Amarilly of Clothes-Line Alley

Director: Marshall Neilan
USA. 1918.
77 minutes. Tinted.

Cast: Mary Pickford, William Scott, Norman Kerry, Herbert Standing

A widow's eldest daughter, Amarilly, is the belle of Clothes-Line Alley, an Irish neighborhood near San Francisco's Chinatown. There she gets a job selling cigarettes at the club where her boyfriend works as a waiter. One night a handsome socialite, Gordon Phillips, and his friends come to the club for a night of carousing. A fight erupts, injuring Phillips. Amarilly takes him to her flat where she and her mother take care of him. In gratitude, he hires Amarilly to clean his apartment. In time, Phillips finds himself falling for the young girl. His aunt disapproving of this situation, invites the Amarilly family to one of her posh social gatherings to show her nephew what a mistake he is making. Sure enough, the event is met with disastrous results convincing Phillips that she is not for him. In the end, the girl returns to the alley with her family, where her loyal beau awaits with news of his great new job. Bonus feature includes the recently found and restored short film The Dream made by Thomas Ince and IMP in 1911.

Reviews

"Another charmer; a role that suggests Pickford's own hard-knocks adolescence."

- Michael Wilmington, Chicago Tribune

"Amarilly combines elements of social comment, comedy, and even melodrama, but the unifying force that makes it all work is the radiant charm of Mary Pickford."

- Leonard Maltin