[4] The film starts out at The Merrill Department store where a very exhausted stockgirl named Maggie Johnson (Mary Pickford) is given a moment to attend to the sales counter.
The man is said to be Joe Grant (Buddy Rogers) though in reality he is the son of the owner; making him Joseph Merrill.
Some of her coworkers tease her but eventually warn her that Joe is coming, causing Maggie to hop on her ride home from work: the back of an open truck.
After three more times of this, he finally grows weary and jumps in the truck to join Maggie, who feigns innocence.
Her mother (Sunshine Hart) is a dramatic woman who enjoys going to random funerals and makes frequent use of smelling salts to avoid fainting.
Maggie does her best to hide the goings on but eventually caves and sends Joe on his way hoping to have dinner with him another day.
During one such lunch, after receiving the note to join his parents for dinner (for the surprise party), Maggie gives him a watch for his birthday.
Joe offers to buy her dinner at a nice restaurant but, embarrassed by her shoddy work clothes, Maggie declines.
Joe admits he is 'Joseph Merrill' but before he can explain further his fiancée (Avonne Taylor) arrives and kisses him in front of Maggie.
Joe enters the court to hear Maggie's passionate plea for her sister, whom the judge eventually lets go.
Joe begins to cry, and Maggie, touched, breaks down and admits that none of it is true and the real reason she cannot go away with him is because of her family (who had been listening in the living room the whole time) who needs her more than he does.
In a comedic scene he commands everyone (including both Merrills) to pack Maggie's things for the ship which leaves in ten minutes.
[7] My Best Girl was restored in 2015 by the UCLA Film and Television Archive based on the Archive's earlier restoration, which combines the best shots from two 35mm acetate fine grain master positives owned by the Mary Pickford Foundation and a 1940s-era 16mm print from the Mary Pickford Collection at the Library of Congress, and features remade titles to improve the overall appearance of the film.
The new restoration was first shown as part of the 17th edition of the UCLA Film and Television Archive's biennial "Festival of Preservation" in 2015.
[8] Pickford biographer Jeffrey Vance, quoted in the UCLA Film and Television Archive's "Festival of Preservation" 2015 program notes, relates, “What makes My Best Girl special is that it captures the miracle of two people falling in love with each other as their characters do.
It is challenging to capture genuine emotion on a cold piece of celluloid, but falling in love is beautifully immortalized in My Best Girl.”[9] On October 31, 2017 the restaurant Best Girl opened on the ground floor of the Ace Hotel in downtown Los Angeles, 90 years from the release date of the movie and named in its honor.