{ "id": "epphgmswke", "slug": "my-best-girl", "title": "My Best Girl", "updated": "2026-11-01", "topic_path": [ { "id": "culture", "label": "Arts and culture", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture" }, { "id": "culture.performance", "label": "Screen and stage", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance" }, { "id": "culture.performance.screen", "label": "Film and television", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance.screen" }, { "id": "culture.performance.screen.films", "label": "Films and standalone screen works", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance.screen.films" }, { "id": "culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works", "label": "Individual films by title and year", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works" }, { "id": "culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.early-silent", "label": "Early and silent cinema", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.early-silent" }, { "id": "culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.early-silent.silent-genre-features", "label": "Silent genre and exploitation features", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.early-silent.silent-genre-features" } ], "geo": [ { "id": "geo.us.t1800.culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.early-silent.silent-genre-features", "label": "United States · 1800 to 1945: Silent genre and exploitation features", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.us.t1800.culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.early-silent.silent-genre-features", "path": [ { "id": "geo.us", "label": "United States", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.us" }, { "id": "geo.us.t1800", "label": "United States · 1800 to 1945", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.us.t1800" }, { "id": "geo.us.t1800.culture", "label": "Arts and culture", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.us.t1800.culture" }, { "id": "geo.us.t1800.culture.performance", "label": "Screen and stage", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.us.t1800.culture.performance" }, { "id": "geo.us.t1800.culture.performance.screen", "label": "Film and television", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.us.t1800.culture.performance.screen" }, { "id": "geo.us.t1800.culture.performance.screen.films", "label": "Films and standalone screen works", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.us.t1800.culture.performance.screen.films" }, { "id": "geo.us.t1800.culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works", "label": "Individual films by title and year", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.us.t1800.culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works" }, { "id": "geo.us.t1800.culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.early-silent", "label": "Early and silent cinema", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.us.t1800.culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.early-silent" }, { "id": "geo.us.t1800.culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.early-silent.silent-genre-features", "label": "Silent genre and exploitation features", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.us.t1800.culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.early-silent.silent-genre-features" } ] } ], "excerpt": "My Best Girl (1927) is Sam Taylor's silent romantic comedy starring Mary Pickford as shopgirl Maggie Johnson and Buddy Rogers, her last silent film, adapted from Kathleen Norris's novel, released 31 October 1927 by United Artists.", "snippet": "My Best Girl (1927) is Sam Taylor's silent romantic comedy starring Mary Pickford as shopgirl Maggie Johnson and Buddy Rogers, her last silent film, adapted from Kathleen Norris's novel, released 31 October 1927 by United Artists.", "node": "culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.early-silent.silent-genre-features", "markdown": "# My Best Girl\n\n**My Best Girl** is a 1927 American silent romantic comedy directed by Sam Taylor, starring [Mary Pickford](https://www.edgepedia.org/mary-pickford) as a department-store shop girl who falls in love with the store owner's son, played by Charles \"Buddy\" Rogers. Produced by Pickford's own company and distributed by [United Artists](https://www.edgepedia.org/united-artists), it was her last silent film and is often considered one of her finest pictures.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/10882-MY-BEST-GIRL) • [2](https://marypickford.org/filmography/my-best-girl-feature/)\n\n| Key fact | Detail |\n|---|---|\n| Release | General release 31 October 1927; nine reels, 7,460 feet, standard 35mm 1.33:1[3](https://remnantbrooks.orgwww.silentera.com/PSFL/data/M/MyBestGirl1927.html) |\n| Significance | Mary Pickford's last silent film[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/10882-MY-BEST-GIRL) |\n| Source | Adaptation by Hope Loring of Kathleen Norris's 1927 novel, first serialized that year in Collier's; screenplay by Allen McNeil and Tim Whelan[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/10882-MY-BEST-GIRL) • [2](https://marypickford.org/filmography/my-best-girl-feature/) |\n| Lead roles | Pickford as Maggie Johnson; Rogers as Joe Grant, actually Joseph Merrill, the owner's son working incognito[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/10882-MY-BEST-GIRL) • [4](https://www.capa.com/productions/my-best-girl/) |\n| Key crew | Cinematography Charles Rosher (with Dave Kesson); art direction Jack Schulze; produced by Pickford[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/10882-MY-BEST-GIRL) • [5](https://thelostlaugh.