Suds (1920)

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Mary Pickford recreates her ugly-duckling drudge from Stella Maris (1918) in this bright comedy co-starring Charles Chaplin stock company regular Albert Austin. She is Amanda Afflick, the least appreciated employer in Madame Didier's (Rose Dione) French Hand Wash establishment. Even lower on the… More Mary Pickford recreates her ugly-duckling drudge from Stella Maris (1918) in this bright comedy co-starring Charles Chaplin stock company regular Albert Austin. She is Amanda Afflick, the least appreciated employer in Madame Didier's (Rose Dione) French Hand Wash establishment. Even lower on the totem pole is Lavender, the laundry's old nag, who Amanda manages to save from the glue factory with her entire weekly salary. A daydreamer, Amanda is much taken with one of her customers, Horace Greensmith, Esquire, whom, in her imagination, she turns into a knight in shining armor. The real Horace (Austin) is nothing of the sort, of course, but he does agree to pretend to be Amanda's fiancé for a day in order to impress her co-workers. Too ashamed of her appearance to take her to Hampstead Heath, he instead suggests the more secluded Epping Forest. But even a Cockney waif like Amanda has her pride and she spends the bank holiday instead with Benjamin (Harold Lockwood), the laundry's upstanding delivery boy. Suds was based on a 1905 one-act play that had starred the legendary Maude Adams, Broadway's original Peter Pan. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, Rovi