The Griffith Project Volume 6: Films Produced in 1912 9780851709536, 9781838710798, 9781839020148

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THE GRIFFITH PROJECT VOLUME 6 FILMS PRODUCED IN 1912

IN MEMORY OF JONATHAN DENNIS GUARDIAN OF THE TREASURES OF LIGHT ¯ TAONGA WHITIA ¯HUA HE KAITIAKI O NGA 1953–2002

THE GRIFFITH PROJECT VOLUME 6 Films Produced in 1912

G ENERAL E DITOR Paolo Cherchi Usai CONTRIBUTORS Eileen Bowser, Ben Brewster, André Gaudreault, Lee Grieveson, Tom Gunning, Steven Higgins, Lea Jacobs, Joyce Jesionowski, J.B. Kaufman, Charlie Keil, David Mayer, Russell Merritt, Scott Simmon, Kristin Thompson, Yuri Tsivian A SSISTANT E DITOR Cynthia Rowell

A BFI book published by Palgrave Macmillan

First published in 2002 by the British Film Institute 21 Stephen St, London W1T 1LN The British Film Institute is the UK national agency with responsibility for encouraging the arts of film and television and conserving them in the national interest. Copyright © Le Giornate del Cinema Muto 2002 Reprinted 2008 Set in Italian Garamond by Ketchup, London British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN 0–85170–953–2/978–0–85170–953–6 eISBN 978–1–83902–013–1 ePDF 978–1–83902–014–8

CONTENTS

Foreword Notes on Contributors Note on Layout

vii x xii

393. The Mender of Nets 394. Under Burning Skies 395. A Siren of Impulse 396. Iola’s Promise 397. The Goddess of Sagebrush Gulch 398. The Girl and Her Trust 399. The Punishment 400. Fate’s Interception 401. The Female of the Species 402. Just Like a Woman 403. One Is Business; The Other Crime 404. The Lesser Evil 405. The Old Actor 406. A Lodging for the Night 407. His Lesson 408. When Kings Were the Law 409. A Beast at Bay 410. Home Folks 411. A Temporary Truce 412. Lena and the Geese 413. The Spirit Awakened 414. The School Teacher and the Waif 415. Man’s Lust For Gold 416. An Indian Summer 417. Heaven Avenges 418. The Massacre 419. Man’s Genesis 420. The Sands of Dee 421. A Pueblo Legend 422. The Narrow Road

1 4 8 11 15 18 22 24 27 30 33 36 38 41 47 51 57 61 66 69 72 75 78 81 83 86 91 94 100 109

423. A Child’s Remorse 424. The Inner Circle 425. A Change of Spirit 426. An Unseen Enemy 427. Two Daughters of Eve 428. Friends 429. So Near, Yet So Far 430. A Feud in the Kentucky Hills 431. In the Aisles of the Wild 432. The One She Loved 433. The Painted Lady 434. The Musketeers of Pig Alley 435. Heredity 436. Gold and Glitter 437. My Baby 438. The Informer 439. Brutality 440. The Unwelcome Guest 441. The New York Hat 442. My Hero 443. The Burglar’s Dilemma 444. A Cry for Help 445. The God Within 446. Three Friends 447. The Telephone Girl and the Lady 448. Oil and Water 449. An Adventure in the Autumn Woods 450. The Tender-Hearted Boy 451. A Chance Deception 452. Fate 453. A Father’s Lesson 454. A Misappropriated Turkey 455. Brothers 456. Drink’s Lure 457. When Love Forgives

114 118 123 128 132 135 138 141 144 147 151 158 166 169 174 180 187 193 197 201 204 208 211 214 217 220 224 227 230 233 237 241 244 247 251

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Bibliography Description of Scenes from Copyright Records

255 257

Index of Titles: 1912 Cumulative Index of Titles: 1907–1912

310 312

FOREWORD

There is widespread consensus on the view that 1912 is the first “golden year” in the career of D.W. Griffith. Titles such as The Female of the Species (DWG Project, #401), The Massacre (#418), The Sands of Dee (#420), The Painted Lady (#433) and The New York Hat (#441) are generally regarded as classics of early cinema; frame enlargements of an exterior shot in The Musketeers of Pig Alley (#434) and of the Gish sisters in An Unseen Enemy (#426) – reproduced in countless books and journals – have acquired the status of icons of silent film as an art form. However, the canonization process has touched upon a relatively small portion of the sixty-four films produced by Griffith during this period. A Pueblo Legend (#421), one of the highest points in the director’s career, has so far received little attention outside the circle of Griffith specialists. Four titles have never been seen by modern audiences; another five are considered lost. No less remarkable is the fact that one third of the best prints available for viewing at the present time are preserved outside the United States (for example, a nitrate print of Gold and Glitter [#436] was found in Japan), perhaps an indicator of a wider overseas distribution of Biograph films in 1912. Be that as it may, there is still a wealth of treasures waiting to be uncovered in this “golden year”. Their reappraisal is one of the aims of this sixth installment in the multi-year research project commissioned by the Pordenone Silent Film Festival in Sacile, involving the analysis of all the films where D.W. Griffith was credited as director, actor, writer, producer and supervisor. As in previous volumes, contributors to The Griffith Project were asked to analyze groups of consecutive films, listed here in their shooting order. Please note that, by and large, it is the last day of shooting that determines the chronology and perimeters of each volume. A note on geography: in the absence of any conclusive evidence on the precise shooting location of a film, we have opted for a generic reference to “California” or to the “East Coast” – rather than New York or New Jersey – except where specified. The primary source for filmographic information on the Biograph period is D.W. Griffith and the Biograph Company (Cooper C. Graham, Steven Higgins, Elaine Mancini, João Luiz Vieira. Metuchen, N.J. and London: The Scarecrow Press, 1985), by far the best factual source on the subject. We gratefully acknowledge its authors and publisher, with special thanks to Steven Higgins – a longtime friend of the Pordenone Silent Film Festival – who provided invaluable advice on various aspects of the overall project. Contributors to The Griffith Project have occasionally added or amended information contained in the Scarecrow filmography. Two titles in particular have been the object of identification work: there is some evidence that A Father’s Lesson (DWG Project, #453), hitherto credited to Anthony O’Sullivan, may have been directed by Griffith; a new entry on this title has thus been established (details are provided in Russell Merritt’s note on this film). It has also been proven that Pirate Gold (finished in October 1912) – formerly attributed to Griffith – was in fact directed by Wilfred Lucas in Québec City, and has therefore been removed from the list of Griffith’s directorial credits. Additional information on this title can be found in André Gaudreault (ed.), in collaboration with Germain Lacasse and Jean-Pierre Sirois-Trahan, Au pays des ennemis du cinéma... Pour une nouvelle histoire des débuts du cinéma au Québec (Québec: Nuit Blanche éditeur, 1996). vii

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It is worth reminding the reader of the criteria adopted for our inventory of preservation copies. In film, archival sources may be defined as the complex of all the elements held by moving image repositories and museums (regardless of their status as masters or duplicates). Alternatively, they could be identified as the extant preservation material (closest to the original camera negatives) utilized for the making of viewing copies. In the former sense, every film print – including, for instance, a 16mm duplicate of late generation – is considered an archival source. In the latter definition, such a term is used only for the ur-elements from which viewing copies are made, such as paper prints, nitrate negatives, positive prints generated at the time of the film’s commercial release and re-release, archival negatives struck before the corresponding nitrate print decomposed, or fine grain masters and modern positive prints or negatives if no other material is available. The second (and admittedly more restrictive) approach has been adopted within the framework of this project. For example, a 35mm paper print, a camera negative, a nitrate 35mm release print with English titles and a nitrate 35mm release print with German titles are listed as separate archival sources of the same film, as it is presumed that all the known preservation material and access copies in existence derive from one or more of these prints. Therefore, a 16mm generated from one of the above elements (such as many Biograph shorts distributed by Blackhawk in the 1970s for non-theatrical use) is not included in the inventory. On the other hand, a 16mm copy derived from a nitrate 35mm print distributed in Spain would be regarded as an archival source as long as the corresponding nitrate print or 16mm reduction negative are no longer extant. None of these criteria is altogether immune from drawbacks and ambiguities. This is particularly true in relation to the inventory of 1912 Biograph prints attempted here. More copies of dubious archival generation have been found in the course of our search: the popular and critical acclaim enjoyed by several films made by Griffith during the year under scrutiny resulted in a plethora of duplicates in various formats (often with an added soundtrack) and generations, so numerous as to make the above distinction more problematic than ever. A comprehensive and reliable census based on the first method is virtually impossible to achieve, as we will never know exactly how many copies were made from a given source. On the other hand, archives often possess 16mm prints of unknown origin, and their generation cannot be established without a parallel examination of all the other surviving elements. However germane to the endeavor, this kind of comparative analysis requires an effort well beyond the scope of the project. Moreover, the procedure adopted here has the advantage of minimizing the possibility of redundancies, thus providing a preliminary guide for further inquiry in this important area of research. Copies of undetermined or uncertain origin have been included with the other sources, in the hope that future studies will bring conclusive evidence of their identity. It should be stressed – especially in the context of this volume – that the presence of an archival source does not necessarily mean that a corresponding access print is actually available. It is possible, for example, that a film preserved in three different archival sources may be seen only in a copy derived from one of these sources, not always the best, nor the most complete. In other cases, a title that survives in the form of a single archival source may not be currently accessible because no viewing print has been made yet. It is our hope that The Griffith Project will generate enough scholarly attention to bring these films to the public view. A list of all the 1912 titles currently available for screening – including their archival source and length – can be found in the catalogue of the Pordenone Silent Film Festival, published in conjunction with the 2002 retrospective. A new source of documentation has been incorporated in the series, a set of continuity sheets deposited by the Biograph Company at the Copyright Office of the Library of Congress between 1912 and 1914. A thorough comparison between these typewritten “scripts” viii

