Little Lord Fauntleroy (1921)

Ok, elephant in the Great Hall first. Despite the clever trick photography and the outsized furniture, I just couldn’t believe in the almost thirty-year-old Mary Pickford as the young “Ceddy”. Aside from the fact that she was attired as if she was an extra on a film about the English Civil War, it just didn’t work for me at all. This cinematic version of the book sticks closer to the original text, allowing us to briefly meet more of the family “Dorincourt” including the wastrel “Bevis” (Colin Kenny) who has manages to irk his father, the Earl (Claude Gillingwater) by marrying an American (also MP) and having a young son. After his horse puts paid to his son’s chances of inheriting, the old man has to eat some humble pie and invite his distant New York cousins to come to Britain. The young lad and his mum are not wealthy in the USA, far from it, but he is a kindly and well-liked boy who has three friends - the apple selling woman (Kate Price), the grocer “Mr. Hobbs” (James A. Marcus) and “Dick” (Fred Malatesta) whom he has no desire to leave. They all see the potential of him becoming an earl, though, and off he goes. First thing he discovers when he arrives at the stately pile is that his mother is to live elsewhere. Comfortably, but not in the castle. Over the next ninety minutes or so, we learn a little of what estranged this family and of just how much of a breath of fresh air “Ceddy” becomes in the life of his lonely and curmudgeonly grandfather and amongst the larger community. He is seen to be a caring and affectionate youngster, and as he embeds himself into their hearts they even have to deal with some opportunistic would-be interlopers too! It’s a story all about love, decency, trust and obstinacy, this one, and I think it’s one of the most poignant to adapt from page to film. Gillingwater does fine, as does the lively Price, but the pixie-esque Pickford just could not convince me that she wasn’t skipping along as if it were a well-produced and staged pantomime. The technical achievements are impressive, but this just wasn’t for me.