America's sweetheart, actress and producer Mary Pickford, dazzled the audiences of the silent era with this heartrending melodrama about two young women whose fates become inextricably entwined. In Marshall Neilan's lush version of William J. Locke's novel, with a screenplay from Pickford collaborator and two-time Oscar winner Frances Marion, the performer plays beautiful, bedridden adoptee Stella Maris, who was born into privilege and devotion, and able-bodied, but significantly less beautiful orphan Unity Blake, who was born into poverty and deprivation.
Though Stella has spent most of her life stuck inside four well-appointed walls, she has a trusty canine companion named Teddy (resplendent in his jeweled collar), a view of the sea, and regular visits from John Risca (Conway Tearle), a family friend who frequently arrives bearing gifts. Stella's adoptive parents, Sir Oliver and Lady Blount (Ida Waterman and Herbert Standing), have insisted on shielding her from “the sordidness and misery of life," so John has never told her about his wife. As he tells Lord Blount, once Louisa (Marcia Manon) turned to the bottle, "The woman in her died, and she became this Thing."
After John leaves the cruel Louisa, she adopts Unity--as a servant. A sweet, simple soul, Unity earns her wrath when some naughty boys steal her basket of produce. The cops refuse to help, she comes home empty-handed, and Louisa beats her so viciously that Unity ends up in the hospital and Louisa ends up in prison. Riddled with guilt, John assumes her care. As the years pass, Stella gains the ability to walk, and she and John grow closer than ever--though he still doesn't tell her about his wife.
This brings Stella and Unity together in scenes that incorporate double exposure to make it look as if Pickford were acting opposite herself. Beyond the technical logistics, the graceful Stella and awkward Unity look so different that it's hard to believe they're embodied by the same actress. The former is consistently decked out in exquisite outfits and her famed cascading curls, while her wan counterpart is confined to severe apparel and flattened hair, but both are poignant in their unique ways.
The thorny situation comes to a head when both women fall for John just as Louisa's three-year prison sentence is coming to an end. In the interim, Stella's sunny disposition has diminished upon exposure to the war and poverty of the wider world.
Nonetheless, the director brings this sad story to a happy conclusion with an act of sacrifice inventively shot by cinematographer Walter Stradling, while still making time for some funny business involving Teddy and a tiny Pomeranian who incites his jealousy. For all its humor, romance, and state-of-the-art special effects, though, Stella Maris never sugarcoats the title character's advantages as a woman with looks, education, and wealth, even as she's no better or kinder than the unlucky Unity.
The Mary Pickford Foundation and Paramount Film Archive constructed this 4K restoration from a 1967 dupe negative and an incomplete 1925 tinted print, both in 35mm, bringing all the charm and heartache of the tale to indelible life. An absolutely essential release for any public or academic library film collection devoted to melodrama, silent cinema, or the work of the marvelous Mary Pickford.
What film collection does this belong in?
Stella Maris belongs in academic and public libraries with other films starring Mary Pickford, many of which were directed by Marshall Neilan, like his prior literary adaptations Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm and A Little Princess, both from 1917.
What kind of film series would this movie fit in?
Stella Maris belongs in a film series on the work of Mary Pickford, an enduring icon due to her talent and beauty, in addition to her acumen as a producer and United Artists cofounder with D.W. Griffith, Charlie Chaplin, and her husband, Douglas Fairbanks.
What type of library programming could use this title?
Library programming on silent cinema, particularly the popular melodrama, could make excellent use of Stella Maris.