Stella Maris (1918)

Stella Maris (1918) is a film that contrasts the beautiful Stella Maris (Mary Pickford), who is crippled yet still pampered and privileged, with the homely and misfortunate Unity Blake, who is most certainly NOT privileged (although she, likewise, seems to suggest a body that is slightly contorted).

Stella lives with the Blounts (Herbert Standing and Ida Waterman), a wealthy family. Her life is one of a sheltered, bed-ridden girl, the natural beauty and charm of Mary Pickford shining through in the dual role. Though she is disabled and bed-ridden, she is eternally glowing and optimistic), always sporting a smile. By contrast, Unity, the abused, homely child who lives surrounded by nuns in the orphanage, among poverty and toil, is a spirited yet worldly-wise girl, hardened by the circumstances of her life. Yet, still, she finds within herself enough high-spiritedness to clown with the other children. Even though the drab, dispiriting, and mediocre circumstances into which she has been thrust, something irrepressibly human manages to shine through.

Stella is visited frequently by journalist John Risca (Conway Tearle) who is slowly falling in love with the young woman. Risca, unfortunately, is married to the abominable Louise (Marcia Manon), who has an unspecified "habit," and with whom he is cruelly miserable. he complains that he's lived in hell with her for "six long years," and the viewer doesn't doubt this, based on the malicious indifference and resignation to a state of misery that she exudes.

In a strange twist of the plot, Louise "adopts" Unity, chiefly because she wants a servant in the house. Louise then viciously beats Unity for managing to lose her groceries (Unity has them stolen by street children). Unity is badly hurt, and Louise is sentenced to three years.

John Risca (who has yet to admit his lie to Stella, that he is already married), adopts Unity out of pity. The Blounts will NOT have the homely, abused orphan girl living with them, exposing their Stella to the evils of the world, so John, instead, moves Unity and himself in with his Aunt Gladys (Josephine Crowell), who, for the first time, gives poor Unity a sense of having a real home and mother. Unity has, by this point, fallen in love with John.

Stella has an operation allowing her to walk. She falls more deeply in love with John, and he with her. They range about the grounds of his palatial estate, the topography of which seems almost dream-like at times.

Stella slowly discovers the troubles and evils of the world: the War in Europe, and the plight of beggars. Several telling scenes illustrate that Stella Maris is a rather stark, accusatory finger aimed at the class struggle: in one scene, Unity is standing outside a steakhouse while a great fat man rejects a huge slab of meat as being "skimpy." This corpulent man, who has never missed a meal, rejects what an orphan like Unity, who is standing outside the window watching him, would gladly have to fill her hungry belly.

In another scene, in which Stella is approached by a woman with a child, who has not eaten, she claims, for several days, inspires Stella to ask Lady Blount for a huge amount of money to give to them. Lady Blount, more cynical and worldly-wise, informs Stella that "Beggars are the dregs of civilization." This is a cold appraisal by someone endowed with vast wealth, and it demonstrates where the philosophical heart of the film lie, it's a pointed criticism of a ruling class or upper caste that casually throws crumbs at the starving proles below them. It is an icy and pointed criticism of the appalling attitude of the era.

Stella later learns of the suicide of this woman and her children, as well as the war, and has the war demonstrated to her in n even more direct manner, as she and join climb a glorious hill on his estate to the street above, where a parade of fresh soldiers goes marching by. Thus Stella learns that war, poverty, suicide, and death are all very real aspects of the human experience, if not puzzling conundrums that can not be undone.

Stell, during a visit to John, has the door opened by the newly-freed Louise, who informs her of the fact that she is, indeed, still his lawfully-wedded wife, and that John has been lying to her all this time about being married.

Stella, distraught at suddenly being presented with so many shocking revelations, ripped clean of her sheltered existence, rejects John for a short time. Unity, realizing that she and John can never, finally, be together, is upset by Aunt Gladys' concern that John and Stella are not free to marry. She obtains one of John's guns.

She confronts Louise in her bedroom, where Louise sits up in bed, her malicious gaze bespeaking the intrinsic evil and ill-will that seem to flow through her. Unity kills Louise, and then herself.

Released the same year as Mickey with Mabel Normand, Stella Maris shares a common theme of a disadvantaged and backward, naive young woman confronting a ruling class establishment that sets a value on her only as a domestic--a dehumanizing attitude that that which cannot be educated or dressed up in the finery of the snobbish elite, must, of necessity, be kept in the darkness and ignorance, the thralldom of poverty; though, admittedly, they be an indispensable serving class to the elite.

There seems to be no compassion for Unity among the Blounts--there is only compassion for her from John Risca, a forward-thinking, progressive journalist who has seen more of the world. Stella Maris herself is kept in the happy cocoon of her sheltered existence, until, overcoming her disability and finding herself able to walk, she finds herself discovering a world of war, injustice, and cruel tragedy (the two beggars that Mrs. Blount refuses, Stella finds, commit suicide, the mother with child, by jumping into the Thames).

Going up a fantastical hill with John Risca, she sees a parade of 1918 soldiers marching down the street. Several times, a propaganda poster encouraging young men to sign up and go die in a war they didn't create, is seen prominently hanging from a wall. But, the Blounts, the Riscas (to a point), and the other members of their social hierarchy are immune from the tragedies foisted on the lower classes--and servile orphaned girls, like Unity.

In the end, Unity's suicide is a foregone conclusion, as she knows she can never be with John Risca, whom she has fallen in love with. She cannot bridge, she knows, the class barrier between herself and him, becoming a part of bourgeois society Mabel Normand's Mickey, in the end, is accepted as one by her rich relatives, in a fairy tale ending worthy of a Hollywood dream; but for Unity, there are no fairy tale endings possible.

What is one to make of the film's thematic undercurrent of class struggle? Was such an indictment of bourgeois society what the filmmakers had in mind? (It was written by Frances Marion and based on William John Locke's 1913 novel)Possibly, but possibly it was an unintentional undercurrent, creeping upward in the plot from the social grievances and struggles, the war and revolution of the era.

At any rate, at one hundred and four years old, Stella Maris is still a deeply moving and meaningful film, showcasing the brilliant talents of actress Mary Pickford, in a dual role so convincing some will have trouble recognizing her as both Stella, AND Unity. After more than a century, for a film to hold up so exquisitely, is a testimony to its true power, and deep resonant meaning.

Stella Maris can be viewed for free on YouTube.