Through the Back Door

This Mary Pickford feature has a little of everything, and while it hardly measures up to her best movies, it's a good movie with some enjoyable comedy and some thoughtful moments. The story is quite predictable, but it gives Pickford a chance to play the kind of character that her audiences loved, and that she herself portrayed so believably.

Pickford plays Jeanne, a young Belgian who is left behind when her mother is remarried to a rich American. When the war breaks out, Jeanne joins many other refugees, and heads to America to rejoin her mother, whom she finds in the midst of her own troubles. There are numerous complications, most of them quite familiar from other melodramas of the era. The supporting cast is solid, with Gertrude Astor particularly believable as the mother.

The main attraction of the movie is to see Pickford play the kind of resourceful, ever-hopeful young woman that allowed her to use her wide range of acting skills. The comic parts are good, and they include the sequence with Jeanne's innovative way of scrubbing a muddy floor. Pickford has good interactions with the other characters, both in dramatic scenes and in lighter moments.

The story itself is somewhat uneven, but Pickford keeps it going at all times. This one is probably of interest only to those who enjoy Pickford or silent movies in general, but for those who are already fans, it has more than enough to be worth seeing.