Our esteem poster Gagman claim Sparrow would be on

[kelly]

HEY GUYS our esteem poster Gagman is back he is claiming with breaking news that 1926 silent Sparrow going be on TCM THIS NOVEMEBER

Here thread

forums.tcm.com/jive/tcm/thread.jspa?threadID=154661&tstart=0

[Midge]

Thanks for the link to the TCM board, Kelly. I saw Sparrows a couple of years ago with a live piano accompaniment at the S. F. Silent Film Festival, and I enjoyed it very much. My review is posted in this section.

[kelly]

I try get November 2010 right now no luck yet I post it if I found out about it LOL!

[Hedvig]

Sparrows is a pretty unique movie by Mary Pickford isn't it. Some parts of it are pure horror, the villain looks like Nosferatu and the children suffer abuse before they have to flee through a frightening swamp. I think the most memorable part is when Mary is sitting with a child who is dying, the look on her face. There is a similar scene in Daddy long Legs. An infant dying was a reality for many viewers at the time.

[Midge]

Aug 8, 2010 16:39:35 GMT -6 Hedvig said:

I think the most memorable part is when Mary is sitting with a child who is dying, the look on her face. There is a similar scene in Daddy long Legs. An infant dying was a reality for many viewers at the time.

I agree, that scene is both beautiful and haunting.

In the 1920s, it was common for young children to die of diseases that are treatable today such as diptheria, whooping cough and pneumonia. Antibiotics weren't invented until the 1940s and there weren't as many vaccines as there are now. My aunt Anna Leigh died as an infant in the 1918 flu epidemic.

[Larry's 66 Diner]

I think another amazing thing about Sparrows is how contemporary it is, considering it's from 1926. :nervous:

[Hedvig]

What do you think is contemporary about it Larry? I'm not disputing what you're sayings, I'm just curious about what you think is the most contemporary thing about it. Child abuse is undoubtedly still a big issue.

That's tragic, Midge. We wonder today how they could stand it. The flu pandemic, tuberculosis, pneumonia, malaria. I read a book of reminiscences by people who were children in the 1910's, and almost all of them remembered having had a sibling who died.

[Midge]

Thanks, Hedvig. Movies like Sparrows may seem overly mawkish and sentimental to modern tastes, but as you pointed out, audiences then were only too familiar with the sorrow of losing a child.

[kelly]

few years ago PBS on AMerican experience has thingy in 1918 Spanish Flu breakout they talk to survivor who was in their late 80s or early 90s that special was on like 10 years ago one of interviewee remember the horrible and panic of Spanish flu like yesterday

[Hedvig]

Thanks, Hedvig. Movies like Sparrows may seem overly mawkish and sentimental to modern tastes, but as you pointed out, audiences then were only too familiar with the sorrow of losing a child.

I think that's right. That sentimentality would have resonated with them in a completely different way than it does for us now. It was far more real to them. Now we think of it as a Victorian cliché almost.

Kelly, I'd like to see that documentary one day. I read Karl Brown's autobiographical account of the Spanish influensa. It's the only account I've read. He wrote about coffins continually being carried down the street. Tuberculosis was a big culprit then as well.