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(normally preceded by plot summaries, also reproduced here) and the few extant release prints of the corresponding films hasn’t been attempted yet, nor is it clear at what stage of the production process these continuities were created; we have decided to transcribe them in an appendix, both as aide-mémoire and research tools in the process of deciphering or reconstructing those films which survive in the form of original negatives without intertitles. Fragments of paper prints were often attached to the title sheet or to the synopsis page, and the chemical decay of adjacent film fragments – from titles produced by other companies – has sometimes damaged or destroyed portions of the page (lacunae are indicated in the transcripts where appropriate). An asterisk (*) following the sequence number at the beginning of each entry indicates the titles for which a continuity sheet is available. The Griffith Project would not exist without the generous help of all the individuals and institutions involved in the preservation of Griffith’s work. Our special thanks go to Mary Lea Bandy, Anne Morra and Steven Higgins (The Museum of Modern Art, New York), Greg Lukow, Patrick Loughney, Madeline Matz and Mike Mashon (Library of Congress), who are currently in charge of this massive undertaking, initiated several years ago by Iris Barry and Eileen Bowser at MoMA and by the staff of the Motion Picture, Broadcasting, and Recorded Sound Division at the Library of Congress. Film preservation is by definition an international effort: several archives outside the United States have restored other Griffith titles, or helped with additional documentation and research. We wish to express our gratitude to Elaine Burrows (National Film and Television Archive, London), Robert Daudelin (Cinémathèque Québécoise), Mark-Paul Meyer, Rommy Albers and Simona Monizza (Filmmuseum, Amsterdam), Eva Orbanz (Film Museum Berlin), Eddie Richmond and Charles Hopkins (UCLA Film and Television Archive), Dan Nissen (Det Danske Filmmuseum), Paulina Fernandez Jurado (Fundación Cinemateca Argentina), Lúcia Lobo (Museu de Arte Moderna, Rio de Janeiro), Michelle Aubert, Eric Le Roy and Jean-Louis Cot (Archives du Film, Bois d’Arcy), Michael Pogorzelski and Fritz Herzog (Academy Film Archive), Edward E. Stratmann, Karen Latham Everson, Caroline Yeager, Chad D. Hunter, Deborah Stoiber, Daniel Wagner, Tim Wagner, and all the staff of the Motion Picture Department at George Eastman House for their generous help in retrieving and sharing information on archival sources. André Gaudreault’s entries for this volume have been translated from the French by Timothy Barnard. Last but not least, we are grateful to all the interns and students who contributed to the early stages of preparation of this volume: Jared Case, Kelly Chisholm, Sonia Genaitay, Kelli Hicks, Sungji Oh, Christina Porterfield, Linda Shah (recipient of the 2002 Giornate del Cinema Muto Fellowship and editorial assistant for this volume), Heather Stilin and John Woodard, students of the L. Jeffrey Selznick School of Film Preservation at George Eastman House. My colleagues on the Board of Directors of the Pordenone Silent Film Festival (Davide Turconi, David Robinson, Piera Patat, Livio Jacob, Carlo Montanaro, Piero Colussi, Lorenzo Codelli and Luciano De Giusti) were instrumental in turning the Griffith retrospective into a unique opportunity to reassess the extraordinary contribution of D.W. Griffith to the art of film. Commentaries on the goals and methodological issues raised by The Griffith Project before and after the series started in October 1997 can be found in Griffithiana, Vol. XXI, Nos. 62–63; May 1998, 4–37; in the French journal 1895, No. 29, December 1999, 187–88, and in Luca Giuliani (ed.), The Collegium Papers I (Gemona: Cineteca del Friuli / Le Giornate del Cinema Muto, 2001), the inaugural volume of an annual collection of essays and workshop transcripts written or assembled by students participating in the festival. Paolo Cherchi Usai San Culebra del Porco, January 2002 ix

NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS

EILEEN BOWSER is a film historian and curator emeritus of the film archives, Department of Film and Video, The Museum of Modern Art, New York. She is cataloguer of the D.W. Griffith Collection of papers at the museum, author of The Transformation of Cinema: 1907–1915 (1990), co-author (with Iris Barry) of D.W. Griffith (1965) and editor of Biograph Bulletins 1908–1912 (1973). BEN BREWSTER is the assistant director of the Wisconsin Center for Film and Theater Research in Madison, Wisconsin, USA. He is co-author (with Lea Jacobs) of Theatre to Cinema: Stage Pictorialism and the Early Feature Film (1997) and author of many articles on early cinema in Screen, Film History, Cinema Journal, and Griffithiana. PAOLO CHERCHI USAI, senior curator of the Motion Picture Department at George Eastman House, is professor of Film at the University of Rochester and director of the L. Jeffrey Selznick School of Film Preservation, established in 1996. Co-founder of the Pordenone Silent Film Festival, he is an adjunct member of the National Film Preservation Board at the Library of Congress and a member of the Executive Committee of the International Federation of Film Archives (FIAF). His latest book is The Death of Cinema (2001). ANDRÉ GAUDREAULT is professor of Cinema at the Département d’histoire de l’art at Université de Montréal, where he is responsible for GRAFICS (Groupe de recherche sur l’avènement et la formation des institutions cinématographique et scénique) and is also director of CRI (Centre de recherche sur l’intermédialité). A visiting professor in various universities (São Paulo, Paris III – Sorbonne Nouvelle, Bologna et Paris I – Panthéon-Sorbonne), he has published Du littéraire au filmique (reissued in 1999 with a preface by Paul Ricœur), co-author with F. Jost of Le Récit cinématographique, Pathé 1900: Fragments d’une filmographie analytique du cinéma des premiers temps (1993), and Au pays des ennemis du cinéma (1996). LEE GRIEVESON is lecturer in Cinema Studies at the University of Exeter and assistant director of the Bill Douglas Centre for the History of Cinema and Popular Culture. His work on the regulation of early American cinema has appeared in the journals Screen and Cinema Journal and in a number of edited collections. He is currently completing a book entitled The Policing of Cinema, 1907–1915. TOM GUNNING is professor of Art History and member of the Committee on Cinema and Media at the University of Chicago. He is the author of D.W. Griffith and the Origins of American Narrative Film: The Early Years at Biograph (1991) and numerous articles on early cinema (including “the Cinema of Attractions”). He was a founding member of Domitor, the international society for the study of early film. His most recent book, The Films of Fritz Lang: Allegories of Vision and Modernity (2000) is published by BFI. STEVEN HIGGINS is curator in the Department of Film and Video, The Museum of Modern Art, New York. LEA JACOBS is professor of Film at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her latest book, in collaboration with Ben Brewster, is Theater to Cinema: Stage Pictorialism and the Early Feature Film (1997). x

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JOYCE JESIONOWSKI is a film scholar and the author of Thinking in Pictures (1987), an examination of the formal structures of D.W. Griffith’s Biographs. She currently serves as Assistant Dean at Yeshiva College in New York City. J.B. KAUFMAN is an independent film historian who has written extensively on silent film and Disney animation. He is co-author, with Russell Merritt, of Walt in Wonderland: The Silent Films of Walt Disney (1992) and of a second volume on the Silly Symphonies. CHARLIE KEIL is associate professor of History and Cinema Studies at the University of Toronto. He is the author of Early American Cinema in Transition: Story, Style and Filmmaking, 1907–1913 (2001) and has published extensively on early cinema. DAVID MAYER is emeritus professor of Drama and research professor at the University of Manchester, England. His books include Harlequin in His Element: English Pantomime, 1806–1836 (1969) and Playing Out the Empire: Ben Hur and Other Toga Plays and Films (1994). He is author of numerous essays on 19th and early 20th-century popular stage entertainments and links with early film. RUSSELL MERRITT is visiting professor at the University of California at Berkeley and has written, with J.B. Kaufman, an account of Walt Disney’s silent cartoons, Walt in Wonderland: The Silent Films of Walt Disney (1992). CYNTHIA ROWELL graduated in 1999 from the L. Jeffrey Selznick School of Film Preservation at George Eastman House. She is director of Acquisitions for Milestone Film & Video. SCOTT SIMMON is author of The Films of D.W. Griffith (1993) and other volumes on American film and film preservation. For the Library of Congress, he supervised restorations of Oscar Micheaux’s Within Our Gates (1919) and Lois Weber’s Where Are My Children? (1916). He curated the National Film Preservation Foundation’s “Treasures from American Film Archives” (2000), a DVD set of fifty preserved films from eighteen archives. Currently, he is visiting associate professor at the University of California, Davis. KRISTIN THOMPSON is an honorary fellow in the Communication Arts Department at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her books include The Classical Hollywood Cinema (1985), co-written with David Bordwell and Janet Staiger, Exporting Entertainment: America in World Film Markets 1907–1934 (1985), and Storytelling in the New Hollywood: Understanding Classical Narrative Technique (1999). She is at work on a study comparing Ernst Lubitsch’s silent German and American features. YURI TSIVIAN is professor of Film at the University of Chicago. Ph.D. in Film Studies from Institute of Theater, Music and Cinema, Leningrad, 1984. Among his books are Silent Witnesses: Russian Films, 1908-1919 (1989), Istoricheskaja recepcija kino (1991), translated as Early Cinema in Russia and its Cultural Reception (1994), and, in collaboration with Yuri Lotman, Dialogues with the Screen (1994). His most recent work is the CD-ROM Immaterial Bodies: Cultural Anatomy of Early Russian Films (1998).

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NOTE ON LAYOUT

Program sequence number, production company Filmographic information Plot summary from historical source Plot synopsis from actual viewing Critical analysis

xii

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393 BIOGRAPH

THE MENDER OF NETS Filming date: finished January 1912 Location: Santa Monica, California Release date: 15 February 1912; 24 March 1912 (in Britain) Release length: one reel Copyright date: 15 February 1912 Director: D.W. Griffith Author: none known Source: none known Camera: G.W. Bitzer Cast: Mary Pickford (The Little Mender); Charles H. West (Tom); Margaret Lovebridge [Marguerite Marsh] (Grace) NOTE: Santa Monica location taken from handwritten notation on the Biograph Bulletin. Archival Sources: George Eastman House, 28mm diacetate positive; Library of Congress, 35mm nitrate negative (incomplete?, AFI/Mary Pickford Collection); The Museum of Modern Art, 35mm acetate negative (from National Screen and Sound Archive of Australia 35mm nitrate positive, decomposed); National Film and Television Archive, 35mm acetate negative (printed in 1956 from 35mm nitrate positive, ca. 1920, destroyed) IN THE TANGLED MESH OF LIFE’S NETS The little mender is betrothed to Tom, the fisherman, rejecting the suits of all the others. Tom, however, is weak, and finds that his old infatuation for Grace still haunts him. Grace has sacrificed all for her love for Tom, and when she sees him courting the little mender, she reminds him of his duty towards her. He realizes the strength of this and hints to the little mender that he is not worthy of her. Grace’s brother learns of her dishonor and attempts vengeance. A quarrel ensues between the men, and the little mender, ignorant of the cause, attempts to save her sweetheart from the anger of the brother, and her tender appeal turns him for the time from his purpose. The little mender learns, however, the cause and the truth of the other girl’s sorrow, and, smothering her own feelings, awakens Tom to his sense of duty, while she returns to mend the nets, solaced by her memories and her old father. Biograph Bulletin, February 15, 1912

A girl is sitting at a beach mending a fisherman’s net. Enter her father bringing more nets, and a little later her boyfriend Tom, bringing a ring. Grace, Tom’s old infatuation, feels he has grown cold to her. Next day, Tom returns to the mender: “I, NOT GOOD ENOUGH.” Meanwhile, Grace, who is looking for Tom, sees him and the mender together. “YOU CAN’T MARRY ANOTHER – WHAT OF ME?” The situation complicates when Grace’s brother learns of his sister’s dishonor and attempts vengeance. The little mender, who senses something wrong, borrows her father’s binoculars just in time to see Tom threatened by Grace’s brother. She follows the latter to his cabin out of which he comes out carrying a gun. “THE NET-MENDER IGNORANT OF THE CAUSE OF THE QUARREL ATTEMPTS TO SAVE HER SWEETHEART.”

