Pollyanna is Mary Pickford’s most famous optimist: an orphan who plays the glad game and, by finding something to be glad about in every difficulty, changes a whole town.
Pollyanna (1920), directed by Paul Powell and based on Eleanor H. Porter’s novel, stars Pickford as Pollyanna Whittier, an orphan sent to live with her strict aunt Polly in Vermont. Pollyanna’s glad game, taught by her father, asks her to find something to be glad about even in disappointment, and she spreads it to neighbours, servants and, finally, to her aunt.
Pickford plays Pollyanna without sentimentality. She is energetic, funny and sometimes exasperating, and her optimism is a choice, not a lack of feeling. When Pollyanna herself faces a serious accident, the film’s test is whether the glad game can survive real hardship, and Pickford makes that test moving.
Pollyanna was one of Pickford’s biggest successes, and the word itself entered the language. It is a signature role because it is Pickford at her most influential: a performance that became a cultural idea.