Kiki (1931) Online

In spite of its notoriety amongst Mary Pickford fans, "Kiki" is far from the disaster it is reputed to be.

Legend has it that this film was an attempt to sex up the Pickford image, with results so catastrophic that she appeared in only one more film. That "Kiki" was a resounding box office flop is irrefutable. But it proves to be an entertaining, fast moving comedy with a dazzling tour de force from its star.

There is nothing at all embarrassing about Pickford's performance. She may not be at her most subtle, and there is notable absence of pathos, but she gives a credible performance and seems much younger than her 39 years. Her French accent may not be all that authentic, but it is consistent.

And she has clearly not lost her knack for physical comedy. Indeed her entrance - being hurled into a room flat on her posterior - is as memorable as anything in the Pickford body of work.

The supporting cast is not up to much, and the direction flags at the mid point - though Sam Taylor does offer a fine opening backstage sequence. "Kiki" may not be the best comedy of its type, but its very far from a write off.

As we are now removed from the Pickford mystique, its much easier to see her performance for what it is, rather than as a violation of a hallowed image. Its far too late for "Kiki" to find a popular audience, of course, but it is certainly due for a reevaluation.

Mary Pickford's "Kiki" (1931) is not generally considered one of her best films, but I found it thoroughly enjoyable.

An earlier comment here said that this film was Ms. Pickford's attempt to "sex up" her image. Long gone were the billowy curls of her early films, where she played young girls even after she was in her thirties. Here, she sports jazz-age bobbed hair, plays an audacious flirt, and is clearly a woman "on the make" -- though chastely -- for the character played by her costar, Reginald Denny.

I've said that in "Kiki," Ms. Pickford tries to "sex up" her image. Here, she shows us her legs (which were "not bad" for someone only 5 feet tall); she removes her brassiere from beneath her blouse while standing in front of Denny; and in a later scene, she sits in front of his male assistant in her lingerie and unconcernedly puts on her stockings, slowly, one leg at a time.

The film is lively and kinetic, almost a slapstick comedy. Ms. Pickford delivers kicks to various backsides, among them Reginald Denny's and Margaret Livingston's, and gets kicked herself. Twice, Ms. Pickford is seen falling on her rear end. She even tumbles off the stage and into the orchestra pit, landing seat first into a drum -- a stunt her friend Charles Chaplin would use, years later, in "Limelight" (1952). I thought everyone in "Kiki" was extraordinarily game. They were all obviously hoping to make this film hilarious.

Unfortunately, "Kiki" flopped at the box office, and Ms. Pickford would make only one more film -- "Secrets," another flop. The writing on the wall was now more legible than ever. Maybe the public felt that, at age 39, Ms. Pickford was reaching a little too hard for the youth serum. The era of "America's Sweetheart" was over.

But she left behind a legacy of great performances, and a great public enthusiasm for America's first major female movie star.

Dan Navarro ([email protected])

The dance scene is what most people take away from this movie and that certainly was a 10 out of 10 moment. I have watched it many times and it is up on Youtube.

The rest of the movie suffers from direction and script and the need to make Mary over act to fit the part. This was a stage play not really suitable for film without a change. The stage productions earlier success was grounded on deliberate stage over acting. So it is not surprising it didn't suit film that well. The film without Pickford would have been irritating, it is Pickford that saves it and makes it watchable.

But we should also remember that at this time studios were still struggling with Sound and this made direction and acting quite difficult.

Mary could have easily taken this onto the stage and had a big hit with it, she was a veteran stage actor.

If anything this movies shows Pickford to be versatile and willing to step out of the box.

A total delight! This famous flop for Mary Pickford is VERY funny and totally fun.

Pickford plays a French chorus girl in New York trying to make good and survive. Pickford's French accent may not be as good as Marion Davies' in "Marianne" but she's wonderfully funny in this role. It's a talkie extension of all the great comic parts she played in silent films.

Pickford was a great comic and proves she had what it takes to make it in talkies. KIKI is a terrific comedy and she's better in this than in her other three talkies. KIKI was based on the Norma Talmadge silent film which was based on the Broadway play. Oddly I just read in the Valentino biography that he had seen Lenore Ulric in New York and then Gladys Cooper in London in the stage versions.

The film opens with a LONG panning shot of backstage doings all in time to the song the chorus girls are stomping away to. Pickford gets fired but insinuates her way back into the chorus via the producer (Reginald Denny). On opening night she makes a shambles of the big number starring Margaret Livingston as the vain star. Pickford is hysterically funny.

Not realistic at all but great fun. Co-stars include Joseph Cawthorn, Phil Tead (funny as the butler), Edwin Maxwell, and Fred Walton.

The sets for the apartment are atrociously ugly. Not to be believed! An explosion of Victoriana and Art Deco.

Mary Pickford was definitely one of the greats!

Mary Pickford was all the rage throughout the silent era, playing both male and female roles, mostly characters much younger than herself. Still attractive when the sound era came in, she only made a handful of films, those of mixed quality, and won the second Best Actress Oscar for a truly boring melodrama, "Coquette".

"Kiki" is her second to last film, a farce with Pickford as a temperamental French chorus girl who seems to get fired from every job she takes. She falls in love with a producer who is otherwise engaged but her persistence pays off in her fight to win his love. Mary goes for farce all the way, playing the types of roles Marion Davies was getting thanks to William Randolph Hearst, and as one of the founders of United Artists, Pickford still had some clout. She really is the only amusing thing about this film, playing a character of such outlandish personality that you really find it easy to get annoyed with her, even if you don't totally dislike her.

