Review of Sparrows

If the only movies directed by William "One Shot" Beaudine that you know are THE APE MAN, VOODOO MAN and BILLY THE KID VS. DRACULA you really ought to check out this 1926 thriller. Mary Pickford was one of the founders of United Artists, the first of the independant film studios and she and co-founders D.W. Griffith, Charles Chaplin and Douglas Fairbanks wanted to make movies THEIR way. 34 year old Mary plays 16 year old Molly, a fiesty tomboy who is protector and surrogate mother of a group of orphans on the seedy "baby farm" of the evil Mr. Grimes (Gustav von Seyfertitz, possibly the most unlikable villain in silent films). Mary was a deeply religious woman in real life and notice how Jesus puts in a cameo appearance in this film in a heartbreaking scene in which a young infant dies and is taken away to a beautiful pasture. The scene in which Molly and the children finally escape from the farm through a ghastly swamp was photographed by Karl Struss and Charles Rosher, both of whom would later win Oscars for their stylish photography. One scene of them clambering over a rotting tree limb which constantly threatens to drop them all to some eagerly anticipatory crocodiles is still a hair raiser even today. This is not to say that SPARROWS does not have some faults. The ultimate fate of Mr. Grimes is telegraphed far in advance of the actual occurrence and once the danger is over the film continues on with a prolonged motorboat chase and a seemingly interminable dream sequence where Molly envisions life for herself and the children in the future. A little editing would have helped immensely in this case. So is SPARROWS worth seeing? You bet!