Coquette
Tags: romantic, murder

Plot synopsis:
The story is about Eliza Wharton, the daughter of a clergyman. At the beginning of the novel she has just been released from an unwanted marriage by the death of her betrothed, the Rev. Haly, also a clergyman, whom Eliza nursed during his final days in her own home. After this experience, she decides she wants friendship and independence. After a short period of time living with friends, she is courted by two men. One, Boyer, is a respected but rather boring clergyman, whom all of her friends and her mother recommend she accept in marriage. The other, Sanford, is an aristocratic libertine, who has no intention to marry but determines not to let another man have Eliza. Because of her indecision and her apparent preference for the libertine Sanford, Boyer eventually gives up on her, deciding that she will not make a suitable wife. Sanford also disappears from her life and marries another woman, Nancy, for her fortune. Eliza eventually decides that she really loved Boyer and wants him back. Unfortunately for Eliza, Boyer has already decided to marry Maria Selby, a relation of Boyer's friend. Sanford later reappears married, but is able to seduce the depressed Eliza. They have a hidden affair for some time until, overcome by guilt and unwilling to face her family and friends, Eliza arranges to escape from her home. Like the real-life Elizabeth Whitman, she dies due to childbirth complications and is buried by strangers. Mrs. Wharton (Eliza's mother) and all of Eliza's friends are deeply saddened by her death. Sanford, too, is devastated by her death. In a letter to his friend, Charles Deighton, he expresses his regret at his wretched behavior.

Review: It's rather unfortunate that this is the only film for which many current movie fans remember Mary Pickford, because of the neglect of silent films and because of the undue weight given to well-known but arbitrary motion picture awards.
Nor is it one of the worst movies ever - it does contain some stretches of genuinely good acting, and the story is at least a little better than the warmed-over scenarios of so many recent movies.Pickford deserves to be remembered for her many fine performances during the silent era.
Mary Pickford won the Best Actress Oscar for her performance in this film - and this fact has dominated the way people have treated it over the years.
Of course she's too old for the role - but she was too old for nearly every part she ever played, and just a few years later Leslie Howard and Norma Shearer played Romeo and Juliet to great acclaim - so such age issues were probably not issues in 1929.It is true that she talks a little like an adult Shirley Temple (did Shirley model herself on Mary - they certainly played many of the same roles?)- but her silent acting is excellent - her looks can really kill.The supporting cast is not very good, except for the wonderful Louise Beavers, - but Johnny Mack Brown is devastatingly handsome as Mary's love interest.
The script betrays its stage origins, and the film suffers the same problems most early talkies suffer - inadequate use of music, poorly synchronised sound effects, completely absent sound effects (eg doors opening and closing silently), and limited movement of both actors and camera.But all things considered this is a worthwhile little film - certainly not great but not as bad as myth would have it.
Watching the great silent stars struggling in early talkies, I always feel that they were learning a new craft, just as the cameramen, directors and writers were.
But within ten years of this film being made Gilbert and Fairbanks were dead, Gish was carving out a new career on the stage, Pickford, Swanson, Bow, Talmadge, Brooks and Moore had retired, Joy was doing the occasional character role and even Ramon Novarro was out of work.
Mary Pickford hoped that this vehicle would be a solid entrance into the new sound medium as well as scuttle her "little Mary" image that had plagued her for the last decade.At age 37, Pickford is too old to play Norma Besant, BUT she looks great so the age factor is not really a problem.
But these 2 good performers can't save the film from the rotten acting of St. Polis (he plays a despicable character) and William Janney who plays brother Jimmy.
Matt Moore plays a sad-sack suitor to no great effect, and Henry Kolker is over the top as the prosecuting lawyer.The screenplay is probably too close to the stage play, and director Sam Taylor seems to have absolutely NO ear for dialog or eye for composition.Despite the antiquated story about southern pride and the value of truth, Pickford and Brown are well worth watching.
