Suds
About Suds
Amanda Afflick slaves in a London laundry under Madame Didier and keeps the shirt Horace Greensmith left months ago. When the other women laugh, she invents a ducal past and a forbidden romance with him. The delivery horse Lavender collapses, Madame orders the horse killed, and Amanda buys it and tries to keep it in her rooms. Lady Burke-Cavendish takes Lavender to her country place. Horace returns for the shirt. Amanda begs him to play the lover in front of the laundry; he agrees, then recoils at how shabby she looks and leaves. Lady Burke later hires Amanda as a maid. At the estate Amanda finds Horace working there, and the two fall in love.
Cast & crew
More about Suds
Mary Pickford produced and plays Amanda. John Francis Dillon directed. Waldemar Young wrote the scenario from the 1904 play 'Op o' Me Thumb, which Maude Adams had played in New York as a curtain-raiser for Peter Pan. Charles Rosher and L. William O'Connell photographed it. Max Parker was art director. United Artists released it on June 27, 1920.
Themes
Making
Pickford chose Dillon and a London laundry play at the moment she was releasing through the company she had just helped start. The shirt gag and the horse are the two things the laundry story hangs on.
Look
Charles Rosher and L. William O'Connell lit the laundry so the tubs and hanging clothes sit in depth behind Pickford, rather than as a flat backdrop.
Technique
A stop-motion passage animates Horace's shirt as it slips into Amanda's daydream. Another trick shot puts flies on her leg.
Preservation
Prints survive, including a copy posted from a complete circulating version.
Notes
- Albert Austin plays Horace Greensmith. Harold Goodwin plays Benjamin Pillsbury, the driver who wants Amanda. Rose Dione plays Madame Jeanne Gallifilet Didier.
- The laundry is in London. Lady Burke-Cavendish is the customer who saves the horse.
- A stop-motion shot sends a shirt off into Amanda's fantasy.
- Lavender was kept in Douglas Fairbanks's stable during the shoot, ate too well, and had ribs painted on so the horse would still look half-starved. Pickford married Fairbanks while the film was in production.
- United Artists distributed it. Paramount did not.
Scenes
- Amanda tells the laundry that the unclaimed shirt belongs to her noble fiancé.
- She buys Lavender rather than let Madame send the horse to be killed, then curls the horse's forelock like a girl's hair.
- Horace comes for the shirt, plays along, and then leaves when he sees her clothes.
- At Lady Burke's estate Amanda finds him working, not reigning.
Influenced by
- The 1904 play 'Op o' Me Thumb
Also available
- Internet Archive (Suds_1920)
