Mary Pickford saw the writing on the wall. Despite a legendary career as a silent film actress, the introduction of sound in the late Twenties brought about an unexpected end to life in the limelight. While Pickford would continue to make waves in the movie business (she was one of the co-founders of United Artists in 1919, along with Charlie Chaplin, D.W. Griffith, and Douglas Fairbanks), she would never again scale the same heights of stardom in front of the camera, despite winning an Oscar for 1929’s Coquette. And while that Academy Award was more than earned – when she wasn’t inhaling scenery, she was emoting, gesticulating, weeping, and roaring to the heavens – she wasn’t the same old Mary. Forced to cut those spectacular locks, as well as careening in on 40, Pickford knew she could no longer pull off “girlish” in an industry that treated aging like a mortal illness. Especially for women. It was time to move on.
But if Coquette was to be her swan song (or close to it), she would make sure nobody forgot, least of all Academy voters. Sure, one could easily assume that the Oscar was a token of gratitude for having brought Hollywood to global prominence, but that would also significantly understate how insanely good she is in the role. Pickford is Norma Besant, a rich, spoiled flapper with little to do all day but convince men she’s the best piece of ass in town. Even if she isn’t. Because while she toys with men, exposes way more flesh than 1929 deserved, and plays the part of a whore, she’s no whore. Though maybe in spirit. If anything, she’s that new kind of woman so classic to the age; forever dancing, groping, and kissing, even if going all the way would be saved for marriage. At least that’s the implication. Regardless, it’s still too much for her father, one Dr. John Besant (John St. Polis). As a typically dipped-in-molasses Southern patriarch, he’s disturbingly obsessed with his daughter’s virtue, and if he’s going to leave her even a portion of his hard-earned estate, she’s going to have to marry well. Deadbeats better stay the fuck away.
But you know Norma. She’s a woman, so naturally she wants the very man her father would most violently oppose. That man is Michael Jeffrey (Johnny Mack Brown), a shiftless sort who, it is implied, may explode in rage at the drop of a hat. Hence the appeal. Nothing gets the ladies stirring more than someone who, depending on the weather, will either take you to the peak of ecstasy or deliver you to the graveyard. It’s no way to live, but at least he’s interesting. At minimum, he’s not the sort to inspire Dr. Besant’s gushing down at the country club. But when Norma insists, eventually daring to spend the night at his isolated love nest, the die is cast. The good doctor didn’t raise no tramp, and an evening unchaperoned, well, is just about akin to rape. The pair insist they were just talking, but what father hasn’t heard that tale before, only to have such “talk” result in gonorrhea, pregnancy, or death. Preferably the latter if she’s unmarried.
Despite Norma’s explanation and plea for mercy, Daddy decides that because this is the South, he must defend the pedestal and murder Michael outright. Only it would be self-defense, as even the laws of the time understood the cost of allowing females to have sexual agency. They were fundamentally incapable of consent, whether fifteen or fifty. A gal needed parental permission, and shacking up, even for a but a few hours, would undermine the entire system. Give on this, and we’re a step away from something as radical as racial equality. For the doctor, the stakes have never been higher. So he grabs his pistol (it’s always at the ready, believe me) and sprints off to Michael’s den on iniquity. Within seconds (never mind the compressed time, the movie itself is only 75 minutes, so suspend your disbelief), word comes down that Michael has been shot and is clinging to life. Naturally, he’ll spend his final moments in Norma’s arms, a suitably melodramatic death for one of the decade’s most ridiculous melodramas.
Up until now, Dr. Besant has been a humorless scold (one shot of his disapproving mug sent me into hysterics – subtle, he’s not), but with the murder, he’s about to hit new levels of magnificence. While initially fighting the charges out of loyalty to the bylaws of Dixie, he eventually comes to see the error of his ways once Norma changes her story. You see, at first, she wanted so much to save papa’s life that she agreed the late Mr. Jeffery was a handsy cad who had it coming. He took advantage, and such actions can’t possibly allow any jury to convict a righteous avenger. All nice in theory, until you get to court. I expected fireworks (early Hollywood courtrooms are notoriously farcical), but nothing quite like this. No, Groucho Marx didn’t make an appearance, though everything on display would meet with his immediate approval. It had everything but a last-minute witness bursting through the doors with a tearful confession.
Norma’s testimony, soon retracted, forces Dr. Besant to come to terms with his deed. He saddles up next to his daughter – still on the stand under oath, mind you – and all but pulls out a pipe and slippers for an extended heart to heart. That the judge never bothers to intervene is almost by design, given the laxness of the day. On and on they chat, thick as thieves, while the attorneys apparently go out for coffee. There’s not a dry eye in the house, nor in my living room, though my tears stem not from pathos, but laughter. But that laxness I mentioned is about to get even more so. Absurdly so. In one of the cinema’s most delightful turns, Dr. Besant is so guilt-stricken, he grabs the very pistol he used in the murder – now placed into evidence as Exhibit A – and shoots himself. Stone dead, as if you had to ask. Um, what? Not a gun he snuck into the courtroom, but the very gun currently held by the State? Yessir, and it was still loaded. Cocked and ready, apparently. I know Southern courtrooms did things differently, but this is madness. I was still cackling about it the next morning.
So while Coquette is dated trash, it’s trash with an upside. Pickford tears everything in her vicinity to shreds, and her hysterics ensure a successful outcome. And while modern audiences might find her 2×4 approach to acting a bit, well, much, it’s precisely what’s called for by the premise and the context. She’s a coquette for chrissakes, not some somber intellectual choosing between finishing schools. But it’s when Dr. Besant changes his tune that the film becomes more than a curiosity. Maybe the original screenwriter had conceived of the dénouement in tragic terms, but only the hopeless would dare be so limiting in their approach. This is the highest of high comedy and the necessary wink to an audience that assumes sin deserves to be punished. Maybe it does, but also insist on tickling our funny bone on the way out. Maybe Mr. St. Polis thought he was channeling Lear, but he gave us Rufus T. Firefly instead. To our eternal gratitude.
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