Little Annie Rooney (1925) on Netflix
Annie Rooney causes trouble with a gang of children in a New York tenement neighborhood, feuding with the Kid Kellys. Her brother Tim belongs to the Big Kellys, led by Joe Kelly.
- Netflix3.2/5
- IMDb6.8/101,133 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes60%
Trailer
Plot summary
In a tenement neighborhood of New York City, Annie Rooney and a gang of children spend their days causing trouble and scuffling with their rivals, the Kid Kellys. Her father, Officer Timothy Rooney, is a policeman the locals respect, while her brother Tim has joined the Big Kellys, an older boys' gang that Joe Kelly leads and that funds itself by selling tickets for a coming dance. Joe treats Annie kindly, and she grows fond of him. When he calls at the Rooney home, Officer Rooney warns that leading the gang will cost Tim his company. A fruit vendor then reports that Annie's morning mischief cost him five dollars in fruit, and each child is told to help repay him.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Little Annie Rooney (1925)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Mary Pickford asked her fans in a 1925 Photoplay interview which roles they wanted her to play; 20,000 letters came back urging her to portray children, suggesting Anne of Green Gables, Heidi and Alice in Wonderland, and at 33 she stepped into the role of a young girl for Little Annie Rooney.
- The idea of a tough Irish girl from the streets came to Mary Pickford while she was wandering a vacant city set on a Hollywood backlot, and when she called Mabel Normand for an Irish-American view, Normand told her to get an Irish title and write something to go with it.
- Pickford based her character on the 1889 music hall hit "Little Annie Rooney", which is referenced twice in the film's intertitles and had also inspired a comic strip and an animated short film.
- An enormous set filled with realistic details was built on the Pickford-Fairbanks backlot to simulate the impoverished downtown New York neighborhood where the film takes place.
