Hoodoo Ann

1811. HOODOO ANN (1916-usa). WITH Mae Marsh, Robert Harron, Mildred Harris, Elmo Lincoln. DIRECTED BY Lloyd Ingraham. SUPERVISED BY D.W. Griffith. Scenario by Griffith (using the pseudonym Granville Warwick). Mae Marsh, famed heroine of many a D.W. Griffith film, offers a sensitive, multi-faceted performance in this heart wrenching melodrama. She’s cast as the title character, a relentless girl who resides at the Clarissa Parker orphanage and “lives in sweet unconsciousness of her unhappy lot.” While the other girls frolic in the sunlight, Ann is left behind to scrub floors. Her only ally is Slack Cindy, the orphanage cook, and Cindy has filled her head with some strange ideas. The oddest of them is that Ann is ‘hoodooed,” or spooked, and is destined to be pursued by ill luck. All of this changes one day when a fire breaks out, and Ann rescues Goldie (Mildred Harris, who was soon to be the first wife of Charlie Chaplin), a fellow orphan who is the pet of the asylum. This courageous act leads to her being adopted by the Knapps, a local couple. All is now rosy for our heroine: she “gets to ride in a Ford”-a real treat back in 1916-and even finds herself being courted by her foster parents’ neighÂbor, handsome Jimmie Vance (Robert Harron, also a Griffith regular), a young cartoonist who’s destined for fame. However, how long will it take before Ann’s old nemesis-her “hoodoo”-reappears, and commences to cause her all sorts of grief? “Silent” film with original music score, corÂrect projection speed. 76 minutes. D.W. Griffith