M'Liss (1918)

So much average

Absolutely the worst movie.

A lot of fun.

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

M'Liss is the quintessential feisty, self-sufficient adolescent girl, that Mary Pickford naturally played the best. This story is about a bold and sassy girl, more mother than daughter to her alcoholic father, who is killed leaving the girl to fend for herself. M'Liss is also an amusing parody on Westerns, with the brazen girl holding up stagecoaches with a slingshot and romping around the countryside like a wildcat. Theodore Roberts is adorable as her drunken father , with his sole asset Hidegarde, the chicken he guards so lovingly as her eggs are traded for whiskey. All the supporting actors are very good in their roles. I especially enjoyed Charles Ogle, as Yuba Bill who cares for M'Liss in a fatherly fashion. Mary plays M'Liss with her usual combination of charm and pluckiness. There is a scene in the film in which M'Liss carries a snake into a classroom, causing some turmoil. Pickford found out later that the scene, which was not in the script, was a result of a bet between director Mickey Neilan and the crew. Neilan came up with the idea of working a snake into the story and the crew told him Mary would never agree. He laid a bet, and he won. All the exterior scenes were filmed very artistically on location, near Boulder Creek in Northern California, by the outstanding cinematographer Walter Stradling. Though not considered one of Pickford's best films, M'Liss is still very enjoyable to watch.

"M'Liss" is a pleasant, if pointless, Marry Pickford vehicle. In it, the then-26-year-old played a mischievous teenage mountain girl who sports a slingshot. Mary often played child roles, but it's somewhat unseemly here considering that little time elapses between her character placing a doll in a coffin and grave to her and her schoolmaster falling in love. Today's audiences might also find it interesting to see in the film a public classroom where Bible stories appear to be the main curriculum (and Mary is amusing playing the skeptic)."M'Liss" is a mostly breezy and light film, but it would've benefited from further shortening, namely in the plentiful number of title cards. Scenarist Frances Marion deserved much credit for helping to launch Mary's stardom and typecasting her in child roles, beginning with "The Poor Little Rich Girl", and Marion is one of the most important screenwriters in film history, but in the silent era, she sometimes had the vice of talking too much. The subplot of inheritance from a rich relative, which helps tack on a happy ending, was also unnecessary.

This adaptation of the Bret Harte story is a ready-made vehicle for Mary Pickford, with a blend of comedy and melodrama that allows her to perform a lot of different material. Although there are some serious story developments, the tone is usually kept rather light, and Pickford is as engaging as ever.The story has her playing a wild daughter of a now-destitute miner, meeting the town's new schoolteacher, and contending with a plot to deprive her father of an inheritance. Actually, some of the incidental sequences are the best, and give her the best opportunities to develop her character while entertaining the audience.Theodore Roberts is sympathetic as the father, Thomas Meighan is solid as the schoolteacher, and some of the other cast members get an occasional good moment. The story largely follows a familiar formula, but it works, and it provides good entertainment with a great leading actress.

This story boasts a fine silent film star cast, including Pickford, Meighan, and Blue, and the screenplay by Frances Marion has funny moments and title cards to go along with the story of a backwards girl fighting to save the local innocent schoolteacher from being convicted for the murder of her father.I loved the moment where Pickford confronts Meighan about the murder. Their faces are close together through the bars of the jail cell and they communicate with eyes and facial gestures alone (no title cards) so that we know what is transpiring between them without a word needing to be said. Beautiful. Meighan had such a strong masculine face, no wonder why he was so popular in the silent days as a leading man and why all the actresses loved to work with him.At times the story seems rambling, but half-way through it becomes very cohesive and you really learn to care for these characters and their fate.