M'Liss
About M'Liss
In Red Gulch, in the High Sierra, Melissa Smith, called M'Liss, lives with her father, Bummer, whose only paying property is a chicken named Hildegarde. She holds up Yuba Bill's stagecoach. He lets her go. Schoolteacher Charles Gray gets her into the schoolroom. She talks back to the board and is expelled. That day someone stabs Bummer in the back. The sheriff jails Charles, the last visitor. Clara Peterson arrives, says she is Bummer's widow, and claims the will. M'Liss will not accept her as a mother. Charles is sentenced to 60 years. M'Liss breaks him out. A posse shoots a man she thinks is Charles. It is Jim Peterson. Jim and Mexican Joe confess they killed Bummer for the will. The money goes to M'Liss, and Charles is free.
Cast & crew
More about M'Liss
Marshall Neilan directed. Alfred E. Green was assistant director. Frances Marion wrote the screenplay from Bret Harte's novella M'liss: An Idyll of Red Mountain. The Mary Pickford Foundation dates the novella 1873. Wikipedia dates it 1863. Walter Stradling photographed it in the San Bernardino Mountains near Idyllwild. Paramount released the five-reel picture. Wikipedia gives 5 June 1918. The Pickford Foundation gives 18 April 1918. A circulating copy runs 72 minutes 56 seconds. Listed runtime is 73 minutes.
Themes
Making
Neilan shot the mining-town story in the San Bernardino Mountains. The will, not a lynching, is what Jim and Mexican Joe kill Bummer for.
Reviews
The Los Angeles Times of 8 April 1918 reviewed the picture and singled out Pickford's feet: more expressive, the paper said, than most people's faces.
Look
Walter Stradling photographed the Red Gulch story in the San Bernardino Mountains near Idyllwild.
Music
Silent, with English intertitles.
Preservation
A print survives. One copy runs 72 minutes 56 seconds.
Notes
- Mary Pickford plays Melissa Smith. Theodore Roberts plays Bummer. Thomas Meighan plays Charles Gray.
- Tully Marshall is Judge Joshua McSnagley. Charles Ogle is Yuba Bill. Monte Blue is Mexican Joe Dominguez. Winifred Greenwood is Clara Peterson. Val Paul is Jim Peterson.
- Helen Kelly plays Clytemnestra Veronica McSnagley.
- An earlier M'Liss was made in 1915. Gladys Walton starred in the 1922 remake The Girl Who Ran Wild. Anne Shirley starred in another M'Liss in 1936.
- The Los Angeles Times reviewed it on 8 April 1918 and wrote that Pickford's feet were more expressive than most people's faces.
- Bummer's one dividend-paying asset is the chicken Hildegarde.
Scenes
- M'Liss stops Yuba Bill's stagecoach. He is more taken with her than angry.
- She finds Charles in the jail and later hears a 60-year sentence.
- The posse shoots Jim Peterson. He and Mexican Joe admit the stabbing.
Influenced by
- Bret Harte's M'liss: An Idyll of Red Mountain
Influenced
- The Girl Who Ran Wild (1922)
- M'Liss (1936)
Also available
- Internet Archive (MaryPickford6)