This is best remembered for a sequence where Pickford, in a man's tuxedo, totally screws up a big production number by getting distracted when producer Reginald Denny appears at the side of the stage. She screws up all of the chorus girls and the leading lady and the musical number results in pandemonium. This gag was repeated with similar laughs in "Star!" with Julie Andrews and "Funny Girl" with Barbra Streisand.

This is so like Mary Pickford.

Even in one her apparently not so good movies she deposits a number of special moments and some in this movie are totally enjoyable.

The long dance scene is wonderfully choreographed and hilarious, I had to keep watching it over and over.

People often forget that in the earliest talkies actors were hamstrung by the positioning and quality of microphones. It took them a while to work it out and for actors to work out how to free themselves up again.

This is by no means a bad movie. An enjoyable movie with some special moments and also great to see a different Pickford.

Pickford only made one more movie, mostly because external events and pressures were over taking her life. If only Fairbanks could have stayed true to Mary - we may have got a whole bunch of Mary Pickford movies and in a new genre.

In a woefully inept performance almost completely absent of charm and nuance Mary Pickford embarrasses herself in her second to last feature. Utterly miscast as a Parisian floozy she does everything but stand on her head to try and make us believe the unbelievable. She has one cute dance/clown number although even there she relies on googly eyed exaggeration to get the point across that the audience is to find her adorable. In this instance she isn't.

For a goodly portion of the movie she wears a stupid hat with a feather that seems to form a question mark, she should have looked in a mirror used that as a cue and asked herself why she'd agreed to disgrace herself in this dog of a film. Stay away!

In the 1910s and 20s, Mary Pickford was the biggest actress alive. Her movies were adored and when she and husband Douglas Fairbanks toured the world, they were the toast of every nation--including not just the UK and France but even the Soviet Union. And, although a Canadian, she was given the title 'America's Sweetheart'. Folks loved her in all sorts of films--especially ones where the actress played little girls and teenagers--though she was WAY too old to be playing such parts. It didn't matter...EVERYONE loved her. Because of this, I can only assume that either she thought the public would like her in ANYTHING, so let's make a pile of crap film like "Kiki" or perhaps she simply was trying to commit career suicide. All I know is that I adore most of her films...but think that "Kiki" is among the most annoying films I have ever seen! I wonder how folks back in the day thought of it? Well, considering she only made a few sound films, it possibly could have been that folks finally were tiring of her.

The single biggest problem with "Kiki" is that the film was VERY dated. As a silent picture, it might have worked--mostly because you wouldn't have had to LISTEN to Pickford and her horrendous French accent. To say it was broad and overboard is a great understatement. She is to French accents like Jethro Bodine was to country accents in "The Beverly Hillbillies"--it was THAT strong and over the top. Heck, Pepe le Pew seems far more restrained than she did in the film. And, like in her films where she played children, her Kiki is often petulant and childish--which worked fine in 1918 or 1920. Here, though, she just seems like a....well, IMDb won't let us put the B-word in our reviews! Oddly, she's supposed to be cute...she certainly isn't! Because of these things, it's difficult not to thoroughly hate her or the sound of her voice. Oddly, however, Reginald Owen's character is inexplicably drawn to this demanding, annoying and selfish woman in the film. Why? I have no idea...but can only assume his character was meant to be insane! And, equally insane is the audience in the film that watch her stage performance and adore her histrionics. None of this makes any sense and it seemed that the character is about as one-dimensional and dislikable as any I can recall. Overall, this is a truly horrible film--not just because Pickford was so bad but because it builds up so much ill-will in the viewer! I have long adored her films and would place her films like "My Best Girl", "Suds" and "Daddy Long Legs" among the best silents. But, try as I might, I hated "Kiki" and never want to see this awful film again! Loud, brash, unsubtle and annoying...all adjectives you'd never think to associate with 'America's Sweetheart'!

Iam not a Pickford fan,and i have only seen her sound films.So i came to this with no precoceived notions.I thought that the first half an hour was fairly entertaining particularly the musical number.However when the scene changed to Reginald Dennys flat the film eventually dissolved into a tedious bore.Wildy overacted by Pickford clearly in a failed attempt to give herself a new screen image.Denny must have been chosen as a leading man as he would provide no competition in the acting stakes.After all who would want to fight over his affections.I see that 54 viewers out of 73 have given this film a score of 10.Well all i can say is that you must have been watching a different film.All i will say is if this film is so good why has it remain largely unseen.Even Halliwells description is "long unseen musical".I have given it a rating of 3 because of the first half hour.Otherwise it would have been a single digit!

It's great to find this movie is now available on a quite watchable Alpha DVD. Obviously based on a stage play, it is divided into Three Acts. Act One is marvelous. Great fun as Mary Pickford completely derails a stage show. Director Busby Berkeley has a great time inventing all these hilarious mishaps and Mary Pickford plays them out herself without using any doubles. Unfortunately, for Acts Two and Three, Berkeley was replaced by a director who was completely under the thumb of Miss Pickford. As a result, Act Two is lousy, and Act Three is even worse. We keep waiting for Mary to top some of the hilarious routines she pulled off so skilfully in Act One, but she doesn't. True, the ho-hum, super-boring script gives her few chances to do so, but Mary obviously revels in hogging the camera whether or not the script is amusing or just plain boring and repetitive. The director here is not Berkeley but a guy who is obviously completely under Mary's thumb, and to make matters worse, Reginald Denny is woefully miscast as the super-boring straight guy.