Her final scene, walking from the court house and down the street is quite memorable in its beauty and simplicity.Yes, Mary Pickford won an Oscar for this performance, but the award is likely for the 20 years of films and superstardom she brought to this talkie debut.
Okay, sound equipment may have been awful then - "talkies" were brand new in 1929 - but that fact does nothing to make it less pretentious when the characters stretch their mouths to yawn proportions to utter dated lines like, "darling, I love you more than life itself."Then there's the plot, another feature of this film that is as quaint as the acting and the dialogue.
"Norma," played legendary silent screen actress Mary Pickford at the end of her prolific career, becomes "compromised" by a night with a boyfriend, Michael.
At least it did until it dawned on me that this was only because OTHERS came along LATER and followed (intentionally or not) Croquette's lead.Overall, I found Croquette a solid film and Pickford's performance quite good, although it took me a while to accept the accent.
I'll split the difference and call it a "7." While I will probably continue to envision Mary Pickford as the pre-teen or early-teen ragamuffin of silent film days, I am very glad to have a copy of her best "talkie." Don't dismiss her Oscar, either.
Mary Pickford's great concern--that future generations would laugh openly at the outdated style of her old movies--is borne out in full fruition in this absolutely miserable film..
The irony is that the most obvious problem facing director Sam Taylor, that of convincing the audience that our heroine is not middle-aged society matron Mary Pickford, but the youthful and titular Norma Besant, is sufficiently disguised so that the camera and film technology available in 1929 do not betray that much of Mary's true appearance.
Older actresses have pulled off such deceptions, to great success, in stage performances; unfortunately this, essentially "filmed play," never does raise itself cinematically above the credibility level of the rotten, arthritic showboat melodrama it is.
Helen Hayes had a big success on Broadway in this drama of a Southern flapper juggling her beaux, so it must have seemed a good vehicle for Mary Pickford's talkie debut.
Apart from a greater understanding of the history of the cinema, one answer is a much better appreciation of the traumas associated with the transition from the silent film era to that of the talkies, and another is greater respect for the achievements of early stars who are recognised today more by their names than by their performances.
By today's standards Coquette would barely justify a five star rating, but recognising that everyone involved, cast, director, cameraman and the new and vital 'recording artist' (who I could not even find credited) were learning a new trade together, the original film was certainly worth an eight.
Mary Pickford is a favorite of mine from the silent era, which makes her early talkie 'Coquette' so much the sadder.
The Academy Awards made no more sense in these early days than they have later on, and Pickford won an Oscar as an appreciation for more than a quarter of a century on the silver screen.She didn't deserve the Oscar, and the film, with all the failings of an undistinguished early talkie, is hard to watch today, and I am saying that as a lover of pictures of the time.
The Southern accents are grating to the ears, the voices shrill, partly, I believe, because of the way they were recorded, and the acting hammy.Mary Pickford is the Southern Jezebel Norma who flirts with all the boys, but takes a special fancy to hunky working-class Michael (Johnny Mack Brown looks excruciatingly young in this part).
It's flawed and not going to be your favorite film of all time or anything, but it's worth spending the 75 minutes to watch Pickford and the rest of this cast..
before you watch this film you must know it is not a grate movie such as GWTW (gone with the wind ) cause it was released in 1929, which mean it was The first talkie film for Mary Pickford so the sound isn't that much but it isn't that bad.
It was a lovely thing to watch a film in 1929 to know how much they were brave to start a new line , Miss Pickford was The first Major actress to speak in a movie she was a very brave lady and the only reason I put 7 out of 10 is because of her acting, her voice was very good at that time (which is because she acted in the theater at the beginning of her career), although her acting was such like an acting on the stage, but she has her moments especially at her final scene she brought it to the screen perfectly.
"Coquette" is worth watching if you are a fan of Ms.Pickford but, not her best performance....
There has been a great deal of debate over the years as to whether Mary Pickford deserved her Oscar for this movie.
Personally I feel the best performance in the movie was by the actor playing Mary's father.
