"Rosita" (1923) stars Mary Pickford and is directed by Ernst Lubitsch; so...it should be a dynamite piece of film viewing. It's certainly not bad, but it's no masterpiece. Mary is a street singer during what appears to be some century in Seville hundreds of years ago. She is a sort-of François Villon poet/singer who chooses to snipe at the reigning king and his government and the taxes imposed which siphon the wherewithal out of the peasant class. By the upper classes Mary is constantly monikered 'harlot'. She is eventually dragged away by nasty government agent during Carnival festival, but a noble steps up, one who is recently returned from serving military service, and he stops the agent; then gets into a sword duel with him; kills him; then is put into prison where in the morning he will be hanged. Mary is put into the same prison. I'll let it hang there so you can find the film and watch to see what occurs!
Begins slowly. The story is a good one. What happens, though, is that this should have been a good drama. Even a few Pickford light moments would have worked to make this work if it had remained a good drama. Instead...it turns into a second rate meller/romance. Mary doesn't seem happy during this film. Something must have been up. We know historically that is true.
Well worth the watch. But this one does NOT have the Lubitsch touch. Instead, this one's 99 minutes is simply too long. I enjoyed the ending, but I knew it would happen the way it did. Probably would have been better with the Hitchcock touch; or simply letting Mary do her own version. This is on the new Blu-Ray release from Grapevine Video, a Kickstarter project with work done by Jack Hardy and a piano musical score by David Drazin. Score is good, though the Carnival scene music is a tad overwrought.
Also appearing with Pickford are Holbrook Blinn as the king; Irene Rich as his wife, the queen (and who is the person I think did the best job of characterization, and was a pleasure for the little time she appears); George Walsh as Don Diego, Mary's love interest; Mathilde Comont as Mary's mother; George Periolat as Mary's father; and many, many others. Supposedly Charles Farrell and Marion Nixon are here somewhere.