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/wp-1650928677085.pdf) |\n| Budget | Estimated at $483,103[6](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0018183) |\n| Later life | Pickford met her future husband Buddy Rogers on the film; she married him after divorcing Douglas Fairbanks[4](https://www.capa.com/productions/my-best-girl/) • [3](https://remnantbrooks.orgwww.silentera.com/PSFL/data/M/MyBestGirl1927.html) |\n\n## Spoilers\n\n### Story\n\nMaggie Johnson is a stock girl in a five-and-ten-cent store. A new coworker, Joe Grant, is hired as a stockboy and rises to manager; what Maggie does not know is that he is Joseph Merrill, son of the store's owner, working under a false name to prove he can succeed without his father's help.[4](https://www.capa.com/productions/my-best-girl/) • [7](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/my_best_girl) The two fall in love. After Joe's real identity is revealed, Maggie also learns he is engaged to a debutante, Millicent Rogers, and she flees the budding relationship while Joe works to win her back.[7](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/my_best_girl) In the resolution summarized by the [American Film Institute](https://www.edgepedia.org/american-film-institute), the father tries unsuccessfully to buy Maggie off; when she poses as a gold digger to show she will give up his son for the young man's own good, the father becomes convinced of her worth and agrees to the marriage.[8](https://assets.uscannenberg.org/journals/ijpc/appendix_19_1927_12-20-2019.pdf)\n\n## Production\n\nThe 6 May 1927 *Motion Picture News* announced an untitled Pickford film as one of United Artists' releases for the 1927–1928 season, to be directed by Sam Taylor, with principal photography set for 1 June 1927 at the United Artists Studios, also known as the Pickford-Fairbanks Studios, in Hollywood. The story was based on Kathleen Norris's soon-to-be-published 1927 novel, which first appeared as a serial that year in *Collier's*. Rogers's casting and the chosen title were reported on 13 May 1927; the 17 May 1927 *Film Daily* stated the picture was originally titled *Paradise Alley*.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/10882-MY-BEST-GIRL)\n\nShooting actually began earlier than planned, on 25 May 1927. A large-scale department store was constructed on the UA lot and 100 \"shop girls\" were cast. Art director Jack Schulze built elaborate sets including two city blocks complete with streetcars and traffic signals, where close to one thousand background actors and 200 vehicles convened; a reproduction of the New York City Georgian-style home of Willard D. Straight at 1130 [Fifth Avenue](https://www.edgepedia.org/fifth-avenue) was also constructed in detail, with antique Colonial furnishings reportedly borrowed from Pickford's personal collection, including her \"prized\" dining room chairs. The three-month shoot finished in early September 1927 after steamship sequences were filmed in Los Angeles harbor.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/10882-MY-BEST-GIRL)\n\nAccording to the film historian Kevin Brownlow, in his book *Mary Pickford Rediscovered* (1999), Pickford prepared for the shop-girl role by posing in disguise at a department store, where she reportedly went unrecognized.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/10882-MY-BEST-GIRL) The role was a departure for her: her immediately preceding films had cast her as a young girl among mistreated orphans in *Sparrows* (1927), a tenement tomboy in *Little Annie Rooney* (1925), and heroines of costume dramas such as *Dorothy Vernon of Haddon Hall* (1924).[9](https://gradecrest.com/assets/order/discussion-4.pdf) In *My Best Girl* her trademark long curls are pinned up for the entire film, she uses her small stature for comic effect, and she performs her first extended love scene on screen.[10](https://silentfilm.org/my-best-girl/)\n\nThe cinematography by Charles Rosher, particularly in the traffic scenes, reflected work he had just completed for F.W. Murnau's *[Sunrise](https://www.edgepedia.org/sunrise-1927-film)*; for Pickford's close-ups he used a lens he had developed in Germany, which he said gave \"a stereoscopic quality.\"[10](https://silentfilm.org/my-best-girl/) Among the uncredited players, a young [Carole Lombard](https://www.edgepedia.org/carole-lombard) appears as a flirtatious shopgirl, and the comedian Max Davidson appears as a night court spectator.[2](https://marypickford.org/filmography/my-best-girl-feature/) • [5](https://thelostlaugh.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/wp-1650928677085.pdf)\n\n## Release and reception\n\nThe film's opening date is reported differently by sources: the San Francisco Silent Film Festival essay states it opened on October 21, 1927, two weeks after *The Jazz Singer* premiered,[10](https://silentfilm.org/my-best-girl/) while the AFI Catalog and the Silent Era film list give 31 October 1927 as the release date.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/10882-MY-BEST-GIRL) • [3](https://remnantbrooks.orgwww.silentera.com/PSFL/data/M/MyBestGirl1927.html) The 19 October 1927 *Film Daily* reported that the picture was scheduled to be the premiere attraction at the newly constructed 1,600-seat United Artists Theater at 933 S. Broadway in downtown Los Angeles, and modern sources indicate it was the first feature screened there when the theater opened on 26 December 1927.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/10882-MY-BEST-GIRL)\n\n*Variety* (9 November 1927) called the \"high class\" production a \"clean, wholesome, family type of fun\" and praised the naturalistic performances of Rogers and Pickford.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/10882-MY-BEST-GIRL) *Photoplay* (December 1927) called it \"the best picture Mary has made in several years,\" singling out the love scenes between Pickford and Rogers as \"marvelous – beautiful, clean, and gripping.