Mary Pickford (Mavis Hawn), Harold Goodwin (young Jason Honeycutt), Allan Sears (Jason as a man), Fred Huntley (Jason Hawn, the heroine's grandfather), Claire McDowell (Martha Hawn), Sam de Grasse (Steve Honeycutt), William Bainbridge (Colonel Pendleton), John Gilbert (Gray Pendleton), Betty Bouton (Marjorie Lee), Henry Hebert (Moreton Sanders), Fred Warren (John Burnham), Lillian Langton (Mrs Pendleton), Milla Davenport (Mrs Lippert), Percy Haswell Miss Pritchard).Director: Sidney A.
The book has been heavily edited and adapted to make it a Mary Pickford vehicle and the result is interesting and enjoyable.The DVD restoration is good and easy clear viewing, though as noted there as some small artifacts such as eye-whites a little to white - possibly due to the quality of the original film.
This is certainly an odd film with superstar Mary Pickford playing a simple "mountain gal" in Kentucky who deals with crooked outsiders who want the land for its timber and coal and who will do anything to get it. Episodic in nature the film includes a great comic "barn dance" sequence in what is essentially a solid melodrama about Mavis Hawn and her growth into womanhood.
I have seen a ton of Mary Pickford's films. While this is a very good one and ranks among her better films, it's certainly not among her best--such "Daddy Long Legs", "Suds", "My Best Girl" or "Sparrows".
What in the world happened in the transfer of this film to DVD? The print looks terrible, like someone used a sharpener filter over it so that it has all these little dots around everyone's faces and against objects like trees and such.
I watched this film without the usual musical soundtrack accompaniment and was totally hooked from the first few frames nevertheless. Mary Pickford was a little dynamo in her role in this film; I thoroughly enjoyed her and the rest of the cast.
The tense, somber melodrama in this Mary Pickford feature is complemented very well by Charles Rosher's photography, which helps to draw you in and makes you feel part of the characters' world. It has very little humor for a Pickford vehicle, and even the occasional lighter moments are almost invariably followed quickly by another serious turn, which keeps the mood serious most of the time.
Seeing America's Sweetheart Mary Pickford riding with the Ku Klux Klan is strange and unsettling and is in stark contrast to an otherwise pleasant and ordinary silent film. Yet, the KKK is featured in only one episode of this episodic picture, "The Heat o' the Hills".
When "America's Sweetheart", Mary Pickford, played this film's shotgun-toting, hillbilly heroin, Mavis Hawn, she was 28 years old and her character was 13. (Can you believe it!?
