The Poor Little Rich Girl
About The Poor Little Rich Girl
Gwendolyn is eleven and rich, and her parents leave her to the servants. Her mother keeps to society. Her father is in money trouble and thinks of suicide. A maid who wants the evening off gives the child an extra dose of sleeping medicine. In the delirium Gwendolyn wanders a Garden of Lonely Children. Death invites her to rest, and Life wins her back. The crisis pulls her parents to the bedside.
Cast & crew
More about The Poor Little Rich Girl
Maurice Tourneur directed. Frances Marion adapted Eleanor Gates's 1913 play, which had starred Viola Dana on Broadway. Adolph Zukor produced. Artcraft released the film on 5 March 1917. Mary Pickford plays Gwendolyn, then in her twenties.
Themes
Background
Pickford was already the best-known actress in American films. Artcraft, Zukor's company, built features around her.
Making
Tourneur shot it at Fort Lee, while the studios there were still the center of American production. The dream was staged as a separate world from the mansion.
Look
Lucien Andriot and John van den Broek photographed the Fort Lee interiors and the fever dream, including the Garden of Lonely Children.
Preservation
A print survives. The film was selected for the National Film Registry in 1991.
Notes
- Madlaine Traverse plays the mother, Charles Wellesley the father, Gladys Fairbanks the maid Jane, Frank McGlynn Sr. the plumber, and Emile La Croix the organ grinder.
- Gladys Fairbanks had played in the stage production.
- The Library of Congress placed the film on the National Film Registry in 1991.
- Pickford's Gwendolyn has a mud fight with street boys and is hauled back inside by the staff.
Scenes
- The maid doubles the sleeping dose so she can go out.
- In the delirium, Death offers Gwendolyn rest and Life pulls her back.
Influenced by
- The Poor Little Rich Girl (play, 1913)
Also available
- Internet Archive (ThePoorLittleRichGirl)
- Wikimedia Commons
