princess.  In the boarding school she is also treated well—until the news comes that he has died and left his daughter penniless.  With no funds, poor Sara is now forced by Miss Minchin to act as a virtual servant, cleaning and cooking and seeing to whatever menial chores require her attention.  She lives in the attic with the housemaid, Becky (played by Zasu Pitts), and make the best of the situation until, miraculously, it gets better on its own due to the fortuitously serendipitous appearance of a rich benefactor.  The film, a simple, highly-synopsized version of Frances Hodgson Burnett’s 1905 novel, relates the riches to rags to riches story, 250-plus written pages worth, in just over an hour.  And that includes a twenty minute or so digression during which Sara recounts to her schoolmates the story of “Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves,” which I don’t recall from my ages-ago reading of the book.  While the Arabian fable is charming and delightfully directed, it is completely irrelevant and adds nothing but filler to the film.  It’s as if the studio decided to make a short, and rather than release it on its own, cut and paste it into “The Little Princess.”  I would have preferred to devote the time to additional character development—or, maybe some cute tricks performed by the pet monkey who lives next door.

One visual element that is immediately apparent and, at times, unsettling is the fact that Mary Pickford is tiny by comparison to some of the household furniture and towered over by several of the actors and actresses, particularly mean Miss Minchin, played by Katherine Griffith.  I haven’t been able to find out how tall Ms. Griffith was, but Mary Pickford stood 5’1” according to my Google query (“How tall was Mary Pickford?”), and Griffith stands at least a foot taller.

The film also contains a few, brief but lovely little fantasy elements, far less grandiose and far more to the point than the insertion of the tale of Ali Baba.  One of these is the sequence in which Sara’s dolls play with one another in stop-motion when no one is in the room.  Another is the ghostly image of her father, helplessly watching through the window before vanishing into the night as Sara tells Becky that she has just learned of his death.  Both are nice touches that underscore Sara’s creative imagination.

There’s nothing like seeing a silent film on the big screen and it’s better still with live accompaniment.  I was fortunate to attend a screening in a local theater with a performance and an original score by harpist, Leslie McMichael, who certainly gave the audience its money’s worth and stuck around after the film to answer questions.  She’s also written a score for the 1924 version of “Peter Pan,” a film I’ll be talking about next.