She comes between Tom and Grace’s vengeful brother in the nick of time to save 1

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him from the bullet, but it is also then that she learns the truth about Tom and Grace. Realizing she had unwittingly served as a cause of the painful rupture, the net-mender gently refuses Tom’s proposal and leaves, wishing them both a happy life. The last image: we glimpse the little mender sitting at the beach mending the nets.

This is one of those Biograph pictures whose closing shot evokes the opening one: in both, the young girl is shown sitting by a beach cabin, mending a fishing net; behind her, one can see a nice rocky hill encircling a Santa Monica cove. Tom Gunning, who has traced similar kinds of closure from the 1909 The Country Doctor to this year’s The Inner Circle and The Sands of Dee, connects such “circular structures” with a particular melancholy mood those stories intend to inspire (Gunning 1991, pp. 276–78); this is also true for The Mender of Nets, whose last shot – a mirror image of the first – seems to say “What has been will be again” (Ecclesiastes 1:9). To give this resigned wisdom a stronger visual emphasis, The Mender of Nets ends with a fade and begins with one, though in the 35mm Museum of Modern Art print that I was able to inspect, the opening fade-in does not start from pitch black. Simply, at the outset, the image is darker and hazier, and it takes around twelve seconds for the opening shot to brighten up as Mary – the little Mender – lifts her eyes from the net on her lap and smiles to herself. Whether or not Griffith intended them this way, the Moving Picture World critic mistook this partial fade-in (and its counterpart at the end of the film) for atmospheric phenomena: This picture’s first scene comes forth out of the mist near a little cove. We see, dimly, white breakers coming in from the sea. The scene grows clear and bright and we see the little mender of nets seated at her work between her father’s cabin and the beach, the white breakers of the cove serving as background. … In the last scene she sits again at her work beside the cabin, her father beside her talking with her. The mist closes in and we see the white breakers dimly. (The Moving Picture World, March 2, 1912, p. 780)

It is amazing how what we read affects what we see. Like all of us, I know a fade when I see it. When I first watched The Mender of Nets, my eyes “knew too much”, as it were, to even suspect the fades could have been anything more than just fades; but when I read this 1912 description and watched the film again, my eyes literally saw the mist – despite the fact that visually the real mist would take the image into a lighter, not darker shade of gray. If my readers doubt or wish to experience this odd perceptual effect, it is easy to do – DVD and laserdisc versions of The Mender of Nets exist. The Moving Picture World account of these two shots eats up a good half of the space set aside for the review, and its subject deserves it: even if Griffith never intended the fades to invoke the mist, the enclosing image is definitely symbolic. First, as it follows from the Biograph Bulletin subtitle – “In the tangled mesh of life’s nets” – whoever wrote the story wanted us to make a connection between the girl’s occupation and her having mended the invisible net of attachments and commitments she had unknowingly disrupted; if in the beginning of the film the shot showing the mender at work merely visualizes what we have just learned from the main title, in the end when this image returns, Griffith expects it to nutshell the entire little drama that had just passed before the viewer’s eyes. Secondly – and more importantly for our understanding of Griffith’s toolkit of 1912 – a visual bridge exists between what the girl in the story does for living and what she does in life. Shortly before the film comes to the close, we watch the mender reconnect the somewhat reluctant fiancé and the girl he had jilted for her; the bit of business Griffith gives Mary Pickford to perform 2

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this task is nothing short of mending: first, Mary takes Tom’s hand into hers and puts it around Grace’s shoulder; then, she creates a counter-stitch by putting Grace’s arms around Tom. Then, sadly and silently, the little mender of nets steals out of the room to go on with her work by the unchanging sea. Fade out. “The Biograph Company”, continues the Moving Picture World reviewer still a little cautiously, “can hardly object to our mention of Little Mary’s name; she is the mender of nets.” This was, indeed, a new concession in the Biograph policy – news in January 1912 – that the company would allow the players’ names to appear in print. An inside witness, Linda Arvidson thus explains why Griffith and the company would eventually give in: “Biograph found it a difficult job sticking to their policy of secrecy. Letters came from fans asking about their favorites; the pretty girl with the curls – the girl with the sad eyes – the man with the lovely smile – the funny little man – and the policeman” (Arvidson, p. 187). Though 1912 was too early for anyone to ask about the funny little man, the link Linda Arvidson makes between Mary Pickford and Charlie Chaplin makes perfect sense: it is owing to them that in three years hence, the tiny leak that allowed the Moving Picture World reviewer to divulge the name of the mender would grow into what Benjamin B. Hampton – another inside witness – has called “The Pickford Revolution” as a result of which “[a]cting, historically one of the most precarious of all professions[,] suddenly found itself among the best paid on earth” (Hampton, pp. 146–69). Yuri Tsivian

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394 BIOGRAPH

UNDER BURNING SKIES Filming date: finished January 1912 Location: California Release date: 22 February 1912 Release length: one reel Copyright date: 20 February 1912 Director: D.W. Griffith Author: none known Source: none known Camera: G.W. Bitzer Cast: Wilfred Lucas (Joe); Blanche Sweet (Emily); W. Christy Cabanne (Her husband); Alfred Paget (His friend); Kate Toncray (Mother); Claire McDowell (Friend); Charles H. West (Bartender); Charles Hill Mailes, Frank Evans, Charles Gorman (In bar); Robert Harron, W.C. Robinson, Edwin August (On street); W. Chrystie Miller, Charles Hill Mailes, Robert Harron, Marguerite Marsh (At farewell party) Archival Sources: The Museum of Modern Art, 35mm nitrate negative A TALE OF THE AMERICAN DESERT Joe would have been happily married to Little Emily if he could have kept his promise to give up drink. But seemingly it was impossible, and when drunk he became so reckless and dangerous that he had received the name of “The Bad Man of San Fernand.” A young man from across the great desert meets Little Emily, and before long she consents to marry him. Joe hears of this, and, his mind inflamed by liquor, he sends a message to the new sweetheart that he will shoot him on sight. Emily, fearful that Joe might carry out his threat, marries the young man at once and they start across the desert for home and safety. Joe hearing of this, vengefully follows. On the desert the ripping of their water-sack has left the young couple without a supply of water, and when Joe overtakes them they are on the verge of dying from thirst. Gloating over his chance for revenge, he refuses their appeals for water and leaves them to die. He cannot, however, forget Little Emily’s heartrending appeals, and, his better self awakening to a realization of what he has done, he returns. Biograph Bulletin, February 22, 1912

Joe takes a drink before his rendezvous with Emily; she says she will marry him if he quits drinking. “FROM NOW ON IT’S WATER FOR ME”, says he to his friends in the saloon – an ironic title given the role water plays in the finale. But Joe is too happy about his sweetheart’s promise to remember his own. While Joe is celebrating, Emily is introduced to a handsome friend of a friend. Another rendezvous reveals Joe is drunk again; no kiss. The handsome cowboy shows up to be smiled at by Emily and frowned at by Joe. There follows a protracted street gunfight brought to a halt by Emily’s courage. Emily marries the handsome one and they hasten to leave the town. Joe vows vengeance. In the desert, the water bag falls from the mule’s pack and the water is gone. Before long, Emily is faint from exhaustion, while her husband is desperately trying to dig water using his hands. Enter Joe riding a white horse and flaunting a great flask full of water. But the drunk’s heart is bigger than he thought: 4

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after some teasing, he not only gives the newlyweds his water (Emily first), but also leaves them his white horse before returning to the town.

On 30 July 1911 a large (unsigned) essay appeared in The New York Times explaining how Western film dramas were helping the American film industry prevail in the international film market; in fact, it has already prevailed, the author concludes, running perhaps a little ahead of time: There is one American article of export out of which fortunes are being coined in every corner of the world, and which, under its rightful name, does not appear upon a single steamer’s manifest. This is the picturesque – what is bizarre, exciting, and unusual in American life, chiefly scenes of cowboys and Indians. This picturesque, a real, definite commodity of genuine commercial importance, goes with many another moving picture film across the seas … From Liverpool to Moscow and from Stockholm to Melbourne the patrons eagerly watch the unfolding of every one of the highly colored dramas of the prairies and the mountains. It does not matter if the story is only slightly different from what they have seen before. This is the America that they have long imagined and heard about … This picturesque that makes such a valuable commodity when it is exported has to be prepared with the greatest care. Just the proper sort of country has to be chosen, in the first place, for a background. (“Exporting an Imaginary America to Make Money: Moving Picture Lovers in Foreign Cities prefer Indian and Cowboy Films to All Others.” The New York Times Encyclopedia of Film, section 1911).

The “background” the essay is talking about is a period term for a period value: in those years trade-paper reviewers would assess backgrounds on a par with “photographs”, “action”, or “acting”. The Biograph Bulletin lists Under Burning Skies as “A Tale of the American Desert”; in less lofty language, it is one of Biograph’s “desert pictures” – films whose stories were cut to the picturesque background against which they unfold. Griffith began making these in 1910 (Over Silent Paths was his first “Story of the American Desert” [DWG Project, #257]), and not unlike its 1911 forerunner The Last Drop of Water (another “Story of the Great American Desert” [DWG Project, #350]), our film also taps the background desert for a story of thirst. Ours, however, is not merely a desert film but also a “cowboy picture”, for although it ends up on a familiar desert-thirst note, most of its action is structured around a beautiful gunfight that unfolds against the background of a Western town (San Fernando, as the bad guy’s nickname allows to suggest), and in a saloon whose background wall is entirely covered with coarse American graffiti (four playing cards, a glass of beer, and a man’s head in profile signed “Oklahoma Charlie”). In this sense Under Burning Skies is really what The New York Times calls a “highly colored drama”. The gunfight action staged in the street and in the saloon is more compelling than the desert finale it precedes. One glance at the Bulletin publicity still is enough to say that no matter what its picturesque value, the cactus-and-yucca waste proved a poor stage (too open, too empty) for the final showdown. But in the town Griffith is at his 1912 best. I cannot find a better way to describe what is going on in San Fernando than by relating it to the endless strategic maneuvers that the two groups of gang members undertake before they ultimately burst into shooting in the same year’s The Musketeers of Pig Alley. The mutual stalking in which the two rival cowboys find themselves involved in Under Burning Skies is as long (if not longer), as elaborate, and as suspenseful. Here, Griffith makes a brilliant use of the advantage that urban locations have over desert ones: these spaces are segmented 5

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and narrow, with corners to hide behind, and plenty of people around to provide reactions. The bartender (long moustache, bald head) ducks behind the bar each time one of the contenders enters and looks around, their guns drawn; and much like later on in Chaplin’s Easy Street (1917), the entire busy street of San Fernando becomes instantly empty as soon as one of the duelists turns its way. Those moments, without canceling the suspense, work for comic relief; and I think it is this mixture of comedy and suspense that the Moving Picture World reviewer had in mind when he wrote this about the film’s action: “It is fresh and human, and has touches, here and there, even when it verges on murder and sudden death, that convince us into laughter – this was heard all over the house” (The Moving Picture World, March 9, 1912, p. 866). The sequence ends in a perfectly staged non-resolution: we see Joe cagily nearing a street corner behind which we know his adversary is doing the same – the latter’s revolver is slowly emerging from behind the corner wall. Exactly at the moment when the deadly outcome seems inevitable, we see Blanche Sweet’s heroine dash into the shot, place herself between the two guns and thus avert the shooting. Let me finish by quoting another passage from the 1911 New York Times article – the one that reported the enormous success of American Western pictures overseas – not so much in order to comment on Under Burning Skies as to share a thought pro domo sua: It is wonderful how such a film never fails … For the American firms engaged in the exporting of the American picturesque the situation is ideal, for London is rapidly becoming the great selling center for films for all sections of Europe, and even Australia and New Zealand. The great demand all over England for the cowboy and Indian films has spurred on the agents for “houses” in other countries to compete for the pick of these … Spain and Italy, even Russia, the big cities of South America and far-off Oceania tell precisely the same story. Russia, curiously enough, is getting to be a stronghold of moving pictures, and the most insignificant towns and villages, even in remote districts, are being well provided with these amusements. There are reported to be 1,200 electric theatres alone in the Russian Empire. (The New York Times, op. cit.)

