C limb into our time machine and...

C limb into our time machine and revisit the not-so-distant era when Hollywood was young. Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to yet another edition of . . . MONDO RETRO!

Today’s program is inspired by the 100th birthday tribute to “America’s Sweetheart,” silent movie actress Mary Pickford, at 8 p.m. Tuesday in the Samuel Goldwyn Theater, 8949 Wilshire Blvd., Beverly Hills.

The event is sponsored by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Film critic Sheila Benson will moderate a discussion by Pickford’s friends and colleagues. Clips and an entire feature film will be shown. Tickets: $6 general, $4 for academy members. Information: (310) 247-3000, Ext. 148.

We take you now to the Bide a Wee Bit Longer Nursing Home to talk to Mary Pickford’s exact contemporary and perhaps her biggest fan, Osgood Twickenham.

Gasp . . . wheeze. . . .

Better turn up that oxygen a little.

Whew! That’s better, by cracky! What were you saying? Mary Pickford? Wonderful, wonderful girl. Those great big eyes, those tumbling golden ringlets. I saw “Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm” 534 times. That came out in ‘17, I think. Puttees were the in thing, I remember. . . . And I saw “Pollyanna” 389 times.

That’s amazing, Mr. Twickenham.

Not when you consider that she was the symbol of youth and innocence for my entire generation.

You know, of course, that Mary Pickford, who died in 1979, also was a shrewd businesswoman who founded United Artists with Charlie Chaplin, D.W. Griffith and her second husband, Douglas Fairbanks .

Of course I do. She was shrewd enough to remain a symbol of innocence in spite of it all. This Madonna person should have so much smarts. . . . By cracky, Mary Pickford was the cynosure of all eyes--the apex, the apogee, the very summit of beauty.

We’re curious, Mr. Twickenham. No doubt what you say is true. And yet later generations, watching those jerky, snowy silent films, have to pretty much take the glamour of the early stars on faith. Photography in the movies has improved so much. . . .

The scripts haven’t.

. . .Though the scripts haven’t. But still, given the changes in clothes, hairdos and acting styles, the Pickfords, the Valentinos, seem merely comic today, do they not?

Aaargh!

Quick, give him another whiff there.

Whew! Egad! . . . Listen up, young fellow, while I can still draw breath. My son watched all of Mae West’s movies, but my grandson says he wouldn’t ever have wanted to come up and see her anytime. He swore by Marilyn Monroe, but my great-granddaughter thinks she was more than a bit plump by today’s standards. And the actors she admires lack mystique, it seems to me. So what does it all add up to, eh?

That star quality isn’t timeless after all?

Oh, it belongs to its own time, that’s for certain. But if you see it, as I saw Mary Pickford’s, it lasts as long as you do.

And, by cracky, that can be a long, long while.