I don't know who these people are who have written reviews for Coquette, but it's my first Mary Pickford film and there is no reason she should ever be laughed at for her old fashioned style.
Anyone who couldn't sit through the beginning and watch Pickford's over-the-top 20s coquette (can't you see there was a purpose here?) doesn't deserve the honor of seeing what she became...a truly convincing, fully engaged actress who I would prefer to watch any time over most 21st century movies that are carried purely on special effects.
These folks (especially the actors, many of whom spoke, for the very first time)were indeed pioneers!We also have to acknowledge the fact that Mary Pickford won an academy award for her work here.
I was born 30 years after this film came out, so it was a task to put myself into the head of a man who had been raised on a steady diet of Silent Movies.It was so exciting, watching Mary speak, knowing that she had been a HUGE STAR, for YEARS, in Silents, and finally the world was confronted with the total package of Mary Pickford-----her movements, her persona and her voice.
It must have been truly fascinating to hear what their heroine's voice sounded like, after all those years.A few general comments about the cast:John St. Polis (who played her father):What a terrific actor!
He died 63 years later, at the age of 84.Mary Pickford:Though she began her performance, weak, and could be accused of overacting, she got better and better, as the film wore on.
And this looks odd in a movie.Coquette is probably best remembered now as the movie for which (mostly) silent star Mary Pickford won her only Oscar for acting.
He also makes some attempt to bring a bit of cinematic dynamism to what is essentially a filmed play, making sharp changes of angle at key moments such as St. Polis's walking in on Pickford and Brown, but by-and-large the fact that nearly everything takes place in one room – or rather a frontless set – is inescapable.Perhaps we shouldn't be too hard on Coquette, as its flaws are really only the flaws of its era.
Best acting honors, such as they are, go to John St. Polis, who plays her father.It is a story of honor and customs in the Old South in the early 20th century, and some elements of the plot are tough to swallow, especially in 2011.
This was actress Mary Pickford's first 'talkie.' At times, the acting is rather wordy and staged, but then it was a stage play before the film.
A doctor's daughter (Mary Pickford) outrages her tradition- bound father (John St. Polis) by falling in love with an uncultivated fellow from "the hills" (John Mack Brown).
For her sound film debut, Mary Pickford chose what she figured would have a built in box office appeal besides her own good name, a long running Broadway play.
Still there's a trace of the juvenile in her performance as a young and flirty southern belle who her father, John St. Polis, should not be out slumming with white trash like Johnny Mack Brown.
It probably helped that Mary was involved with Johnny Mack Brown at the time of the filming of Coquette.
Though it wouldn't get a look today, I'm sure Mary's performance in that transition year, probably was one of the best and she no doubt deserved her Best Actress Oscar.Coquette is a play I'm sure you won't see get revived to often.
This was 1929, the year that proved that few in the movie business had a clue what to do with sound, and "Coquette" recreates the experience of watching a badly-directed high school play.The story is some Southern claptrap about a ditzy rich girl who wants to marry someone below her and the father who won't let her.
COQUETTE (United Artists, 1929), subtitled "a drama of the American south," produced and directed by Sam Taylor, goes on record as the movie where movie audiences got to hear Mary Pickford's voice for the first time.
Like many other silent screen performers of that time, she attempted the new medium of what was classified as "the talkies." While Pickford could have selected any one of her previous silent screen efforts to remake as her talking debut such as SPARROWS (1926), a Pickford favorite of many, the selection for her talking introduction was taken from a 1927-28 play, "Coquette," that starred Helen Hayes.
At least her attempt in the new medium proved that she was as good as she ever was, even for only a brief span.Set in the south where location is not disclosed, the story opens the evening of June 6, 1928, where Norma Besant (Mary Pickford) is to be escorted to an upcoming dance at the Sunnydale Country Club.
Later, it is Norma who is asked to do an impossible task by Robert Wentworth (George Irving), Besant's attorney, to testify on her father's behalf at the trial to prevent his being executed for murder.Overlooking the fact that COQUETTE is an early talkie, handicapped by echoing sound recording and voices coming in and out from audio, the "drama of the American South," or better yet, "the drama of a Southern family," does have its advantages in acting range and story.
