The Poor Little Rich Girl (1917)
Neglected by her wealthy, distracted parents and left in the care of indifferent servants, eleven-year-old Gwendolyn accidentally overdoses on sleeping medicine and drifts into a feverish dream world where personified Death and Life vie for her survival.
Adapted by Frances Marion from a Broadway play, The Poor Little Rich Girl marked the first time Mary Pickford carried an entire feature as a child, a persona that would define much of her stardom for the next decade. Shot in Fort Lee, New Jersey, it entered the National Film Registry in 1991.
Background
The Poor Little Rich Girl was adapted by Frances Marion from Eleanor Gates’s Broadway play and directed by Maurice Tourneur. It was a feature in which Mary Pickford played a child, a persona that would shape much of her stardom over the following decade. It was shot in Fort Lee, New Jersey, a center of early American film production. The film entered the National Film Registry in 1991, and it is in the public domain. Its fantasy sequences, in which personified Death and Life vie for the child’s survival, give it a dreamlike quality that was unusual for its period.
What to watch for
Watch Pickford’s performance as Gwendolyn, a neglected eleven-year-old whose wealthy parents are too distracted to notice her. Her accidental overdose on sleeping medicine drives the film into its dream sequences, where Death and Life appear as personified figures contesting her fate. The contrast between the cold household and the fantasy scenes gives the film its structure. At about 64 minutes the story is compact, and its blend of social criticism and fantasy makes it an interesting example of late-1910s melodrama built around a child’s point of view.
