Mickey (1918)

MICKEY  (1918)  ¢ ¢ ¢
    D: F. Richard Jones, James Young
    Mabel Normand, George Nichols, Lew Cody,
    Wheeler Oakman, Minta Durfee, Laura La Varnie 
This is like a Mary Pickford movie with Mabel Normand in the kind of role Little Mary would play. It's a Cinderella story about a country girl who moves to the city, where some greedy relatives put her to work cleaning their house while trying to swindle her out of her inheritance. There's a little slapstick, a little romance, a lot of melodrama and a big horse race toward the end, with Mabel up on one of the steeds. Normand hasn't got Pickford's golden-haired beauty, but she's a less cloying actress, and with a background in comedy, she has the appearance of not taking herself too seriously. That all helps. Minta Durfee, who plays the youngest of the greedy relatives, was married to Fatty Arbuckle.