Pollyanna

When Halliwell speaks of David Swift’s film as “an overlong and rather humourless remake”, it is with reference to Powell’s film, which sheds a great light on Swift’s monumental analysis for Disney in its Christological formulation (Pollyanna, consigned to the attic in both films, here played by Mary Pickford is literally mistaken for a thief in the night). As firm as the structure is, the emphasis is placed elsewhere, as shown in a couple of jokes certainly remembered by Halliwell, one at Pollyanna’s expense has her merrily scrubbing the black off an amused pickaninny whose mammy takes a roundhouse swing at her and misses, the other at the expense of a fly at table, and of course there is her immortal Glad Game sally at her cussed aunt, “I’m glad she isn’t twins.”