Marshall Neilan Articles

Frederica Sagor Pt.2: Women Screenwriters in 1920s Hollywood [Photo: Emil Jannings in The Way of All Flesh.] Frederica Sagor's reported final Hollywood screen credit was the scenario for the 1928 slapstick comedy The Farmer's Daughter, directed by Arthur Rosson at Fox. Marjorie Beebe, previously featured in several comedy shorts, had the title role (no relation to Loretta Young's 1947 Oscar-winning Congresswoman-to-be). In her book, Sagor [...]

Theodore Roberts, Mary Pickford in Marshall Neilan's M'Liss; smaller photo: Joseph Yranski Mary Pickford was the definition of Movie Superstar from the early 1910s to the late 1920s. So popular and so powerful was Pickford that she, along with Douglas Fairbanks, Charles Chaplin, and D.W. Griffith, founded United Artists so as to have fuller artistic and financial control over her cinematic endeavors. Several years later, [...]

M'Liss (1918) Direction: Marshall Neilan Screenplay: Frances Marion; from Bret Harte's story Cast: Mary Pickford, Thomas Meighan, Theodore Roberts, Tully Marshall, Charles Ogle, Monte Blue, Winifred Greenwood   Mary Pickford, Thomas Meighan in M'Liss   Directed by Marshall Neilan and written by Frances Marion – two frequent Mary Pickford collaborators — M'Liss is one of Pickford's very best films. In this comedy-drama, Pickford plays a [...]