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Sparrows |
List Price: $29.99
Your Price: $26.99 |
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Reviews |
Features:
Description:
Mary Pickford is the cinema's true Peter Pan. She played spunky waifs and adolescent spitfires well into adulthood and remains best remembered as the crusading orphan raging against ruthless villains and natural disasters with pluck, courage, and hope. Sparrows is quintessential Pickford, the tale of a ragtag collection of orphans made virtual slaves by a gnarled, swamp-dwelling Simon Legree. As the big sister/mother hen of the grimy brood, she takes it upon herself to lead them out of this fetid hell through the alligator-infested swamp, with their vicious master in hot pursuit. It's Oliver Twist as a mustache-twirling melodrama, pure sentimental pulp that verges on mawkish but for Pickford's innocence and sincerity and William Beaudine's rousing direction. He turns the climactic chase into a thrilling escape, dodging alligators and leaping across muddy bogs (according to Pickford, who used no stunt double, those are real alligators in the water) but transcends his entire career in one astounding scene. As Pickford cradles a dead child in her arms, Jesus steps forth from a painting and carries his lamb into Heaven, transforming death into a soaring moment of salvation. The restored prints, from the Mary Pickford Foundation, is beautiful and features an organ score by the great Gaylord Carter. The DVD also features a short documentary narrated by Whoopi Goldberg and two early D.W. Griffith shorts starring Pickford: Wilful Peggy (1910) and The Mender of Nets (1912). --Sean Axmaker
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