Russia, indeed, was becoming a huge market; would pictures like Under Burning Skies be hugely successful in Russia? Potentially, yes; to give an idea how ready Russians were for movies like this, let me quote from Speak, Memory, the autobiographical book by the Russian-American writer Vladimir Nabokov who was thirteen (and living in Russia) at the time when Griffith released Under Burning Skies, and much given not only to reading Western stories but even to enacting them in a park: The Wild West fiction of Captain Mayne Reid (1818–83) translated and simplified, was tremendously popular with Russian children at the beginning of this century, long after his American fame had faded. … In the summer of 1909 or 1910, [my cousin Yuri von Traubenberg] enthusiastically introduced me into the dramatic possibilities of the Mayne Reid books. He had read them in Russian (being in everything save surname much more Russian than I) and, when looking for a playable plot, was prone to combine them with Fenimore Cooper and his own fiery inventions. I viewed our games with greater detachment and tried to keep to the script. The staging took place generally in the park of Batovo, where the trails were even more tortuous and trappy than those of Vyra. For our mutual manhunts we used spring pistols that ejected, with considerable force, pencil-long sticks (from the brass tips of which we had manfully twisted off the protective rubber suction cups). Later came airguns of various types, which shot wax pallets or small tufted darts, with non-lethal, but often quite painful consequences. In 1912, the impressive mother-of-pearl plated revolver he arrived with was calmly taken away and locked up by my tutor Lenski, but not before we had blown to pieces the shoebox lid (in prelude to the real thing,

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an ace), which we have been holding up by turns at a gentlemanly distance in a green avenue where a duel was rumored to have been fought many dim years ago. (Vladimir Nabokov, Speak, Memory [New York: Vintage Books International, 1989], pp. 195, 197)

A Western picture like Under Burning Skies would have been welcomed by all Russian children, I imagine, and might have even supplied some fresh visual details for their games, but 1912 was still too early for that. The Russian market was dominated by Nordisk and Cines, and although I am sure some of the multiple distribution agencies that operated there would have a Biograph picture to offer (I know for sure that two Griffith films from 1913 – The Lady and the Mouse and Judith of Bethulia – were shown in Russia), I do not believe the American presence was that much felt. It was not before another ten years that desert and prairie backgrounds would become a true rage in my country. Yuri Tsivian

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395 BIOGRAPH

A SIREN OF IMPULSE Filming date: finished January 1912 Location: California Release date: 4 March 1912 Release length: one reel Copyright date: 6 March 1912 Director: D.W. Griffith Author: none known Source: none known Camera: G.W. Bitzer Cast: Dorothy Bernard (Mariana); Charles H. West (Jose?); Mae Marsh, Marguerite Marsh, Mary Pickford (Revelers) Archival Sources: The Museum of Modern Art, 35mm nitrate negative THE STORY OF IMPETUOUS SPANISH BLOOD Mariana, the rose of the little Spanish village, being a tantalizing coquette, has the hearts of all the young men agog by her flirtatiousness, until Jose finally wins her heart and hand. Shortly after her marriage, Fiesta Day arrives, and though she desires to attend the dance in the evening, Jose, through jealousy, refuses to allow her to go. At first she is defiant, and dresses to go, but later she decides to respect her husband’s command and instead of going, lends her festival dress to her friend, Gloria. As the party leaves, a child enters and solicits Mariana’s aid for her sick mother. Jose returning to the house after his temper has cooled, finds his wife absent, and, of course assumes she has gone to the dance. This assumption is strengthened by seeing his erstwhile rival in the distance on the way to the Gardens with Gloria, who, in his wife’s attire, he reasonably mistakes for Mariana. A tragedy is narrowly averted by mere chance. Biograph Bulletin, March 4, 1912

Once out of her garden’s gate, Mariana makes eyes at any male she passes: a street-sweeper (who is first shocked, then shakes his head) and two young construction workers, who drop their tools and run after her. The more persistent one is Jose, whom she soon marries. Aware of his wife’s flirtatious nature, he does not let her leave the house when her old friends drop in to call her to a festival. He even says “no” to a peddler who knocks at the door to offer a piece of lace. Mariana is defiant; Jose rushes out. In the street, he sees the peddler; his heart softens, and he buys his wife the lace. When he returns home, however, and sees her wearing her best dress, he realizes that despite the ban, she has decided to go out with her friends. He rushes out again, now really furious. Meanwhile, her friends come back to pick up Mariana, but as a good wife at heart, she feels she needs to be docile and stay home. She changes back into a homely dress, and lends the best one to a friend. Coincidentally, a neighbor child comes in to ask for Mariana’s help with her sick mother. When Jose returns, he finds the house empty. His gun in hand, he is looking for Mariana when he sees her dress and thinks it is she. Fortunately, Jose discovers his mistake. Penitent, he offers Mariana the lace purchased from the peddler. She throws it on the ground, but soon her heart softens and the couple kisses. 8

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This appears to have been a workaday picture for Griffith, for although the Biograph Bulletin insists on the Spanish affiliation of the story, no attempt can be traced to distinguish it from Biograph’s Mexico pictures; in fact, the sombreros that the male players are wearing come, I assume, from their Mexican wardrobes, and there are a few familiar cactuses here and there. I would not be so sure about saying this had I not noticed that the Moving Picture World reviewer made the telltale mistake of calling Dorothy Bernard’s Mariana “an impulsive Mexican girl” (The Moving Picture World, March 16, 1912, p. 962). I still may be wrong, because in my previous research for The Griffith Project (specifically, on Ramona), I have come across the word “Spanish” used to describe old California missions, and this may as well be what the Bulletin writer had in mind, but the usage is historical. If this is what “Spanish” means here, all the worse for the film; there is nothing that indicates it is a period picture. Griffith would not even take the crew to San Gabriel or Santa Barbara missions as he would for more ambitious Mexican projects. Whatever the word means in this case, the “Spanish” stake was evidently in the story and characters (driven by “Impetuous Spanish Blood”, as the Bulletin calls it). The main title neatly nutshells the gist of the matter: though the girl often behaves like a siren, don’t mistake her for one, for she acts on impulse, and this impulse comes from the heart. Although usually favorable to the Biograph Company, this time I feel the Moving Picture World reviewer disliked this picture; he (or she) tactfully changes the subject from The Siren of Impulse to the movie made a year before: Early last summer, the Biograph Company released a very excellent picture, The New Dress. This release has much of the same quality. It is true that the former had, in some ways, a more significant incident to relate and was more universal in its humanity. It also was more distinctly national in its ancillary happenings, in its atmosphere. This picture, however, has many good points to commend it, points that are found in both. It is not quite so successful a picture; but it invites comparison. They belong together. (Ibid.)

Interestingly, there is little in common between the two films save the crucial role allotted to a dress in both stories (otherwise quite different) and the problematic “Mexican” identity of our Spanish lady; the only thing in common is that The New Dress, as Lea Jacobs observes in her comment, “exploited the local color available to the Biograph company during their second trip to California” (DWG Project, #338), and so does, of course, The Siren of Impulse by displaying its non-descript Hispanic passions. To add, for fairness: neither Jacobs nor I were particularly impressed by The New Dress, either; and the dress in my film is more beautiful than the dress in hers. Two more comments with regards to the mixed Moving Picture World review of The Siren of Impulse. First, the reviewer writes: “The picture’s fine quality comes from the acting which, in many of its scenes, is quite up to Biograph standards” (Ibid.). I hope he or she means Dorothy Bernard, and not the player of Jose, whose name I do not know and do not wish I did. The fact that Griffith would let an actor to ham up “Spanish blood” so shamelessly can only speak to the fact that he did not particularly care for the film. More that once in the span of the picture, the player of Jose thinks he needs to explain to the viewer what his character intends to do to his wife: at the first pang of jealousy, he points with his finger off screen (where she is), then points to his own chest, and drives the index finger of the other hand across his throat; as his jealousy hardens, Jose shows (rather literally) how he will tear her heart out of her breast; and when he observes his wife (which is not her, of course, but 9

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a girl wearing her dress) embracing another man he returns to his house, takes a gun, points at it with his finger and looks toward the camera seeking our complicity. Is this what you call “up to Biograph standards”? Secondly, the Moving Picture World praises the camera work: “The photographs, some of them more especially, are unusually commendable” (Ibid.). It is never easy to say whether what a reviewer commends in such cases is cinematography or direction (as those things interpenetrate in actual life), but if our reviewer commends some bold camera positions, I could not agree more. I particularly enjoyed two very long shots not quite of the same range as Griffith’s famous “distant views”, but close to it, chosen visibly to experiment with distance between the camera and the players. Normally, Griffith’s “distant views” appear when an upper overview is needed to observe a battle or a massacre (In Old Kentucky [1909]; Ramona [1910]; Iola’s Promise [1912]), but here, distance becomes instrumental in staging jealousy and romance. In one case the distance (the shot is taken from Jose’s point of view, his back visible in the foreground) explains how he could have mistaken a different girl for his wife: she is so far away that the dress is about all Jose would be able to recognize. The other shot, from earlier on in the story, is even more remarkable since here the distance is not motivated by “credible story” considerations; in fact, the length of this shot is chosen “against the type”, to borrow the expression from actors’ craft. This is the scene in which Mariana agrees to become Jose’s wife. In previous shots the little coquette had been teasing Jose by now running away from him, then waiting for him to approach. They stop in a forest, in the middle of a wide clearing. The camera keeps them at a distance, which allows Griffith to keep a considerable distance between the lovers, because although they are not running any more, they go on with this proximity game: Jose makes a step towards her, she steps back, etc. After some time, we see him lift his hands and call her passionately. A moment of hesitation – internal struggle – on her part, and we watch Mariana slowly approaching her future husband to succumb to his embrace. This “distant view” of romance, instead of a closer view that suggests itself for intimate scenes, is truly unusual. Yuri Tsivian