\"[2](https://marypickford.org/filmography/my-best-girl-feature/) On the modern aggregation site Rotten Tomatoes the film holds a Tomatometer score of 89 percent.[7](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/my_best_girl)\n\nThe timing placed the film at the edge of a technological change Pickford could not control: sound. She waited more than a year to make her first talkie, *Coquette* (spring 1929), for which she won an Academy Award; her final screen appearance was in [Frank Borzage](https://www.edgepedia.org/frank-borzage)'s *Secrets* (1933).[10](https://silentfilm.org/my-best-girl/)\n\n## Pickford and Rogers\n\nThe film paired Pickford, then 34 and known as \"America's Sweetheart,\" with Rogers, fourteen years her junior and just 20, who had appeared the year before in the acclaimed *[Wings](https://www.edgepedia.org/wings-1927-film)* (1927), the film that won the first Best Picture Oscar.[5](https://thelostlaugh.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/wp-1650928677085.pdf) The two met on the production and later married in real life.[4](https://www.capa.com/productions/my-best-girl/) Less than a year after the film's release, on June 21, 1928, Pickford had her famous curls cut into a [Jazz Age](https://www.edgepedia.org/jazz-age) bob, a public break with the little-girl image that had defined her career.[10](https://silentfilm.org/my-best-girl/)\n\n## Preservation and other films of the same title\n\nPrints survive at the UCLA Film and Television Archive, which holds a 35mm restoration negative and preservation positive, and in the Mary Pickford Foundation film archive, which holds duplicate negatives and positives.[3](https://remnantbrooks.orgwww.silentera.com/PSFL/data/M/MyBestGirl1927.html) The Mary Pickford Foundation is partnering with UCLA Film & Television Archive and [The Film Foundation](https://www.edgepedia.org/the-film-foundation) on restoration of the film.[11](https://marypickford.org/preservation-work/best-girl-1927/) The Foundation copyrighted a restored version in 1998 with music composed by David Michael Frank, performed by the Bohuslav Martinu Philharmonic Zlin with Bill Motzing conducting; it was released on video by Milestone Films and runs 80 minutes.[6](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0018183)\n\nAn unrelated earlier film of the same title was released on 14 June 1915 by Rolfe Photoplays, a screen version of the 1912 stage musical *My Best Girl* with book and lyrics by Channing Pollock and Rennold Wolf; the AFI Catalog notes the 1927 Pickford film as a separate work.[12](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/18183-MY-BEST-GIRL)\n\n## References\n\n1. [My Best Girl (1927), AFI Catalog of Feature Films](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/10882-MY-BEST-GIRL)\n2. [My Best Girl, Mary Pickford Foundation filmography](https://marypickford.org/filmography/my-best-girl-feature/)\n3. [My Best Girl (1927), Progressive Silent Film List, Silent Era](https://remnantbrooks.orgwww.silentera.com/PSFL/data/M/MyBestGirl1927.html)\n4. [My Best Girl (1927), CAPA Summer Movie Series](https://www.capa.com/productions/my-best-girl/)\n5. [MY BEST GIRL (1927), The Lost Laugh program notes (PDF)](https://thelostlaugh.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/wp-1650928677085.pdf)\n6. [My Best Girl (1927), IMDb](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0018183)\n7. [My Best Girl, Rotten Tomatoes](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/my_best_girl)\n8. [Appendix 19 – 1927, International Journal of Politics, Culture, and Society (PDF)](https://assets.uscannenberg.org/journals/ijpc/appendix_19_1927_12-20-2019.pdf)\n9. [Discussion of Pickford's persona and My Best Girl (PDF)](https://gradecrest.com/assets/order/discussion-4.pdf)\n10. [My Best Girl, essay by Shari Kizirian, San Francisco Silent Film Festival](https://silentfilm.org/my-best-girl/)\n11. [My Best Girl (1927), Mary Pickford Foundation preservation work](https://marypickford.org/preservation-work/best-girl-1927/)\n12. [My Best Girl (1915), AFI Catalog of Feature Films](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/18183-MY-BEST-GIRL)\n\n---\n*Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Individual films by title and year › Early and silent cinema › Silent genre and exploitation features*\n\n*Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026*\n\n*Copyright 2026 EdgeChat AI, a subsidiary of Biostate AI.*\n\nLicense: Edgepedia Community License 1.0, https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license\n", "same_as": [], "url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/my-best-girl", "markdown_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/my-best-girl.md", "license": { "name": "Edgepedia Community License 1.0", "url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license", "summary": "Free with credit, commercial use included. AI training is open to everyone. For other uses, organizations over USD 100M in revenue or 100M monthly users license separately.", "spdx": "LicenseRef-Edgepedia-Community-1.0" }, "credit": "\"My Best Girl\", Edgepedia (EdgeChat), https://www.edgepedia.org/my-best-girl. Edgepedia Community License 1.0.", "credit_md": "\"[My Best Girl](https://www.edgepedia.org/my-best-girl)\", Edgepedia (EdgeChat), [https://www.edgepedia.org/my-best-girl](https://www.edgepedia.org/my-best-girl). [Edgepedia Community License 1.0](https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license).", "credit_html": "\"My Best Girl\", Edgepedia (EdgeChat), https://www.edgepedia.org/my-best-girl. Edgepedia Community License 1.0.", "speakable": "My Best Girl is Sam Taylor's silent romantic comedy starring Mary Pickford as shopgirl Maggie Johnson and Buddy Rogers, her last silent film, adapted from Kathleen Norris's novel, released 31 October 1927 by United Artists." }