The five-reeler The Dawn of a Tomorrow was considered to be one of the many lost Mary Pickford films, until a tinted nitrate print with Swedish intertitles surfaced in 2005. The status Pickford had acquired world-wide by the time is exemplified by the fact that the print’s single credit mentions no other names but the film’s Swedish title Nattens skuggor (The Shadows of the Night) and Mary Pickford (confirmed also by the list of inter-titles submitted to the Swedish censorship board).

The film is set in London, and Pickford plays Glad, “the poorest and happiest of all orphans”. She is truly an angel in a Dickensian world, but a self-assured one that combats injustices and actively tries to change the fate of her fellow men. During the course of the film she gives shelter to an evicted mother and child, prevents a suicide, intervenes to inhibit domestic violence, and convinces her sweetheart to reform. She is prepared to defend what she believes to be right not only by words but also by force should it be necessary, as the climactic scene in the final reel with the wealthy heir demonstrates. And the beauty of the close-ups displays an extraordinary precision of expression that makes this long lost Pickford film a revelation to watch.

The Dawn of a Tomorrow was initially released in June 1915, and re-released in January 1919. The film opened in Swedish theatres in February 1921, after censorship cuts had reduced the length from 1339 to 1289 meters. The film was remade in 1924, with Jacqueline Logan performing in the Pickford role.

Jon Wengström