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396 BIOGRAPH

IOLA’S PROMISE Filming date: finished January 1912 Location: California Release date: 14 March 1912; 28 April 1912 (in Britain); reissued by Biograph, 4 September 1916 Release length: 1056 feet; 1312 feet for the 1916 re-release Copyright date: 11 March 1912 Director: D.W. Griffith Author: Belle Taylor Source: none known Camera: G.W. Bitzer Cast: Mary Pickford (Iola); Alfred Paget (Jack Harper); Frank Evans (His partner); Dorothy Bernard (Jack’s sweetheart); Frank Opperman, Kate Toncray (Her parents); William Carroll, Henry Lehrman?, Charles Hill Mailes (Mexican cutthroats); William J. Butler, Antonio Moreno, Charles Gorman, Kate Bruce (Indians); J. Jiquel Lanoe (Medicine man); Charles H. West, Charles Hill Mailes, Harry Hyde, Robert Harron (Settlers) Archival Sources: Library of Congress, 35mm nitrate negative (AFI/Mary Pickford Collection); two 35mm nitrate positives (reissue prints, AFI/Mary Pickford Collection); 35mm nitrate positive (incomplete, Kemp Niver Collection); 35mm paper print; National Film and Television Archive, 35mm acetate negative (from 35mm nitrate positive, returned to donor); UCLA Film and Television Archive, 16mm acetate positive (generation undetermined, Stanford Theatre Collection) HOW THE LITTLE INDIAN MAIDEN PAID HER DEBT OF GRATITUDE Iola, the little Indian girl, is held captive by a gang of cutthroats, from whose clutches and abuse she is rescued by Jack Harper, a prospector. She is truly grateful to Jack, for she regards him as something different from the white people she has seen. Jack’s sweetheart and her father are parties of a wagon train headed for his place, and as luck has been against him, he is somewhat gloomy. Iola learns the reason, and promises to help him find gold. He is amused at this and says “Will you?” “Yes.” “Cross your heart?” This Cross-your-heart action mystifies the little Indian. She thinks it is a sort of tribe insignia and tells her people that “Cross-heart” people are all right. Iola surely pays her debt of gratitude, not only in finding gold, but in giving her life to protect Jack’s sweetheart from her own people, who are embittered against all whites. Biograph Bulletin, March 14, 1912

In their hideout, with a cave serving as a background, two cutthroats have a fight over to whom the captive Indian girl Iola belongs; she is prepared for the worst when Harper, a goodhearted prospector, discovers and saves her. He carries her to his cabin and offers her food; Iola is soon not afraid of white people any more and shows her savior signs of affection. But, as we learn from a letter he receives in an unexplained way, Harper’s heart belongs to his sweetheart who, accompanied by her father, is presently riding a prairie wagon that is taking to her fiancé’s cabin. Harper leads Iola back to her native village, telling her she could repay 11

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him by helping find pieces of gold; jokingly, he teaches her to do a “cross-my-heart” gesture, which Iola takes for white man’s tribal sign. Back in the village, Iola tells her folks she had been rescued by a “cross-my-heart” man, but her appeal for tolerance falls on deaf ears. Worse, as the faithful Iola sets out to the woods in search of gold-tinted stones, one of her tribesmen hears the noise of the approaching wagon carrying Harper’s sweetheart; the village Indians ride off to attack it. Harper and other prospectors rush to the rescue, but are too far away to arrive on time. Meanwhile, his fiancée’s father and the other men in the wagon answer with fire, but the Indian circle is closing. The triumphant tribe decides to burn the captive whites on a stake. Iola sees the whites tied to a tree; she approaches the captives and persuades Harper’s sweetheart to exchange clothes with her. The trick works. As Iola, wearing the white girl’s hat and overcoat, runs away pretending to escape, the Indians shoot her; she falls, but before she dies (in the arms of the saddened Harper and his deeply touched fiancée) she manages to notice a little yellow stone exactly like she had promised Harper to find.

The Library of Congress 16mm copy of Iola’s Promise available to me at the time of writing has what Paolo Cherchi Usai has termed an “internal history” (Cherchi Usai, 2000, p. 147). This is an undated re-release copy; my first thought was that it was the 1916 release; fortunately, I asked Russell Merritt who told me that in 1920, Nathan Hirsh bought a selection of Pickford Biographs, retitled them, and distributed them through Aywon Film in the early 1920s. My print is clearly from this group, and before I turn to the film itself, let me briefly comment on what the re-editors in the 1920s changed in the original release print to make it look less antiquated. First, the credits. At the time when Iola’s Promise was made, the Biograph Company had just (reluctantly) agreed that “Little Mary’s name” be mentioned in press (for more details, see The Mender of Nets, DWG Project, #393), but they would not allow it to appear in the credit sequence. In 1915 – the year that Benjamin Hampton has called “The Pickford Revolution” – not only the star’s salary changed, but also the whole way of thinking about people in pictures: Pickford was no longer “the girl of this picture” – rather, the opposite was true. The curve of Pickford’s fame explains why Iola’s Promise was re-released in 1916 and reclaimed again in 1920. The opening title of the 1920s version is “NATHAN HIRSH PRESENTS MARY PICKFORD’S IOLA’S PROMISE” and comes up before “Directed by D.W. Griffith” – an ironic justice, given the latter’s role in suppressing Pickford’s name till 1912, to believe Linda Arvidson’s memoirs (p. 187). The new editors/titlers (credited as M.G. Cohn and L.F. Natteford) did a couple of other things to bring the four-year-old Biograph film up to the quality standards of the 1920s. The original print length has been increased by more than 200 feet (the original footage is not too certain: though the 1912 Bioscope mentions 1,056 feet, Kemp R. Niver’s filmography records 995 feet [Niver, p. 196]) and split into two parts, presumably offered in two reels (in the middle of the available reel there are two titles, announcing the end of Part One and the beginning of Part Two). There is no new film footage, of course, but the story is padded with new (art) intertitles. What Cohn and Natteford did to the film was to: a) give more colorful names to male characters (calling the 1912 Jack Harper “‘Big Bill’ Kenyon” and his previously anonymous co-prospector “Uncle Joe” Hines); b) give new colorful wordings to the usual matter-of-fact style of Biograph narrative titles (and there is also a quote from The Book of Ruth used as an epigraph to the story which I wonder if the 1912 release ever had); c) add longish dialogue titles. To splice those in at the “points of speech” – that is, where dialogue titles belonged according to the later practice – they had to split some originally continuous shots (which is all I believe the re-editing part amounts to). The re-release version recalls what art historians tell us they have to face as they deal with many an old master 12

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paintings: a layer of later improvements on the original objects which is a historical artifact too valuable to be physically removed; but if we keep those in mind, below this layer there we will find a fine 1912 Griffith (not yet a “Pickford”) picture. On the other hand, here Mary Pickford already is the center of gravity – at times, Iola’s Promise seems less like a film in which the player serves the story (the usual Biograph ethos), than the one in which the story plays up to the star, as would often be the case with Pickford’s future pictures. One phrase in the Moving Picture World review of Iola’s Promise could be applied to Pickford star-vehicles of later years: “The plot, though very interesting, does not rise very far above commonplace; yet the acting and business show careful, painstaking thought and artistic ability” (April 6, 1912, p. 40). There is also a symptom of this in Griffith giving her a protracted multi-shot end sequence in which we see Iola shot: she falls, then (in the next shot) her fall continues down the hill; she keeps sliding down even after a brief cutaway to the battle; then, we see Iola struggling up; as she succeeds, she discovers a gold nugget her hand had clasped as she was clutching the ground; before she dies she gives it to the man she loves. This is a typical star routine – an extended solo death scene the likes of which this very year the stage star Sara Bernhardt would try to import into film. The whole scene is wonderfully directed, and I am not sure I know what the Moving Picture World reviewer had in mind when he or she wrote: “The ending (just a few feet) decidedly falls down, but it comes too late to spoil the picture” (Ibid.) Indian girls was one of Pickford’s specialties (see her 1910 Ramona) partly because (claims Mrs. Griffith) “David thought Mary had a good face for Indians on account of her high cheek bones … A smear of brown grease paint over her fair face and a wig of coarse straight black hair made a picturesque little Indian girl of ‘our Mary’” (Arvidson, p. 168). As to Mary herself (writes her biographer Scott Eyman), “[s]he did not enjoy playing Indians, because it meant you had to get up an hour early, at 5:00 A.M., and rub in a make-up of clay mixed with water, put on a horse-hair wig, alligator necklaces, a heavy, beaded horsehide gown, and then stay out in the sun all day long” (Eyman, p. 50). (This may be true for her other Indian parts, but Pickford’s Iola is not overdressed; in one scene alone with Harper she even sports a bare shoulder.) Exotic costumes and settings were believed to be the principal asset of “Western and Indian pictures” – let me quote a passage from The New York Times (1911; this is an article on Western pictures overseas which I further discuss in my comment on Under Burning Skies – see DWG Project, #394): Europe, Asia, Africa, and all the Australias [sic] believed in the existence of the cowboy of romance, of the “deadwood Dick,” the “Alkali Ike,” “Deerfoot,” and “Uncas,” the “big, heap chief,” the prairie wagon, the beautiful young white girl carried off by a masterful, lank savage, the squaw, the papoose, the Indian village, and perhaps, the detachment of United States troops arriving just in time. Nothing easier. They should have them. (“Exporting an Imaginary America to Make Money: Moving Picture Lovers in Foreign Cities prefer Indian and Cowboy Films to All Others.” The New York Times Encyclopedia of Film, section 1911).

