AMARILLY OF CLOTHES-LINE ALLEY DVD (1918) - MARY PICKFORD, WILLIAM SCOTT

Description: Here in PRISTINE, LIKE NEW condition, is this RARE, OUT OF PRINT DVD from the fabulous Milestone Collection. She was the FIRST Hollywood Superstar...the first to witness being a world wide celebrity....before CHAPLIN, KEATON, DAVIES...there was "AMERICA'S SWEETHEART"....the incomparable...the one and only....the LEGEND....MARY PICKFORD. AMARILLY OF CLOTHES-LINE ALLEY - 1918 Set in San Francisco during the early 1900's, the film revolves around Amarilly (Mary Pickford), the daughter of a widowed scrubwoman. Amarilly is proud of her hard-working Irish family, and takes care of her five roughhouse brothers. She is engaged to bartender Terry McGowan (William Scott), who gets her a job as a cigarette girl in his cafe after a fire unfairly causes her to lose her job as a theater scrubwoman. While working as a cigarette girl, she meets Gordon Phillips (Norman Kerry), a handsome and wealthy but frivolous young man, who is a society sculptor.Terry becomes jealous when Amarilly starts hanging out with Gordon, and he breaks off the engagement. Gordon offers Amarilly a job with his wealthy and snobbish aunt, Mrs. Phillips (Ida Waterman). When the neighborhood is quarantined after a breakout of scarlet fever, Mrs. Phillips decides to take the time to teach Amarilly high class manners in a Pygmalion-like experiment. However, once she discovers her nephew has fallen in love with Amarilly, she turns against her. Mrs. Phillips tries to humiliate Amarilly by inviting her family over for a social party.Amarilly is outraged and returns to her old home. She sees Terry and invites him for supper. He is delighted, and on the way to her house, he stops to buy expensive 50 cent violets, even though he had earlier passed up violets at 15 cents. He is shot by accident, and barely makes it to Amarilly's house before collapsing. Terry survives. Amarilly visits him in the hospital and tells him that when he gets out, they have a date at City Hall.The final scene is five years later. Amarilly is in a sidecar on Terry's motor bike; they both are nicely dressed and seem to be doing well. Then it is revealed under the blanket she has a baby, and behind Terry is a little boy. Amarilly of Clothes-Line Alley is a 1918 American silent romantic comedy film starring Mary Pickford that was directed by Marshall Neilan and written by Frances Marion based upon a novel by Belle K. Maniates. Like many American films of the time, Amarilly of Clothes-Line Alley was subject to cuts by city and state film censorship boards. For example, the Chicago Board of Censors required a cut, in Reel 1, of a closeup of money in a man's hand and, Reel 4, maid opening door to alleged house of ill-fame and man entering. Affectionately dubbed "America's Sweetheart", Mary Pickford was one of the most influential and beloved of that small group of film pioneers who helped motion pictures mature from a technical marvel into an art form. It is difficult in today's climate of instant media access for us to fully grasp just how popular Pickford was in her day.Embraced by virtually the entire world, every twenty-four hours 12.5 million people reportedly went to see her at the flickers. She perfected her craft in an era of film when very few people actually saw her natural acting style for the hard work and genius it was. George Cukor often referred to her as the first method actor. She is simply wonderful in Amarilly of Clothes-line Alley and her glowing performance offers fans a glimpse of her charm. Director Marshall Neilan crafted this funny yet telling look at love and life on differing social levels from a book by Belle K. Maniates adapted by Frances Marion, another pioneer of silent film. Beautifully photographed by Walter Stradling, this silent from 1918 was sophisticated and brilliant for its time. Even today, the underlying message and story seem fresh despite its age. Pickford displays a natural acting style much more subtle than the histrionic gesturing so common at the time. She had worked hard to develop her craft, and it gives her performance a timeless appeal. Marshall Neilan's film derives much of its charm, in fact, from her performance. I LOVED the 10-minute short "The Dream" which is included as a special feature. Mary Pickford plays the part of a loving wife whose husband is having an affair and doing his own thing when he's gone. Mary's character cooks for him but the man comes home just to be difficult and mean to his wife, throwing the chair around and treating her wrong.But then we see a transformation of Mary Pickford's character, from the loving wife to the trash-talking, smoking and rude and crude woman as she destroys the home and laughs in her husband's face and leaves him for a rich man. What a darling angelic screen presence Mary Pickford was! And today, over a century later, she still shines as bright. Our Mary manages to be both a spitfire and a angel in a way no other actress from any era could match (and indeed, in this crude era with talentless, tacky starlets you won't be seeing any Mary Pickford types back on the screen anytime soon.) AMARILLY is one of the best Pickford films I have seen - she has a wonderful star "entrance" in the film where an unseen woman is cleaning a window - as she wipes it clean we see through the glass plate it's our girl Mary!!! I've always considered Mary Pickford the best comedienne of the silent screen and this little gem had me laughing like it was a Chaplin or Keaton film. Mary was arguably the very first romantic comedy movie star - love is the theme of many of her movies and this movie is no exception, one of her most charming romance films. The print is quite nice though a few scenes are sadly imperfect. As a wonderful bonus, the video includes one of Mary's early one-reelers, 1911's The Dream in which Mary plays the wife of a cheating drunkard who in one drunken sleep imagines the tables turned (with our Little Mary smoking and knocking down booze!!). This little short is as good as the feature! This DVD is produced and distributed by the mighty MILESTONE FILMS and IMAGE ENTERTAINMENT, which produces and distributes the highest quality of early Hollywood silent features and shorts. Don't be fooled by the cheap, imitation DVD issues of early silent films. IMAGE ENTERTAINMENT & THE MILESTONE COLLECTION have the BEST quality of early HOLLYWOOD CLASSIC films!! This rare DVD is in PRISTINE, LIKE NEW condition with no blemishes on the DVD disc. The case is in GOOD-LIKE NEW condition!! See photos!!! This RARE DVD is OUT OF PRINT and hard to find...especially in this superb condition!! Will be shipped VERY SECURELY!!! Payment thru PayPal THANKS FOR LOOKING!!!! "Make them laugh, make them cry, and back to laughter. Why do people go to the theatre for? An emotional exercise. . . . I am a servant of the people. I have never forgotten that." -MARY PICKFORD, "AMERICA'S SWEETHEART"

Price: 39.95 USD

Location: Lake Stevens, Washington

End Time: 2025-01-27T07:30:21.000Z

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