Little Annie Rooney

MOVIE DESCRIPTION:

Thirty-two year old Mary Pickford returned to form as America's Sweetheart as Little Annie Rooney, a tough teenager from the streets who gets into mischief with her little gang of ruffians. She has a boyfriend, Joe Kelly (William Haines), whom she is sweet on. But when her father (Walter James) is killed, her brother Tim (Gordon Griffith) thinks that Joe is the murderer. Tim shoots Joe with his father's gun, but Annie, convinced of Joe's innocence, gives him a blood transfusion and saves his life. She then organizes her gang of street kids to search for the real killer of her father. ~ Paul Brenner, Rovi

DVD FEATURES:

• Region: 1
• Number of Discs: 1
• Audio: Silent
• Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1 (Pre-1954 Standard)

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:

• Cast:

  
       Mary Pickford - Little Annie Rooney
       William Haines - Joe Kelly
       Walter James - Officer Rooney
       Gordon Griffith - Tim Rooney
       Carlo Schipa - Tony
       Spec O'Donnell - Able
       Vola Vale - Mamie
       Joe Butterworth - Mickey
       Eugene Jackson - Humidor
       Oscar Rudolph - Athos
       Virginia Vale - Mamie

• Director:

  William Beaudine

• Producer:

  Mary Pickford

• Screenwriter:

  Hope Loring, Louis D. Lighton

• Cinematographer:

  Hal Mohr, Charles Rosher Sr.

• Art Director:

  Harry Oliver, Jack Schulze, Paul Youngblood

• Intertitle Writer:

  Tom McNamara

• Short Story Author:

  Katherine Hennessey

REVIEW:

• Mary Pickford once again made a very convincing 12-year-old in this sentimental melodrama, a huge success for the star after a couple of misfires. In the opening scenes, it is almost as if "America's Sweetheart" has joined the "Our Gang" kids. Playing Annie Rooney, the daughter of a Lower Eastside cop (Walter James), Pickford hurls bricks and bottles at her tenement enemies, crawls through a lead-pipe, punches poor Joe Butterworth in the nose and attacks the opposing kids (real kids, at that) in a chariot made from a run-down baby carriage. She is totally believable throughout, no mean feat for an actress already on the wrong side of 30. Little Annie Rooney, however, is no farce but a tried-and-true tearjerker, in which Annie's father, a goodhearted Irish cop (Walter James, is killed in a gangland dispute. Although credited to one Katherine Hennessy, who was in reality Mary's grandmother, the story was wholly conjured up by Pickford herself in response to a deluge of letters from moviegoers demanding the return of her now patented spirited tomboy. And, being her own producer, Pickford made sure that the trappings were first class, from cameraman Charles Rosher's magnificent compositions to recreating an entire Lower Eastside tenement block on the back lot of United Artists in West Hollywood. The results of her hard work proved one of Pickford's most successful pictures and one which can be enjoyed by young and old to this very day. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, Rovi