Many of these properties – the article calls them “backgrounds”, the term frequently encountered in the trade press as well – are found in Iola’s Promise; the Moving Picture World review of the film points out that its “very backgrounds seem alive and full of atmosphere”. This is most evident in the Indian village scenes, for instance, directed with the flare for livid crowd scenes noticeable in a number of Griffith’s other 1912 Biographs. Aside from conventional huts, feathers, and “Indian” gestures, there is also a comic touch: the chief of the 13

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tribe (or its medicine man) proudly wears a top hat, a trace of his previous trade – or raid – contacts with some rich white man. In a different (more photographic than directorial) sense, “full of atmosphere” could also refer to Griffith’s manner of using smoke and dust as a natural screen to make shootings and chases more expressive – another technique much used in his 1912 shorts, to recall the showdown scene of The Musketeers of Pig Alley, for one example. To quote Kemp R. Niver’s reading of one of such moment in Iola’s Promise: “Griffith arranged to have a rifle fired upwind at the precise [moment] that he wanted the smoke to obliterate the scene for ten to twenty frames, just as today we use a fade to black from one scene to another to indicate an interval. When the smoke cleared, a completely different scene appeared on the screen” (Niver, p. 167). There are, indeed, various ways in which we sense that fades and nature (or discourse and diegesis, to use the theory language) tend to slip one into the other in Griffith’s 1912 films, if we compare Niver’s observation with its opposite in The Mender of Nets. Like Ramona (that 1910 picture with Pickford cast as an Indian girl), Iola’s Promise includes a “distant view” on a massacre (though there the whites raid an Indian village, while here an Indian tribe raids a white man’s wagon). The shot is both horrifying and beautiful: we watch the raid from almost directly above, so that the circle of horsed Indians spinning around its target – the wagon they are shooting at – appears to be geometrically perfect. One difference between the Ramona “distant view” and this one is that here we see no one standing in that foreground watching the event; evidently, in 1912 Griffith did not think he needed any story motivation for a high-angle extreme long shot to appear credible. Yuri Tsivian

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397 BIOGRAPH

THE GODDESS OF SAGEBRUSH GULCH Filming date: finished ca. January 1912 Location: California Release date: 25 March 1912; reissued by Biograph, 30 October 1916 Release length: one reel Copyright date: 23 March 1912 Director: D.W. Griffith Author: none known Source: none known Camera: G.W. Bitzer Cast: Blanche Sweet (The Goddess); Charles H. West (Blue-Grass Pete); Dorothy Bernard (The sister); Harry Hyde (Prospector); Charles Hill Mailes, W. Christy Cabanne, William Carroll (Villains); Alfred Paget, Charles Gorman, W.C. Robinson, Frank Opperman, Frank Evans (Cowboys); W. Chrystie Miller (Old man) Archival Sources: Cinémathèque Québécoise, 16mm acetate positive (generation undetermined); Library of Congress, 35mm paper print; The Museum of Modern Art, 35mm nitrate negative; National Film and Television Archive, 35mm nitrate positive (tinted) A STORY OF THE GOLDEN WEST The Goddess, the prettiest and best natured girl that ever graced that little mining town, meets the tenderfoot prospector and leaves him another worshipper of her. His chances, however, are slim for Blue-grass Pete has won her affections, he having at an opportune moment saved her from the fangs of a snake which was about to attack her. Pete, however, is weak and is fascinated by the Goddess’ sister, who visits her. He later gives the sister his savings to keep. The Goddess, heartbroken over the loss of her sweetheart, is now sure they will be married and determines to leave. Pete’s pal, knowing of the girl having the savings, plans to steal them. The Goddess overhears the plot, but her sorrow having left her in a vengeful spirit, she makes no effort to secure aid. Later her better nature asserts itself, and securing aid, she and the miners arrive in time to save her sister from a horrible death, for Pete’s pal had been recognized by the girl and had tied her to a post in the cabin. He and his companions had then made a hasty departure, forgetting a lighted cigarette which had fired the cabin, leaving the girl helpless amidst the raging flames. Biograph Bulletin, March 25, 1912

Though admired by many in the mining town in which she lives, the Goddess of Sagebrush Gulch falls in love with Blue-Grass Pete after he saves her from an attacking snake. All is well until her sister arrives on a visit and Pete’s attention turns to this new woman from the city. Pete entrusts his savings with the sister, but a thief learns of this arrangement and plans to steal the money from the Goddess’s cabin where Pete has hidden it. By now, the heartbroken Goddess has decided to leave the town, but as she departs, she comes upon the thief and his gang and overhears their plot. At first, she elects to allow the plan to go forward out of revenge, but thinks better of it and enlists the help of her admirers. Meanwhile, her sis15

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ter has been beset upon by the robbers, who tie her up and then accidentally leave behind a smoking cigarette, which sets the cabin ablaze. Due to the Goddess’s efforts, the sister is saved and the gang foiled. Pete remains with the sister, but a newly arrived prospector emerges as a possible beau for the Goddess.

In the grouping of late 1911 films I wrote about for Volume 5 of The Griffith Project, the emphasis was on male weakness, epitomised by the title Saved from Himself. In this quintet of early 1912 Biographs, the focus has switched to women under pressure, though only occasionally do the female protagonists evince the moral frailty the male characters had demonstrated so consistently in films made just a few months earlier. The sisters struggling alone in the desert in The Female of the Species certainly falter in the face of rather imposing adversity, and Mary Pickford’s character in Fate’s Interception plots to have her boyfriend murdered when he leaves her for the demands of business (a decision she quickly regrets), but otherwise, the women in my group of entries for this volume are a fairly upstanding bunch. Not surprisingly, the more virtuous they prove to be, the more readily they are victimised: a wrongly suspected innocent suffers the wrath of the beleaguered sisters in The Female of the Species; the virtuous wife of a jealous landowner is threatened with death in The Punishment; and thieves bedevil the eponymous female telegrapher in The Girl and Her Trust. The heroine of The Goddess of Sagebrush Gulch occupies a moral middle ground: Blanche Sweet is not the paragon of rectitude she will prove to be in The Punishment, but she doesn’t descend to the depths of near-murderous rage Mary Pickford will experience in Fate’s Interception either. Accordingly, she is neither the victim nor the oppressor; instead, she struggles with an apparently low-stakes ethical dilemma: should she alert her sister and ex-boyfriend (Blue-Grass Pete) to the news that thieves mean to rob them of his fortune? (Her judgment is clouded by the sorrow and jealousy she feels after he has jilted her for her more glamorous sister.) In electing to keep the information from the couple, the Goddess unwittingly allows her sister to become prey to a much greater danger when a cigarette butt from one of the thieves sets afire the cabin in which the sister is trapped. The Goddess of Sagebrush Gulch represents Griffith at his least moralistic: not only does the Goddess not know of the actual danger her sister faces, apparently her sister does not mean to lure the Goddess’s boyfriend away either. Even the robbers lack culpability – they leave behind the lethal cigarette accidentally, though one of the robbers has reason to silence the sister, who recognises him as Pete’s friend. The New York Dramatic Mirror critic refused to see this as artistic restraint in the portrayal of villainy, offering an alternative explanation: “Now this reviewer will bet a cookie, without knowing a thing about it, that this cigarette absurdity is a result of some restriction of the censorship half-wits. Probably the original story had the robbers set fire to the house, leaving the girl inside, but such an act in a picture, according to the infantile reasoning of the censorship sisters, would influence 20,000,000 picture spectators to hurry out and commit murder and arson” (April 3, 1912, p. 28). Of course, the rationale for the sister’s endangerment remains secondary to its execution and one must credit Griffith for still being able to devise situations where the spectator’s emotional investment in the struggle of the rescuer informs the act of rescue. But because viewer knowledge supersedes that of the rescuing party in The Goddess of Sagebrush Gulch, the emphasis switches from sharing the desperation to reach the victim in time to anxiety over whether the Goddess will elect to try to save her sister at all. In effect, the Goddess’s ignorance of her sister’s plight is crucial to the narrational strategy Griffith employs. Her decision to foil the thieves springs directly from guilt at acting selfishly: only the audience 16

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knows of the greater danger until the moment the sister is saved. Thus, when the Goddess finally rushes to right a relatively minor moral transgression – initially, she seemed willing to permit the robbery to go forward – the viewer urges her on, aware her sister’s life depends upon the Goddess’s success. If Griffith’s decision to limit the Goddess’s knowledge produces a slightly less charged rescue sequence, it permits greater emphasis on her moral dilemma, putting significant demands on his lead actress, Blanche Sweet. Leading up to the moment when she realises she must save her sister, Sweet has several scenes collectively designed to showcase a range of reactions and she employs the developing verisimilar performance style that had defined her breakthrough performances of 1911 in films such as The Eternal Mother and The Long Road. (Most telling is the moment when she flings her sister’s elaborate hat across the room in a rage, after discovering Pete has abandoned her for her more glamorous sibling. Griffith’s penchant for using an apt prop in these moments renders such actions more than just dramatic flourishes – a meaning-laden object can imbue the performance with a wealth of unspoken associations. Here the Goddess’s pent-up resentment of her sister’s urban sophistication surfaces in a seemingly spontaneous gesture directed toward her finery.) One can sense Griffith’s confidence in Sweet by examining the way he films the scene of her overhearing the crooks’s plan. He places her in a separate shot, framed with uncharacteristic closeness in a medium scale, so that the play of emotions, ranging from shock to unsettling delight, can register on her face. Griffith had used a similar approach for filming reaction shots of Sweet in 1911’s The Battle, but here the technique results in greater intensity, due in part to the actress’s steadily expanding range. Though The Painted Lady is still months away, one can see The Goddess of Sagebrush Gulch as training for the rigours of that emotionally complex role. Ultimately, however, The Goddess of Sagebrush Gulch is a vehicle unworthy of its lead performer. It seems hastily conceived, with too many plot elements introduced in rapid succession (Pete, the sister, and the convenient but clumsily provided fallback love interest, the prospector, all make their initial appearances within a two-minute span). Moreover, the film’s last-minute rescue is one of Griffith’s sloppier efforts, full of flame and rushing figures, but lacking the precisely timed effects of contrast and tension his more compelling versions afford. The New York Dramatic Mirror reviewer found the film altogether too exhausting, signalling a growing trade press disenchantment with the accelerated pace of late-era Biograph one-reelers: No matter how great and unapproachable a picture producer may be, he cannot afford to always strain after the sensational in an external endeavour to outdo himself, and that is what this picture appears to be. Life isn’t one constant crescendo of strenuous rush and turmoil[,] and drama, to have its most commanding effect in representing life, must have its proper means of repose. The soft pedal once in a while gives contrast even in the most robust music. It makes the crash sound louder when it does come. But with all the crash and no soft pedal – all tense energy and no repose, one must get into a fever of hysterics to be in sympathy with the artist. (April 3, 1912, p. 28)

If the cutting rate of The Goddess of Sagebrush Gulch raised the temperature of the New York Dramatic Mirror critic, Griffith’s next release, The Girl and Her Trust, should have brought him to a full boil. Charlie Keil

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398 BIOGRAPH

THE GIRL AND HER TRUST Filming date: finished ca. January–February 1912 Location: California Release date: 28 March 1912; reissued by Biograph, 17 September 1915 Release length: 998 feet Copyright date: 28 March 1912 Director: D.W. Griffith Script: George Hennessy [“The Silent Call”] Source: The Lonedale Operator, released by Biograph, 23 March 1911 Camera: G.W. Bitzer Cast: Dorothy Bernard (Grace); Wilfred Lucas (Jack); Alfred Paget, Charles Hill Mailes (Tramps); Charles H. West (Telegrapher); Robert Harron (His companion); W.C. Robinson (Simple suitor); W. Christy Cabanne (Baggage handler); William Carroll (Engineer); Charles Gorman (Next to train) Archival Sources: Library of Congress, 35mm paper print; The Museum of Modern Art, 35mm nitrate negative; National Film and Television Archive, 35mm nitrate positive; UCLA Film and Television Archive, 16mm acetate positive (generation undetermined) SHE RISKS HER LIFE FOR IT Grace, the operator at Hillville, is apprised of the fact that train No.7 will bring to her office $2,000, consigned to the Simpson Construction Company. Jack, the station agent, offers to let her have his pistol, while he is away to lunch, but she scorns this, exclaiming “Danger? Why nothing ever happens in this slow place.” However, when the train arrives and the money is placed in the strong box, he again prevails upon her to take the pistol, but without success. Two tramps, who have come in on the bumpers, see the bag placed in the box, and regard this their great opportunity. Waiting until Jack has gone, they break in and make for the box. It is locked and they must have the key, so they try to get to the girl, who has locked herself in her office. This failing, they load the box on a handcar to take it away to blow it open. The girl, meanwhile, has telegraphed for aid, and realizing the tramps’ design, rushes out and throws herself in front of the handcar. The tramps drag her aboard and are off. They are soon pursued by an engine from the next station ahead, and here occurs, without exception, the most thrilling pursuit ever depicted. Biograph Bulletin, March 28, 1912

After a shipment of $2,000.00 has been entrusted to her care at the railroad station where she works, Grace, the telegraph operator, finds herself set upon by tramps intent on stealing the money. She attempts to telegraph for help, but eventually the thieves cut the wires and then abscond with the locked strong box containing the funds. Grace pursues them and finds herself trapped on the handcar the robbers are using to make off with the money. Meanwhile, Grace’s message has prompted railroad personnel at another station to send an engine off in pursuit of the tramps. After a chase, the engine finally overcomes the handcar, and Grace and the money are saved.

