Stella Maris, played by Mary Pickford, is a paralysed teenage girl who lives a sheltered life, unaware of the fact that things like hunger, disease and suffering in general exist. She is in love with a friend of the family, John Risca (Conway Tearle), whose violent and alcoholic wife gets a girl from am orphanage to help in the household. This girl, Unity, also played by Pickford, likewise falls in love with Risca. What follows is a complicated and highly sentimental drama that ends in murder, suicide and, for some, in happiness. The plot may be convoluted and in part creaky, but 'Stella Maris' is still an impressive film. It is nicely photographed, and director Marshall Neilan had a number of attractive ideas. The dog, for example, works well as symbol of fidelity. However, what makes the picture memorable is Pickford, for whom it is the perfect vehicle to demonstrates her amazing acting abilities. Talking of 'abilities' does not really do her justice. 'Genius' is nearer the mark. Like two years later in 'Suds', she plays a wizened, almost hunchbacked girl (Unity) with pinched face, and if you did not know better you would believe that is what she regularly looked like. At the same she also plays another role: That of a young sheltered beauty (Stella Maris), and again you might think this is her. In both roles, her character develops and changes in the course of the film. Unity has for the first time the chance to experience love and begins to educate herself, while Stella Maris gains some experience of what the world is really like and looses her overprotected naivety. The other actors in the picture are far less remarkable; it is because of Pickford that the film is worth watching.
Review of Stella Maris
