Mini-review: Little Orphant Annie

Early Colleen Moore feature which has been lovingly restored by film restoration specialist, Eric Grayson. The film is highly variable in picture quality, but that's hardly surprising given the various and often poor quality elements that it is originated from. It's paired with a new and sympathetic piano soundtrack.  The blu-ray looks about as good as it is ever likely to look given the film's age and origins.

Annie is made an orphan when little more than a babe, and she likes to terrify other children in the orphanage with stories about witches and goblins. Eventually, she comes of age and is sent away to live with her resentful uncle and aunt. They immediately put her to work and regularly berate her for failing to complete her heavy manual tasks quickly enough.

A hand from a nearby farm eventually steps in - and becomes her knight in shiny armour. Literally at one point!

It's a film with a lot of charm. I like early silent films because they often have a lot of creativity and it's possible to see they were still working out the conventions and grammar of the medium. For example, I liked the intertitles which included the name of the character and the actor playing them just before they appeared on screen.

The acting is naturalistic and, for the time, the special effects are astounding (even foreshadowing films like Wizard of Oz on occasion). As befits the era, there is also a dog that does tricks. Finally, the film is bookended by the original poet upon whose work the film is based on (again a novel idea during this period).