Film Details

Chicago silent film musician David Drazin (he’s the regular film accompanist at the Gene Siskel Film Center) returns to the Cinematheque—and to his hometown—to play for one of Mary Pickford’s best romantic comedies, and the only one in which she co-starred with her future husband Buddy Rogers. It’s a 1920s version of Undercover Boss in which a spunky department store stock girl falls for a stockroom co-worker, unaware that he is the owner’s son. Pickford (nicknamed “America’s Sweetheart”) was the most popular female star of the silent screen and My Best Girl was her last non-talkie. The stunning camerawork is by Charles Rosher, who shared the first Academy Award for cinematography for Sunrise (also 1927). Newly restored 35mm print! My Best Girl will be preceded at 2:00 by two silent shorts featuring Pickford, both restored: D. W. Griffith’s The Son’s Return (USA, 1909, DCP) and Thomas H. Ince’s A Manly Man (aka His Gratitude) (USA, 1911, 35mm). Total running time approx. 110 min.