Mabel normand
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MickeyDespite what had been their romantic relationship, Sennett had been working Mabel to the limit at Keystone from day one, while at the same time taking advantage of her inexperience with big money to pay her at a salary much lower than a star of her magnitude was entitled to. His reason for doing so may have been based on the idea that when he finally married her he would be providing for her. Yet in addition to limiting her wages, his rigid control of production cloyed her creatively, as had been the case with so many of his best Keystone players. So notwithstanding what’s been said elsewhere and though we have no reason to think Sennett didn’t actually mean well, Mabel had as many, or more, professional grounds, as she did personal ones, to be dissatisfied with him. Not so surprisingly then, she left the studio in early 1916 -- with Arbuckle, as well, following her just a few months afterwards. Sennett was initially bitter, and behaved as if he could easily replace her with Gloria Swanson or someone else. However, when trade headlines stated that she was going to work for Thomas Ince, and who had reportedly promised Mabel her own studio, he scrambled. With Adam Kessel‘s permission and backing, he went so far as to generously offer her her own film company, including a studio facility of her very own. This she happily agreed to, and it was thus, in April 1916, the short lived Mabel Normand Feature Film Company came into existence. As ostensible studio head, Mabel now had the power to chose her own material and people. For director of her first film with the company, she first selected James Young (husband of silent star Clara Kimball Young.) When Young didn’t work out to her liking (this was in June 1916), J. Farrell McDonald, assisted by Arvid Gillstrom, was her next choice. Yet finding them also unsuitable too, they too were dismissed. She then finally settled on 22 year old F. Richard Jones. Sennett wasn’t all too pleased about this prospect since Jones had, up to that time, only directed one and two reel slapstick films. Yet Mabel had her way; which was just as well and her choice could hardly have been better. Not only did Jones go on to prove himself very much up to the task, but in succeeding years, he would direct more Sennett feature films with her, while also becoming instrumental in the early success of Hal Roach’s Laurel and Hardy and Our Gang comedies. For her cast, Mabel brought in several friends and Keystone co-workers, including Minta Durfee and Minnie Devereaux; former Keystone director, George “Pops” Nichols. In addition there was Wheeler Oakman in the part of the leading man and Lew Cody as the villain. Mickey, although not without its shortcomings, is a most unique and for some precious film. Resembling in no little way the kind of dramas Mary Pickford was and would be doing at about the same time, its story centers on a puckish girl from the wild mountains and backwoods of California who is sent East by her loving, if simple minded, step-parents to live with her high society relatives. Besides the new environment and lifestyle she finds herself in, Mickey is forced to contend with two quite different suitors: one, a brave and thoughtful gentleman; the other, a wily and conniving rake -- played by Oakman and Cody respectively. Though the comedy and melodrama overlap, most of the film’s comic moments occur in regard to Mickey’s frontier life and her adjusting to the world of society’s wealthy. Its melodramatic aspects are played out in the love and action scenes with the two suitors. Although the plot is at times a bit meandering and haphazard, these weaknesses are more than counterbalanced by Mickey‘s jaunty pace and Mabel’s combined comic and dramatic virtuosity. As Chaplin‘s tramp embodied the “little guy” who tries to live by his wits in a frequently changing and not always friendly world, Mabel’s Mickey did something not so dissimilar for the “little gal.” Though later events made it impossible for Mabel to ever develop her character anywhere near to the level that the tramp reached, in Mickey (allowing for illness suffered in the latter part of filming) she maintains a level of humor and pathos worthy of her former co-star; and the film despite the considerable lapse of years still has the power to cheerfully entrance and amuse like few others. Besides Mabel, the persons responsible for making it all happen are a believable cast, and F. Richard Jones’ inspired directing. Rather than make her personality suit the film, he strove to make the film suit her personality. As he himself put it, “I try to draw out the individual personalities of the players. And for this reason I never act out any of the play for them. As we pay for personality, why not develop it rather than endeavor to work it into something else.”25 Whether because (as later reported by Sennett) distributors didn’t like it or due to unpaid bills, Mickey stayed on the shelf for about a year after its completion in 1917. Mabel, in the meantime, having grown weary of the delays and his business shenanigans, had signed a five-year contract with mogul Samuel Goldwyn. Yet when Mickey was finally brought forth to the public in early December 1918, it became an almost immediate sensation. Its plucky optimism and playful innocence, backed by some smart promotion, had a tremendous appeal to war weary America. It became, as Sennett termed it, “the mortgage lifter,” and overtime (including re-releases) grossed huge sums, ranking it as one of the most successful films of its era in that category. Although many were made rich by the film, Mabel, because of the Byzantine dealing going on among the producers, wasn’t one of them. Neither, as it turned out, did Sennett himself reap much benefit. Since to make up for shortfalls incurred by other Triangle Film Corporation endeavors and promotions which (in contrast to Mickey) had financially failed, he wound up losing his holdings in the film to the Aitken brothers.26 |