Coquette (1929)

I recall being at a lunch once with a fairly prominent British sport's commentator who had started out on the radio, but moved onto television. The hardest thing, he said, about the new medium was to adapt to the fact that it did much of the heavy lifting for you - you had to train yourself to let it. Mary Pickford - who won an Oscar for this - still wanted to be a silent film star here. She couldn't quite let the dialogue do her heavy lifting for her - and the result is an over-cooked performance that at time borders on the hysterical. It is a simple enough story - her father (John St. Polis) has aspirations for his family, and they don't include his daughter marrying "Michael Jeffrey" (Johnny Mack Brown). He forbids them from seeing one and other, and though obedient for a time, that doesn't last and they rendezvous - a meeting that has dire consequences. It's very theatrical in presentation. The first few scenes almost have you looking for their cue marks on the carpet - especially those featuring her amiable young brother "Jimmy" (William Janney) and her would-be beau "Stanley" (Matt Moore). It isn't a great play, so the film has little substantial to work with, but as a piece of embryonic speech cinema history it is certainly worth a watch, but I doubt anyone involved would consider it they best work - more a work in progress.