Coquette (1929) on Netflix
Norma Besant, a Southern doctor's daughter, is a flirt with many suitors, and her father favors Stanley. She loves Michael, a working man, and her father forbids her to see him.
- Netflix2.5/5
- IMDb5.4/102,532 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes44%
Trailer
Plot summary
Norma Besant, the daughter of a Southern doctor, flirts with every suitor who comes her way, and her father would rather she chose Stanley. She has fallen for Michael instead, a working man. When Dr. Besant forbids her to see him again, Norma agrees to his face and then makes a private plan: if Michael can save enough from working in the hills, they will marry in six months. Michael comes down from the hills for a country-club dance, and the two slip away to his mother's cabin for time alone. Norma is home by morning, but someone saw them, and talk begins to spread through town. Michael, angry at the rumors, decides to ask her father for her hand at once.
Cast
Show all 13 cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Coquette (1929)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Mary Pickford fired her longtime cameraman and friend Charles Rosher when he shouted "Cut!" in the middle of one of her lines during an emotional scene; after learning a shadow across her face had spoiled the shot, she wrote him an apologetic letter.
- After her first sound test for Coquette, Mary Pickford remarked, "Why that sounds like a little pipsqueak voice!", and immediately began intensive vocal lessons to achieve a realistic Southern accent for the role.
- Coquette is noted as the earliest known talkie to include variations of the word "Damn": "Damned" is said 42 minutes in, and "Damnably" 43 minutes in.
SPOILER
Coquette was heavily censored during scripting: in the play the leading lady is pregnant with the child of the man her father murders, and she kills herself to save her father from disgrace.- The play that Coquette was adapted from was based on real events in Richmond County, North Carolina, and some of its dialogue was used verbatim from court testimony.
- Mary Pickford, one of the most popular silent-film stars, made Coquette her first talkie and became one of the first major silent-era stars to find success in the new era of sound films.
- In 2008 the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences fought Buddy Rogers' heirs over the sale of Pickford's Coquette Oscar; the heirs wanted to sell it for charity, while the Academy insisted it be sold back to them for $1.
- Irving Berlin wrote the song "Coquette" that is heard in the film, and it has since become a jazz standard in its own right.
