Silent movies - Daddy Long Legs

"Daddy Long Legs", a silent movie with Mary Pickford from 1919, is based on the book of the same title written by Jean Webster and published in 1912 (the sequel "Dear Enemy" came out in 1915).
I first read the books when I was about 10. I spent a few days with my godmother at her parents' farm, and one of those days she had a hairdresser appointment and decided to take me along because everyone else was busy. As she figured I wouldn't find it very interesting there, she picked "Daddy Long Legs" from her shelf for me to read at the salon. I remember I liked the dust jacket and actually bought myself the same edition just for that years later.
I re-read the books more than once since then and did it again for this post although the movie just covers the first one.

Then I watched the movie, a challenge because it was my first try at watching a silent film without a musical score (there is also a different version which has a score and is colorized, though).

Film poster, public domain
via Wikimedia

Jerusha Abbott called Judy, found in a trash can as a baby, is the oldest orphan at the John Grier Home.
She tries to stand her ground and defend the younger children, but life under the hard and cruel rule of the matron Mrs. Lippett is tough for all the children at the orphanage (it can't have been much fun being an acting child at that time, either, from some of the scenes).
Her life changes when one of the trustees decides to send her to college. He wants his name to stay unknown to her and his only condition is for her to write one letter a month about her life and studies in college. All she has seen of him is his "grotesquely elongated" shadow on the wall which makes her give him the name "Daddy-Long-Legs".
At college, she shares a room with Sally McBride and Julia Pendleton. While telling them that she has a guardian, she can't bring it over herself to speak about the orphanage.
On the occasion of a Shakespeare play, she meets Sally's brother Jimmie and Julia's uncle Jarvis both of who are immediately smitten with her (thanks to a cupid messing up, those two scenes with the little love gods are very strange).
Sally's family invites Judy for the summer, but last minute she receives an order from Daddy-Long-Legs to spend her summer at a farm. Much to her surprise, Uncle Jarvis turns up for a visit with his old nurse, so does Jimmie eventually to see Judy, but he gets picked up by police for running into the mayor's car.
During a walk, Judy expresses how much she would like to have a family and Jarvis offers her his heart, but she declines because she's determined to write a novel, so she can pay Daddy-Long-Legs back everything.
After her graduation, Judy gets invited by the Pendletons where she meets a rich girl - Angelina - she used to know when she was still at the orphanage. She also sees Jarvis again after a year and he asks her to marry him, but the image of the orphanage is stuck in her mind, especially after overhearing Angelina saying something mean about her being an orphan, even though Sally defends her. When she declines again, Jarvis thinks it's because she's in love with Jimmie whom she asks to drive her back to the farm.
There she writes to Daddy-Long-Legs about her unhappy love and finally gets invited to his house.
Surprise (as if you hadn't guessed it from the beginning), Daddy-Long-Legs is Jarvis! The End.

First, I was a bit surprised but also a bit proud of myself for making the completely silent movie almost in one go. The one break I had to take was due to a wasp that suddenly turned up above my head, but refused to leave. For all I know it could still be somewhere and live off stolen cat food. I heard the buzzing out of nowhere and honestly thought something was wrong with my laptop at first!

Second, and you probably already expected that, I prefer the book over the movie, but that doesn't mean at all that I didn't enjoy the movie.
If you go on, be ready for spoilers as usual.

The film starts with baby Judy being found, then we jump forward 12 years.
Mary Pickford played a child more than once. I didn't necessarily expect it, but the difference between Judy being 12 in the first part and around 20 in the second one really works amazingly well.

The movie seems to be split in two parts, not just in regards to Judy's age.
The first one set at the orphanage is a mix of demonstrating the difference between rich and poor by comparing Judy's life to that of Angelina.
There are a few slapstick scenes showing Judy breaking out of the routine when she slides down the bannisters for example and her bloomers catch fire, but there are also sad scenes showing reality in the orphanage, like a dying orphan or the hard punishments.
In the book, Judy's life before college only appears in the introduction and then in her letters to Daddy-Long-Legs which make up most of the book. Also she only takes the name Judy in college, a new name for a new life.

The second part is mainly a love story.
You don't get to see much of the college which is really important in the book.
Judy tells Daddy-Long-Legs everything, not just once a month, what she's buying now that she has her own pocket money, furniture for her room, clothes, books, a watch. She tells them about classes, about her friends, about their activities, about people she has met, about her thoughts.
The book shows how she has been given the chance to evolve from one of the orphans which have to wear their gingham like a uniform to an individual, educated and independent young woman and writer who also happens to fall in love.
You have to keep in mind that this was a time when women had not been able to vote nationwide yet.
There's nothing wrong with a happy ending. From the second book you learn that Judy becomes a mother, but is also still very much socially aware and active.

The film, however, shows life at the orphanage and the love story, yes okay, a graduation and a check for a published book, too. That's absolutely fine if you watch the movie for what it is, I just felt it left out exactly the part I like best about the book.
I understand, though, that it was probably easier and more popular to concentrate on the love story.

What I found interesting was that the film sometimes seemed to go in little hops, with quite a lot of intertitles. I wonder if that was supposed to mimic the glimpses that you get from the letters in the book. I also found interesting how well that worked.
Many of the intertitles had artwork for a background. Here's one of my favorites.

Now let's get to the elephant in the room. Both in the movie and the book, Jarvis is older than Judy, 14 years, to be exact. In this case it doesn't come across as creepy for me, though, as it has other times although I understand people might feel differently about that.
I think it has to do with Jarvis never being pushy or really controlling - except for the one time he orders her to go to the farm instead of visiting Sallie's (no typo, this is how it's written in the book) family in his role as Daddy-Long-Leg. He doesn't try to pull the rich or the gratitude card and also Judy stands up to him, like the time she takes on a summer job as a tutor against his will.
Actually, I think it's easier with the book because you just fill in your own idea of him while it's more difficult to do with the film. To me, Jarvis looks older there than 39 which is the age of the actor (Pickford was 26). In the book, Judy is 22 and Jarvis 36 when they finally get together.

At the time, the idea wouldn't have been strange at all. It has been suggested that the inspiration for the story might have come from Grover Cleveland's marriage with Frances Folsom who had been his unofficial ward. When they got married, he was 49 and she was 21.

Pickford was very funny in the slapstick scenes and elegant and mature as a grown-up, without a lot of overacting.
Up to now, I had only seen a documentary about her and her second husband, Douglas Fairbanks - the Queen and King of Hollywood who were highly influential in the business in their time.
So this was the first movie I have seen with her and I'm really looking forward to more now.

P.S. There are later versions, for example a musical with Fred Astaire and Leslie Caron (huge age gap there), but also an anime!
P.P.S. While writing this blog post, our friend the wasp came back and I managed to steer it towards the window and it left. Yay! Der Dekan is still looking for it, so little faith in my insect chasing skills.