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Even if it were not a remake of The Lonedale Operator (1911), one of Griffith’s most celebrated last-minute rescue films, The Girl and Her Trust would deserve special attention: first, it offers extensive tracking shots, a novelty for both Griffith at Biograph and filmmakers at most other companies at this time; second, it features the largest number of shots of any Griffith one-reeler, and, to my knowledge, of any 1000-foot American film made prior to 1914. These facts should not be divorced from the source material, as reliance on a railway setting promotes the preponderance of tracking shots, and The Lonedale Operator had already exceeded the cutting rate norm of 1911 to a substantial degree. Griffith must have realised that to mount this scenario again would require an even more intensified pace of alternation: what becomes especially interesting in a consideration of The Girl and Her Trust is how he refashions the material to not only expand the possibilities for involved editing patterns but also to invest the central romance with more resonance. When comparing the two versions, what becomes immediately apparent is how Griffith has extended the action involving the thieves to move them (and Grace, the telegrapher) back outside the station after the initial robbery attempt, thereby involving a chase on the rails, not merely the rescuer arriving via train tracks, as in The Lonedale Operator. This alters the situation of the earlier film considerably. Whereas in the original the operator was trapped in the station, warding off the approach of the burglars, in The Girl and Her Trust, she drives them away successfully, causing them to use a handcar to escape with the money. This results in the operator confronting the thieves and eventually being taken upon the pursued vehicle, so that any effort to rescue the money will result in her salvation as well. (More than one commentator has remarked upon this conflation of the telegrapher’s honour and the funds, a point I will return to later.) The Lonedale Operator begins with the operator on her way to work, meeting her erstwhile suitor, then leaving him behind to go inside the station, where she will remain for the balance of the film; The Girl and Her Trust, on the other hand, starts with the telegrapher already in the station, along with her suitor, who then departs, as will the operator when she elects to pursue the robbers. By reversing the flow of action in the latter film, Griffith expands the possibilities for increased kineticism: if The Lonedale Operator builds on the situation of films like The Lonely Villa (1909) by restricting the scope of a central interior action, then The Girl and Her Trust demonstrates how action can burst out from previously established spatial constraints and capitalise on a principle of ever-expanding movement. In fact, as Joyce Jesionowski has pointed out, 1912-era Biograph films tend to incorporate “two movements, which can generally be characterized by the spatial opposition closed:open and the narrative opposition siege:chase” (Jesionowski, 1987, p. 121). By moving the action outside the station at a certain point, Griffith provides two climaxes for his remake where the original only featured one. In this portion of the film that most closely resembles The Lonedale Operator, the presence of the thieves poses a threat to the telegrapher, forcing her to defend herself. This culminates in her resourceful staging of a fake gunshot, which she affects by driving a bullet through a keyhole with scissors and a hammer. As Tom Gunning has pointed out, the depiction of this ruse “simply expands the motive for earlier close-ups – the enlargement of a narratively small detail – into a sequence. However, the close-ups no longer enlarge a single object such as Blanche Sweet’s much more pragmatic monkey wrench, used for the same purpose in The Lonedale Operator, but portray a process. Because the process is so bizarre, its various stages need to be detailed in order to be understood. It becomes an analytical sequence, with almost seamless cutting on action from shot to shot, prefiguring later classical continuity” (Gunning, 1991, p. 265). If this novelty sequence represents an elaboration of Griffith’s earlier use of the explana19

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tory cut-in (a device still concurrently employed in Fate’s Interception), the second climax – the extended pursuit of the handcar by the train – similarly alters the conventional set-up of the last-minute rescue. In most of these pursuits, the agent of rescue rushes toward a fixed point, propelled by a temporal pressure, but certain of the location of the endangered party (a certainty shared by the spectator). In effect, these forms of the last-minute rescue allowed Griffith to establish a coherent geography when he combined easily identifiable salient aspects of the mise-en-scène and editing to emphasise directional consistency. Once Dorothy Bernard climbs onto the handcar in The Girl and Her Trust, a stable site for the rescue is abandoned: now, not only do the rescuers move through extensive exterior spaces, so do the pursued/victimised. Manipulating two mobile lines of narrative action requires considerably more ingenuity in the staging and alternating of the spaces involved, as the demands placed upon spectatorial comprehension increase in relation to the terrain covered. Joyce Jesionowski has supplied a painstaking and intelligently framed analysis of the train pursuit, wherein she observes that “Griffith forms a relationship between the handcar and the train … by matching their directions in alternating shots and matching their graphic sizes” (Jesionowski, 1987, p. 47). She concludes that “the film is a perfect example of Griffith’s use of varying subject-to-camera relationships in his Biograph period. Although there is a range of shots in this sequence, the spaces themselves are generally still discrete, and the variety of the shots is used to express the tensions of the relationship between the contending forces in the chase as a structure” (Jesionowski, 1987, p. 52). By 1912, Griffith’s decision to tackle the daunting logistical demands of a rescue involving two moving vehicles reflects his faith in the resources of editing to produce excitement and rhythm without sacrificing viewer understanding. The self-assurance of The Girl and Her Trust appears to have won over a trade press that had begun to question Biograph’s devotion to “rapidly alternating scenes”. The Moving Picture World declared the film superior to The Lonedale Operator, while The New York Dramatic Mirror took a cue from the Biograph Bulletin’s description by employing the adjective “thrilling” (not once but twice!) in its assessment of the film’s “exciting” chase: “The old story of the girl operator at the station, while thugs make an attack upon a consignment of money is given novel and thrilling treatment again, especially in the exceptional manner in which the suspense is managed, and the race between engine and hand car at the end” (April 3, 1912, p. 30). However, the New York Dramatic Mirror critic also noted that Griffith’s skill was not restricted to his control of editing, when he extended praise to the performances: “For such a story the picture is managed with rare skill and not only is a series of thrilling events accumulating in rapid succession, but the human element has been permitted to enter by correct and natural interpretation on the part of the players” (Ibid.). Probably most impressive is the acting of Dorothy Bernard, who displays considerable comic ingenuity in her opening scenes as Grace, particularly when interacting with the humorously under-emotive W.C. Robinson as an unsuccessful suitor. While Robinson’s performance style is deliberately mannered, all slackness of jaw, near-catatonic movements and closed eyes, Bernard’s responses are delightfully loose, contributing to the impression of “natural” behaviour that companies like Biograph and Vitagraph were actively promoting as a basis for characterisation. Most noticeable is the muted nature of most of Bernard’s actions: her arms move very little because of the bottle and straw she holds while discouraging Robinson’s interest. Griffith’s facility with props as a way of developing performances that enhance a “diegetic effect” has been much remarked upon, but even so, the bit of business involving Bernard and the drink must be one of the director’s most inspired throwaway moments. Handed the bottle of soda pop and then a straw by the hapless suitor, she sips enthusiastically while he stands by helplessly, hoping for an invitation to share (actually, it’s difficult to ascertain exactly what his 20

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goal is, so inscrutable are the few, halting gestures Robinson employs), but Grace sends him off empty-handed. When Jack (played by Wilfred Lucas) enters next, the bottle and straw tie his more assertive wooing of Grace to the failed efforts of the previous suitor. After swirling the liquid in the bottle to create bubbles (an unexpected moment that Bernard invests with infectious merriment), Grace offers a drink to Jack, but he steals a kiss instead of a sip. Though Grace becomes immediately indignant and sends Jack out of the room, once alone she touches two fingers to her lips, in a gesture both innocent and erotic. This initial interplay between Grace and Jack helps establish an emotional bond between the two that will motivate his involvement in the rescue, but it also creates a portrait of Grace as a spirited young woman. Because of her independent nature, she finds her job at the railway station tedious (she is shown reading when the first suitor approaches with the pop bottle and later scoffs at Jack’s warning her of the potential danger the money poses as long as it is stored at the station), while this character trait also renders believable her attempt to scare off the robbers and later, throw herself onto the handcar. Of course, the sexual undercurrents informing the interplay of offered sips on a straw and stolen kisses have prompted some critics to see The Girl and Her Trust as one of Griffith’s more knowing attempts to “displace sexuality into narrative” in Scott Simmon’s words. From Simmon, who sees the plot prior to the rescue playing “like a Freudian’s or semiologist’s dream of rape and revenge” (Simmon, 1993, p. 89), to Lynne Kirby, who argues that Griffith’s train rescue films play a key role in using “alternation … to structure sexual difference” (Kirby, p. 107), commentators have built on the bald equation of gender and property insisted upon by the film’s own title. Certainly, the film’s own optical system reinforces this association, as the robber’s visual vantage points from outside the station offer them views of the money in one room and Grace in the other. But when Grace moves from being an object of their gaze to a passenger on their handcar, her status shifts even as her personal safety diminishes. Interestingly, Grace’s investment in saving the money of the title may put her in physical danger, but that danger lacks any sexual overtones (the robbers show surprisingly little interest in her once she clambers onto the handcar). Instead, Grace’s ordeal operates to effect a transformation into sexual maturity: once saved from the handcar, she seats herself on the cowcatcher with Jack, sharing his sandwich and uninhibitedly planting a kiss on his face. Whether one sees that moment as cementing narrative’s role in reconstituting the couple through a system of alternating terms that will define Hollywood cinema for years to come (à la Bellour), or as imposing upon female characters an inevitable substitution of the romantic contract for the excitement of action that even subsequent “thrill queen” serials will not evade, the influence of The Girl and Her Trust extends beyond that of a well-made adventure. Charlie Keil

