Hollywood's first major female superstar, the eternally youthful Mary Pickford commanded unprecedented clout in the industry, but her iconic status as "America's Sweetheart" has proved more enduring than the vehicles that put her there. A new series of reissues confirms her extraordinary comic and dramatic range—not to mention her indefinable appeal as a movie star—but, more surprisingly, the films themselves prove more compelling than their reputations had previously suggested. With its stark religious overtones, creepy atmospherics, and concern with the perils facing orphaned children, Sparrows, a potent 1926 slice of Southern Gothic, was a huge influence on Charles Laughton's noir masterpiece Night Of The Hunter. In the Lillian Gish role, Pickford mothers a group of younger, forgotten kids toiling in a backwoods swamp for a cruel hick (Gustav von Seyffertitz) operating a "baby farm" far from the scrutiny of the law. When he threatens to toss a kidnapped infant into the gurgling bog, she leads them through alligator-infested waters to safety. Sparrows resembles a Brothers Grimm fairy tale in its vivid, harrowing textures; setting this dark world against Pickford's angelic face boldly demarcates the line between good and evil. Produced a year later, My Best Girl is considerably brighter and more programmatic, a frothy romantic comedy that showcases her effortless charm and deft slapstick skills. Pickford plays a modest clerk at a popular five-and-dime store who falls for the owner's son (Charles "Buddy" Rogers, her future husband), a clumsy new hire working incognito to prove himself to his father. A formulaic Cinderella story by design, My Best Girl coasts along on the stars' playful chemistry and their delightful running games of make-believe, which play into the film's mood of pure fantasy. It's a more typical role for Pickford than Sparrows, but her indomitable pluck can make even the most conventional romance seem accomplished.