My Best Girl

MY BEST GIRL is an excellent picture.

Here's the setup: Mary Pickford plays Maggie Johnson, a stock clerk at Merrill's Department Store. When Charles Rogers's Joe Grant hires on, sparks fly and it isn't long before the two are hopelessly in love. But there's trouble: Joe Grant is actually Joe Merrill, scion of the wealthy merchant family, and he's engaged to a high-society girl. Will Pickford and her working-class sensibility triumph over the objections of Merrill's family and the dicates of upper-crust society? Does the sun rise in the morning?

Ok, so the storyline isn't exactly unique to the genre. What sells this movie, however, is Pickford's brilliant comic performance as the put-upon Maggie, a young woman trying to fulfill her responsibilites while carving out a little happiness for herself. Pickford is a mistress of the doubletake, and she excells at keeping the film's comic tone alive through all its twists and turns. When she shifts gears and goes for straight drama in the climax, we buy it and ride along with her. MY BEST GIRL absolutely hooked me.