My Best Girl (1927)

At age 34, Mary Pickford was perhaps a bit long in the tooth to play an innocent department store stock-room girl in this, her final silent film. In an obvious attempt to duplicate the success of the much younger Colleen Moore, who had made such Cinderella stories her specialty, Pickford took the unusual step of actually working as a sales clerk, incognito of course, in order to get a feel for her character. Added to cameraman Charles Rosher's loving soft-focus and Mary's unerring ability to make the right acting choices, the "training" apparently made all the difference and Pickford is never less than believable. A straightforward story that brought back memories of an earlier, less strenuous era, My Best Girl presented Pickford as Maggie Johnson, the lowest member of the extended Merrill five-and-dime "family." Opening with a long, brilliantly executed montage and brimming with memorable moments, My Best Girl, although no masterpiece, almost gives credence to Pickford's oft quoted -- and tongue in cheek -- remark that "It would have been more logical if silent pictures had grown out of the talkie instead of the other way round." That life in this instance actually imitated art makes the film even more satisfying: Ten years later, Pickford would marry her young My Best Girl co-star, Charles "Buddy" Rogers, a union that would last a lifetime. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide