"M'Liss" is a pleasant, if pointless, Marry Pickford vehicle. In it, the then-26-year-old played a mischievous teenage mountain girl who sports a slingshot. Mary often played child roles, but it's somewhat unseemly here considering that little time elapses between her character placing a doll in a coffin and grave to her and her schoolmaster falling in love. Today's audiences might also find it interesting to see in the film a public classroom where Bible stories appear to be the main curriculum (and Mary is amusing playing the skeptic).
"M'Liss" is a mostly breezy and light film, but it would've benefited from further shortening, namely in the plentiful number of title cards. Scenarist Frances Marion deserved much credit for helping to launch Mary's stardom and typecasting her in child roles, beginning with "The Poor Little Rich Girl", and Marion is one of the most important screenwriters in film history, but in the silent era, she sometimes had the vice of talking too much. The subplot of inheritance from a rich relative, which helps tack on a happy ending, was also unnecessary.
"M'Liss" is a mostly breezy and light film, but it would've benefited from further shortening, namely in the plentiful number of title cards. Scenarist Frances Marion deserved much credit for helping to launch Mary's stardom and typecasting her in child roles, beginning with "The Poor Little Rich Girl", and Marion is one of the most important screenwriters in film history, but in the silent era, she sometimes had the vice of talking too much. The subplot of inheritance from a rich relative, which helps tack on a happy ending, was also unnecessary.