Battle Royale #9: Battle of the Silent Queens (The Results)

Well kiddies, here we are at the end of another Battle Royale.  This time you, my faithful readers and true believers, were asked to choose between those two great stars of silent cinema - Mary Pickford and Lillian Gish.  A choice between "America's Sweetheart" and "The First Lady of American Cinema."  And who did you pick?  Well, it was kind of a landslide.  Not quite as bad as our last Battle Royale, where The Marx Brothers trounced The Three Stooges by a score of 38 to 7, but still quite a mandate.  And who was the mandate for, you ask.  Well, it was for Miss Lillian Gish.  With a final score of 31 to 16, or 66% to 34% if you will, the First Lady beat out the Sweetheart.  From the beginning, I figured Gish would end up the winner (she did get my vote I know), but I expected it to be at least relatively close.  Certainly a lot closer than it ended up being.  Well, Mary does have an Oscar to lord over Gish, so there's at least that.  And yes, I know, if the Oscars had been around, Gish would probably have won one as well.  Then again, the year Pickford won hers, Gish gave one of her finest performances in The Wind.  But I am rambling, so I digress.

Usually, at this point in the festivities, I say that we will be back with a brand spankin' new Battle Royale in just a few days - but such is not the case this time around.   We are holding off the next one until after the new year.  This way, you can all enjoy your holidays without any of the added stress of trying to decide who deserves the crown as Battle Royale Champion.  Ya know, because there is so much stress in that.  Anyway, we will be returning with that aforementioned brand spankin' new Battle Royale after the holidays.  After back-to-back landslides, hopefully this new one will go back to biz as usual, and be a closer race - maybe even a photo finish.  Also hopefully, we can get the voter turnout to be a bit better this time around - something we can perhaps write home about, as they say.  Since the beginning, I have been trying to get as many voters involved as I can.  So far, this has been met with only slight success.  My wish is to get our little game into the triple digits on a regular basis.  As of now, our best turnout was a mere 66 votes (courtesy of Astaire and Kelly), and this time we had just 47 voters.  I send reminders to bunches of hopeful voters, but still nothing.  This time around I sent voter invites to over a thousand people on Facebook alone, not to mention regular tweets, but still only 47 decided to come aboard.   So basically, what I am saying is - c'mon people, let's get this thing going.  I have seen other online polls get hundreds, even thousands of votes, so why can't we!!?  Anyway, have a safe and happy holiday (whichever one you so choose to celebrate) and have pleasant and giddy dreams about our new Battle Royale.  We will be traveling to the Far East next time around.

Battle Royale #9: Battle of the Silent Queens

Welcome to the ninth Battle Royale here at The Most Beautiful Fraud in the World.   It is an ongoing series that will pit two classic cinematic greats against each other - and you can vote for who is the greater by clicking your choice over in the poll at the top of the sidebar.

A long time ago, before movies could talk, or at least before they were willing to talk, there lived a time in cinema called the silent days.  Back in these days of yore, there lived two women who were considered the best of the best when it came to acting.  These queens of the silent days - this Mary Pickford and this Lillian Gish - were the end all and be all of this still young medium called the moving pictures - the flickers if you will.  Gish was called "The First Lady of American Cinema," and Pickford, "America's Sweetheart," and now here they are, nearly ninety years past their hey day, and placed in battle - or, more appropriately, placed in Battle Royale.

Mary Pickford, born Gladys Marie Smith in 1892, in Toronto, Canada (and still, to become America's Sweetheart), made her screen debut in 1909, in a Biograph short directed by D.W. Griffith.  She would spend a good majority of her career making films for Griffith, a man that would become one of her closest friends, and would later help form United Artists with Pickford, her then husband Douglas Fairbanks Sr., and good friend Charlie Chaplin.  At one point in 1919 and 1920, Pickford was quite possibly the most well known woman on the planet.  The supposed storybook marriage of Pickford and Fairbanks was what legends were made of, and helped give birth to the fan magazine.  Mary would move into the sound era, and become an Oscar winner for Best Actress in Coquette, in the second Academy Award ceremonies, but would soon retire from acting.  She appeared in her final film in 1933.  After retirement, Pickford would fall into alcoholism, eventually become a recluse, allowing only her stepson, Douglas Fairbanks Jr. and good friend Lillian Gish, visitation rights.  But still, her memory lives on as America's Sweetheart.  

Meanwhile, friend Lillian Gish, born just a year later, in Ohio, would make her screen debut in 1912.  It too was produced at Biograph, and it too was directed by D.W. Griffith, and she too would spend the majority of her silent career under the tutelage of Mr. Griffith.  She would go on to star in such films as The Birth of a Nation, Intolerance, Broken Blossoms and Orphans of the Storm.  While Mary was the covergirl, Lillian was usually the more lauded for her acting prowess.  Gish, unlike friend Pickford, would keep going well into the sound era, including most notably, in one of the greatest films ever made, The Night of the Hunter, in 1955.   Gish's final film would be the 1987 film The Whales of August, also starring Bette Davis and Vincent Price.  Gish would live until the age of 99.

So there you have it ladies and germs.  Choose your favourite between these Silent Queens.  All you need do is to go on over to the poll, found conveniently near the top of the sidebar of this very same site, and click on who you think is the greater of these two great ladies.  And remember, you can comment all you wish (and please do comment - we can never have too many of those) but in order for your vote to be counted, you must vote in the actual poll.  After doing that, then you can come back over here and leave all your comments.  Who knows, maybe we will get some sort of lively cinematic discussion going.  And also please remember to tell everyone you know to get out the vote as well.  I would like to see us reach triple digits this time around.  Voting will go until midnight, EST, the night of Friday Dec 21st (just over two weeks from the starting gate).  The results will be announced the following day.  So get out there and vote vote vote.