PamelaShort Review of Friends

Friends (1912)

Mary And Lionel Shocked By Their Appearances In Friends

[7/10 · 5 August 2013]

The 1912 film Friends, may or may not have been the first film to use a closeup, but it was certainly the first extreme closeup for Mary Pickford. She tells in her autobiography, It was late in the afternoon when Griffith shouted to Billy Bitzer, the cameraman: "Come on Billy, let's have some fun! Move the camera up and get closer to Mary." She had done something different that day herself, putting on a second application of make-up. They took the shot, and Mary couldn't wait to see the results. Back at the studio's projection room, she was shocked at the grotesquely magnified face on the screen, and immediately noticed her excess use of eyebrow pencil and eye shadow. Lionel was just as shocked by his own appearance on the screen, asking Mary "Am I really that fat? She didn't want to answer him, hoping he would let it drop, but he repeated the question insistently, that Mary finally replied, "I'm sorry, Mr.Barrymore, but you are." "Then that does it," declared Barrymore, " no more beer for me." She was also upset with the dress she wore, in Friends, an old dress of her mother's with large balloon sleeves that made it look nearer 1894 than the 1849 called for in the story. Mary Pickford was always hypercritical of her work, especially her early films. The detailed-minded actress worried later, of looking foolish and being laughed at, because of what she considered, the crudeness of her early films. Thank goodness she changed her will, as to not having her movies destroyed and this early Biograph example survives for fans of Pickford and silent film genre to enjoy.