Essays

Helen Gardner

Schumacher, Dorin Gardner

Helen Gardner’s silent film career peaked three times. The first peak came in 1911 with her performance as Becky Sharp in Vanity Fair (1911), important as an early three-reel film, forerunner of four-reel and longer feature films. A review in the Moving Picture World praised the Vitagraph Company of America for the film’s wonderful fidelity to Thackeray’s novel. The reviewer was thrilled with Gardner’s performance: “We might ramble on for hours in ecstasies over the superb work of Miss Gardner and at the end of that time have given but a faint idea of what we saw her do” (887). When Vanity Fair was released, in December of 1911, Gardner had been with Vitagraph about a year and a half.

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Academic Units
Film
Libraries
Series
Women Film Pioneers Project
Published Here
October 15, 2019