Coquette

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Cameron M @Cameron11 Mar 31, 2022 There some films that are dated but are enjoyable due to learning the evolution and innovation of filmmaking and there are some films that are a chore to watch due to offering very little to filmmaking. Coquette is a lot closer to the latter than the former due to the very stilted acting and very very boring story. Coquette, the central character is very annoying and one dimensional. However, Mary Pickford does put some life into the character as a result of some good acting scenes. I can understand why she won the Best Actress Oscar (although I haven't watched the other nominees). Every other character is ridiculously stupid and flat. Overall, some good cinematography for the time and a good performance from Mary Pickford cannot save this boring story and badly written film. See more michael d @RT16138633 Dec 14, 2021 The sound varies according to who is speaking. This was an important film historically speaking. It was Mary Pickford's first sound film and she did win a Best Actress Oscar for it. By today's standards she was not particularly good. This was extremely old fashioned and silly. Often lines were delivered as if this were an old time morality play being performed. Much of this seemed stagy and went on too long. Also, there were story elements that seemed contrived and stupid. The worst was at the end of the film when Pickford's father grabbed the gun which had been submitted into evidence for the courtroom scene. It was still loaded and they left it right where the accused murderer sat. See more Steve D @RT35616104 Jul 23, 2020 Overdone like no one has a grasp of this talking thing yet. See more bill t @Spuzz May 22, 2020 Kinda fun when you watch a movie you have absolutely no idea about, realize it's a bit of a stinker, and then you go on here and you confirm that. Mary Pickford stars in this absolute hootfest about a woman who falls madly in love with a bit of an undersirable man. He and her make promises to her father that they'll knock it off, but it soon heats up again, and the father takes action! Absolutely overwrought with plot, and containing much dialogue you wouldn't normally hear out of the mouths of sane humans (this was indeed a stage play first), it's only interesting feat is being an early talkie, and how far they needed to go to accomadate stories to such a medium. See more Jan 4, 2020 Essential to film history. A 1929 film that can be watched the entire way through, despite all its obvious technological flaws. Mary Pickford could act. The technology she lived with kept changing from year to year, but Pickford made the changes stylishly. It's unfair to compare one of the first talkies with modern day movies. See more Jul 11, 2019 Mary Pickford is deserving of her legendary status as she gives impressive performances in both Madame Butterfly (1915) and The Little American (1917) but her Academy Award win for this performance was undeserving. The film itself is not particularly impressive either as the dialogue and acting feels dated and the story isn't particularly engaging. The film is highly reminiscent of The Divorcee (1930) which would earn Norma Shearer an Academy Award in the next year but it lacks the intrigue of the film while keeping the sexist view of it's female main character. I would not recommend watching this film because there are a lot of far better movies that came out during this period that are worth watching before seeing this dull slog. The beautiful but manipulative Norma Besant, Mary Pickford, entertains two suitors with the Stanley, Matt Moore, being in her thrall while the man she actually loves, Michael, Johnny Mack Brown, is too poor for her father's tastes. She eventually marries him despite her father's disapproval and the suspicions of the town who look down on their flirtation. Her father murders Michael which leaves her devastated and willing to let her father receive a prison sentence for her actions. Eventually she and her father reconcile as he reassures her that is OK to be honest about what he did and he shoots himself dead in the courtroom. Norma finds she is finally able to be alone after this as she refuses Stanley's offer to walk her home. I suppose one of the major themes in the film was Norma learning to grow up and move past the stage of her life in which she shamelessly flirts with every man. This idea is undercut by her crazy father however as the introduction of all of this action prevents me from believing that she is going through a natural progression and her character seems to make emotional leaps and bounds between each scene that don't have any real explanation. Pickford also struggles to display subtle shifts in the character's personality and outlook on the situation around her as she is perfectly good at playing the young ingénue at the beginning of the film but the high drama scenes in which she works with darker material just don't work. I felt like she should have brought more depth to the role as I never felt that she understood what the interior of her character was like and that's what is necessary for a character who is so ridiculous on the page. Beyond all of these flaws the film also isn't technically proficient as the workmanlike director Sam Taylor, of Ambassador Bill (1931) fame, doesn't inject the film with the sort of spark that a Michael Curtiz or an Alexander Mackendrick could. The film is shot in a very uninteresting way as it feels more like a filmed play than a cinematic experience and we don't get the interesting camerawork present in Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (1927) or The Last Laugh (1924). The costumes are fine as Pickford gets dressed up in some lavish gowns and her appearance is significantly enhanced by some very late 1920s hair and makeup but the score of the film really lets it down. Karl Struss famously worked on Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans but he doesn't bring any of the inspiration or energy that he brought to that film's iconic score to this. It's a shame because this is one of the few 1920s films I have seen and it is by far one of the worst. I want more out of classic films than this one gave me and it's the sort of movie that cautions you against seeing other films from this era. I can't say that the 1929 Best Actress category was stacked, it was hardly 1977, however I do think that Jeanne Eagels is utterly wonderful in The Letter (1929) and would have been deserving of the award for her interesting performance as a tortured woman brought to her knees by her passion for a philandering man. Most people will never watch these films but I hope that people see The Letter before watching a film that is this boring. See more Read all reviews

Coquette

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