MARY PIOKFORD’S BEST

Evening Star, Issue 16778, 5 July 1918, Page 6

MARY PIOKFORD’S BEST

‘ REBECCA OF SUNNYBP.OOK FARM.' Mary Bickford's legion admirers will find their earthly paradise a.t the, Empire Theatre, where ‘Rebecca of Sunny brook Farm’ “went up” this afterAs the Rebecca of Kata Dougkv Wiggin’s Yew England story, she caiiuflt fail to _ enmesh those admirers yet more rt.oscly in the net of her winsome merson- | ality and vibrant artistry If ever a’photo- ; play demonstrated the shear ascendancy 'of personality, Ibis one does. The element |of drama, of suspense, is almost wholly ; wanting. and vet the production is 18-cara; 1 Sold throughout its f-even reels, primarily hi cause it reveals "our Mary” at her very , best—a delightful and cuddlesome little | imp in her schoolgirl pranks, lovely in h~r j occasional tearful moments, supremely | natural, and, in fine, the most toiling personality jn the shadow world of the j " movies.” I here are a!«o several other n&tal.k characterisations—the two aunts, for example; the hoirid Minnie Snn-llie, (about whom naughty Rebecca manufactures impertinent rhymes; and Adam I Ladd, tho hero of her schoolgirl fancy and the lover of her adolescence. Tho humor is of the pungent New England quality Mrs Wig a in. cave us iu * Mrs Wisps of the Cabbage Batch,’ a humor occasionally suffused with tear#. Rebecca, the central figure, is a little country girl .sent to live with her two maiden aunts in New England, that her mother may have one less to feed, clothe, and educate. Doesn't she just turn the village inside out with her lively pranks? In the first encounter she i has her only enemy (tho aforementioned j Smellic girl) “down and out,” and the whole village is her collective slave, saving 1 only the prim Aunt Jane, and the sour i Aunt Miranda., and even they are shaken j out of the nit of their decorously ordered life by the incursion of this little shortfrocked whirlwind. She. improvises a circus iu their barn, becomes a roap saleswoman to help tho village outcasts, and. generally, has tin? whole village on the holler.” Finally, getting entirely hpv.ond the he wiki-red .".lints’ control, she is despatched. to boarding school, where by the ;-ale of her ver.-cs she pays off tho mortgage on her mother's farm, emerges a charming young woman, and rntitles her 1 schoolgirl promise of aiurxiiur Adam Ladd j for her scuiiv through life. Bet it is mu- | file storv, nor the enrnentlv good photo- i granhv. '.villi its sensationally real rain- \ storm, that will he the magnet. It is inimitable Mary who will get ibr crowds one r—ed lie no prophet: to predict hr this production. The picture v.’iil be shown i until further notice.