Coquette Reviews

Based on an original play by George Abbott and Ann Preston, which they wrote for Helen Hayes, COQUETTE is a creaky drama that served to introduce the previously silent Pickford to the talkies. Surprisingly, she beat out Jeanne Eagels for the Best Actress Oscar in this role, and it was a wonderment. She had a lovely voice (something in short supply among many of the silent stars) and she looked marvelous, but the minute movies began to speak, Mary began to fade, and no one could understand why. She made KIKI in 1931 and SECRETS in 1933 and, of course, her one appearance with husband, Doug Fairbanks, in THE TAMING OF THE SHREW, but this was the start of the end for Pickford. She is a flapper down South with a flirtatious nature. She falls hard for Brown (before he became the cowboy star) who is hated by her father, St. Polis. Her dad despises the young man so much he shoots him, and Brown and Pickford do a death scene that's the highlight of the picture. Next, daddy commits suicide and leaves Mary to face the world on her own. Not a lot of laughs, is it? The stage version had the heroine killing herself but movie audiences would have risen in revolt if America's Sweetheart had done that. She changed her hair style for this film and went far astray from the goody-goody girls she'd played for so long. Perhaps she shouldn't have. COQUETTE was made when Pickford was in her late thirties, and yet she was still able to convince audiences of her relative innocence, a tribute to her acting ability.