John Mack Brown, a Southerner by birth, is naturally cast, making his character believable and acceptable.Had COQUETTE been filmed in silent film tradition, or even a few years later into the mid 1930s where sound technology was greatly improved, COQUETTE would have succeeded, especially the near decade end of Southern themes as JEZEBEL (1938) and GONE WITH THE WIND (1939) where these productions won its lead actresses (Bette Davis and Vivien Leigh respectively) Academy Awards for playing Southern belles.
The first few Oscar ceremonies were, perhaps inevitably, characterized by films whose appeal has faded with the passage of time; this one – which gave "America's Sweetheart", Mary Pickford, her Best Actress nod – is certainly among the biggest culprits in this regard!
The doctor, understanding the nature of his daughter's sacrifice and mortified of his own actions, then takes the matter in hand and shoots himself on the spot with the very same gun that instigated the tragedy.Despite having such luminaries as cinematographer Karl Struss and art director William Cameron Menzies among the credits, as I said, there is nothing remarkable about the film's style: actually, the whole Southern atmosphere drowns the interest all the more with the embarrassing repetition of such corny phrases as "honey precious" (the way in which Pickford addresses her father!), her pet phrase "adowable {sic}" and that of her younger brother, "jiminy"!
Ms. Pickford was one of the greatest early film performers; and, this, her first sound offering, is an artistic failure.
** Coquette (3/30/29) Sam Taylor ~ Mary Pickford, Johnny Mack Brown, John St. Polis.
The movie should be watched once because of its' history - Pickford's Oscar performance.
Even though it was filmed on a sound stage it seems as if great designer William Cameron Menzies has just cleverly redressed one set to look like the living room of the mansion, the country club and most disturbing of all, the courtroom.And then we're done.Savagely bad, it made a million bucks when that meant something and won Mary Pickford a best actress Oscar, the dubiousness of which is on view for all to see.
In this film, the sound varies according to who is speaking--some of the actors come across loud and clear and others (such as Miss Pickford and the man who played her brother) were a major chore to understand.
It was Mary Pickford's first sound film and she did win the Best Actress Oscar for it.
So often, lines were delivered as if this were an old-time morality play being performed in front of a lot of hicks who loved and expected over-acting.
The worst of these was at the end of the film when Pickford's father grabbed the gun which had been submitted into evidence for this courtroom scene.
This film won Mary Pickford the second Oscar for Best Actress ever awarded, and was one of the more controversial decisions ever made by the Academy for that particular award.
Pickford plays Norma Besant, daughter of Dr. John Besant, a southern belle of the flapper era known as a "coquette" - in modern terms, a flirt.
Thus when the young man performs the bold act of coming to his house to ask for his daughter's hand in marriage and mentions that they have been alone together the night before - though they were only talking about their future plans - Norma's father follows after Mike and shoots him down in cold blood.What follows is Pickford's best scene.
He has no trouble taking the law into his own hands whether it is his life or someone else's life on the line.Pickford's performance viewed today appears merely mediocre compared those of other early talkie actresses.
77½ minutes.SYNOPSIS: Southern belle falls for a man hated by her father.NOTES: Academy Awards, Best Actress, Mary Pickford (defeating Ruth Chatterton in Madame X, Betty Compson in The Barker, Jeanne Eagels in The Letter and Bessie Love in The Broadway Melody).The stage play opened on Broadway at Maxine Elliott's on 8 November 1927 and ran a smash 366 performances.
Coquette (1929) has not weathered the years well and even in its own time, I doubt it provided the audience much outside of the chance to hear Mary Pickford's voice.
Even the fluttering likes of Blanche Dubois would be sick of her.Combined with the dull staging characteristic of a good number of early sound films and much unintentional humor, Coquette is best saved for film buffs and Pickford fans.