Mistress Nell on AllMovie

Having played a modern actress in Behind the Scenes (1914), Mary Pickford took on the legendary 17th Century Nell Gwynn, the mistress of Charles II about whom it was said, "England would be worse than a Puritan funeral without her." Pickford's Nell dons male garb in order to intercept a letter from the treacherous Louise, Duchess of Portsmouth (Ruby Hoffman) to Louis XIII of France, thus saving England from the evil schemes concocted by Louise and the Duke of Buckingham (Arthur Hoops). Filmed on locastion in Connecticut, Mistress Nell was based on a stage play by George C. Hazelton, Jr. Pickford's husband, Owen Moore, co-starred as Charles II, a rather tricky situation if rumors about an affair between Pickford and director James Kirkwood were true.