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399 BIOGRAPH

THE PUNISHMENT Filming date: finished February 1912 Location: California Release date: 4 April 1912 Release length: 999 feet Copyright date: 5 April 1912 Director: D.W. Griffith Author: George Hennessy Source: none known Camera: G.W. Bitzer Cast: Blanche Sweet (The fruit grower’s daughter); J. Jiquel Lanoe, Kate Bruce (Her parents); William J. Butler (The landowner); W. Christy Cabanne (His son); Harry Hyde (Lucian, the sweetheart); Frank Opperman (Old Gardener); ? (Servants) Archival Sources: Library of Congress, 35mm paper print; The Museum of Modern Art, 35mm nitrate negative VENGEANCE AVERTED THROUGH FATE’S INTERVENTION The fruit-grower’s pretty daughter is insulted by the landowner’s son, which insult is resented by a blow from Lucian, the girl’s sweetheart. The little family feel that this episode will cause their eviction, as the son is the ideal of his widowered father. The son reports the incident to his father and seeks vengeance, both going to the fruit-grower’s cabin, but upon arriving there the father is deeply impressed by the girl, and later sends a letter, offering to marry her and give her parents full title to the grove, stipulating that the helper, her sweetheart, must go. Shortly after the marriage, the son, watching for a chance for vengeance, hides in a chest in her room in order to surprise her and Lucian, the latter having come to return her rosary which he had found. The girl leaves the room for a moment and walks into her husband. Lucian, seeing him, escapes by the window. The husband brings her back into the room, and she, not knowing of Lucian’s escape, is very agitated, arousing her husband’s suspicions. He sees the chest lid move, and thinking she has her lover concealed, springs the lock and gives them both an hour to live. The landowner learns too late that in his efforts for vengeance he has caused the death of his own son. Biograph Bulletin, April 4, 1912

The daughter of fruit-growers is admired by a fellow worker, Lucian, but also by the grove’s owner and his son. Lucian strikes the son when the latter imposes himself upon the young woman, and this causes the landowner to call upon the family. When he sees the daughter he is smitten and offers to give them the grove if he can marry her. As a further condition, Lucian must leave. The daughter is forced to accept the offer when her parents, convinced she will refuse and they will face eviction, attempt suicide. Later, once married to the landowner, the daughter comes upon Lucian again in the grove. They are seen together by the landowner’s son, who rushes back to the house, intent on attacking the couple once they return. He shuts himself into a chest, but when the couple fear discovery by the landowner himself, Lucian sits on the chest and inadvertently traps the son by engaging its spring lock. 22

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While the daughter is out in the hall, Lucian escapes by a window, but the landowner, thinking Lucian is in the chest, uses a key to double lock it. He threatens the daughter with death in an hour’s time, but she effects her rescue by throwing a note into the grounds below. The note comes to Lucian’s attention, and when he returns to the room, both the landowner and the daughter are shocked to discover he is not in the chest. When the landowner finds that he has doomed his own son, he suffers a fatal heart attack, leaving Lucian and the daughter free to love again.

As much as films like The Punishment show Griffith working well-tilled ground with somewhat predictable results, they still impress one with the precision of their editing. At nearly 100 shots, The Punishment relies on rapid intercutting between spaces both proximate and distant to extend the narrative, particularly at the climax. Decisions regarding how long each shot should be, when the cut should occur, and how shots might relate to their successor appear to engage Griffith to an increasingly greater extent. The spatial arrangements of The Punishment are sufficiently intricate to warrant inclusion in a French farce, but Griffith is in no mood for levity in this outing. Instead, the film trades upon substantial discrepancies between character knowledge and viewer knowledge to secure interest, with the audience fully aware of how the landowner’s actions work to seal the doom of his own son. Still, repeated reliance on such plot devices as carelessly discarded cigarettes (in The Goddess of Sagebrush Gulch), mistakenly snuffed gas lights (in Fate’s Interception), and, in this case, an accidentally sprung lock, to create danger for protagonists must have had Griffith chafing against the narrative demands of the action-packed one-reeler by this point. While aspects of The Punishment remain impressive (i.e., the parallel construction which shows us both affected parties telling their respective parents about the incident in the grove in shots 8 and 9; the artful composition of shot 46, where the son watches the wife approaching from a distance), overall one can’t disagree with the assessment of The Moving Picture World’s “Comments on the Films”, which declared that “it is not up to the best Biograph picture” (April 20, 1912, p. 229). If The Punishment remains of interest for any reason beyond “the brilliant photography” and “the splendor of [the] exterior” settings, as The Moving Picture World noted in a separate (and more complimentary) feature review of the film (April 20, 1912, p. 217), its treatment of familial relations would be the chief reason. The film pivots on the influence that parents exercise over their children, most obviously in the decision of the peasants to commit suicide when their daughter refuses marriage to the landowner. This act forces the daughter to abandon her true love, an intriguing parallel to the landowner’s usurpation of his own son’s interest in the young woman. This plot point appears to have confused the reviewers of the time, as the Moving Picture World’s feature review states that the son marries her, while The New York Dramatic Mirror accuses the film of handling the matter unclearly: “A difficulty in the beginning seems to be that one is left to imagine that the girl married the son instead of the father” (April 10, 1912, p. 30). The son’s desire for the peasants’ daughter never arises as a source of conflict between father and son, but his continued animus toward her only makes sense if viewed as resentment over losing her to his father. Thus, when the father mistakenly traps the son in the chest rather than his wife’s supposed lover, the Oedipal dimension reveals itself with a vengeance. Though the narrative action of The Punishment may be convoluted to the extreme, the subtextual currents offer tantalising connections to that vein of father-son distrust prevalent in many of Griffith’s films from the Biograph era. Charlie Keil 23

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400 BIOGRAPH

FATE’S INTERCEPTION Filming date: finished February 1912 Location: California Release date: 8 April 1912 Release length: 998 feet Copyright date: 8 April 1912 Director: D.W. Griffith Script: George Hennessy [“It’s Time to Say Goodbye”] Camera: G.W. Bitzer Cast: Mary Pickford (Mexican girl); Wilfred Lucas (American); Charles Hill Mailes (Mexican sweetheart); Charles H. West (Mexican); Frank Opperman (Old man); Robert Harron (Errand boy); William J. Butler, Harry Hyde, Edwin August (Americans); William Carroll (In hotel) Archival Sources: Library of Congress, 35mm nitrate negative (AFI/Mary Pickford Collection); 35mm paper print; National Film and Television Archive, 35mm acetate positive; The Museum of Modern Art, 35mm acetate fine grain master A TALE OF LOVE IN THE LAND OF MEXICO The representative of an American Syndicate comes to Mexico to look over some land. While there, he, out of sheer loneliness, pays considerable attention to the little Mexican girl, at whose home he is a roomer. The girl falls deeply in love with the American, who wins her absolute confidence. When the time comes for his departure, he of course cannot take her with him, and when he says good-bye, she realizes how false were his promises. Her love for the Americano now turns to bitter hate, and she agrees to marry her erstwhile sweetheart, whom she threw aside for the American, if he will avenge her wrong. This he consents to do and so follows the American to a nearby town. A boom is on and the American leaves his room at the hotel to go to the Land Office on business, leaving the gas lighted until his return. The Mexican enters to wait, and not knowing anything about gas, blows it out so as to attack in the dark. When the American returns he finds that vengeance has gone awry. At the same time, the girl, who has repented her impulsiveness, enters and sees the result of it. Still love was to blame, and the American makes all possible reparation. Biograph Bulletin, April 8, 1912

Feeling betrayed when a visiting American leaves her to go to another town on business, a Mexican girl convinces a former lover to exact revenge. Her plans go awry when the man she sends to kill the American succumbs to gas fumes while lurking in the businessman’s room. Rushing to prevent the attack, she arrives only to discover the unintended outcome of her plot, but finds solace in the arms of the American.

Another film where a plan to avenge a perceived wrong goes horribly awry unbeknownst to the plan’s architect, Fate’s Interception is perhaps the most involving of them all, if for no other reason than Mary Pickford’s portrayal of a Mexican woman disappointed in love. The 24

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scenario of Fate’s Interception is simpler than those for The Goddess of Sagebush Gulch and The Punishment, allowing Griffith to allot more time to the developing romance between Pickford and Wilfred Lucas. They are not fully established as a couple until three minutes into the film and the shots involving the final stage of their courtship are among the most noteworthy. shot 25, where Lucas finally embraces Pickford, delays his approach to her while he hesitates and takes out a cigar. After fingering it for a moment, he tosses it away and then touches her shoulder. The tentativeness of Lucas’s gestures establishes that he is not simply an opportunist, and their subsequent quietly playful moments together, particularly in the long-shot composition of shot 28 (one of the most picturesque featured in a Griffith Biograph), achieve a lyricism which offsets the fast-paced action and melodramatic remonstrations defining the film’s final half. Even while devoting much of the first part of Fate’s Interception to the relationship between Pickford and Lucas, Griffith skillfully introduces the ignored admirer of Pickford, who aids her in her plan to kill Lucas when the latter chooses to leave her behind. Charles Hills Mailes, who plays the ill-fated instrument of Pickford’s revenge with restraint, appears several times prior to the scene where Pickford induces him to carry out her murderous plan. Griffith does not emphasise Mailes’s presence in those shots in which he appears, and one could well confuse his moments serenading Pickford as attempts at sketching in local colour. However, the last of these occurs intercut with the shots establishing Pickford and Lucas as a couple, rendering it an ironic commentary on Mailes’s failed attempt to gain Pickford’s affection. Thus, when she asks Mailes to cut out Lucas’s heart, the viewer realises that Mailes’ decision to comply is borne out of desperation as surely as Pickford’s request. Mailes is overshadowed by Pickford in the scene where she asks him to kill Lucas, and the ferocity of her miming of the removal of a heart contrasts vividly with the light-hearted gambolling with Lucas just over ten shots before. It’s likely that Fate’s Interception was designed as something as a showcase for Pickford, and the sheer range of emotions she is asked to convey risks overwhelming her nuanced acting in the majority of her scenes. Her rage immediately after Lucas has left emerges as particularly heavy-handed, all flailing arms and gritted teeth. Nonetheless, the emotional intensity of the film’s middle section doubtless prompted The Moving Picture World to label the film “not a romantic picture so much as a drama of passion” (April 20, 1912, p. 230). Pickford’s fury also fuels the final section, which crosscuts her rush to prevent Mailes from carrying out the plan with the unsuspecting Lucas walking back to his room where Mailes awaits, knife in hand. No doubt Mailes bringing on his own death by extinguishing the light of a gas lamp was devised as a gimmick to differentiate this rescue from the countless others Griffith had directed up to this point (borne out by the cut-in showing Mailes blowing the light out, and the lighting effects used to emphasise the difference between the room fully illuminated and in darkness). Even so, it results in a novel narrational variation: Pickford assumes she is rushing to save Lucas, whereas his delayed arrival back at his room does not save him so much as it dooms Mailes. In offering up an unintended victim at its climax, Fate’s Interception resembles The Punishment; but the father in The Punishment not only inadvertently kills his son, but also dies himself, in shock at the discovery of his actions. Griffith spares Pickford such a grim end: after a title asking “WHO SHALL BLAME?”, he responds by allowing her a reconciliation with Lucas, who forgives her with convenient speed. Griffith manages to distract the viewer from this contrivance by offering up a compositionally complex final shot. He places Pickford at the far right of the frame, with Lucas entering from behind, which recalls their positions within the shots depicting their courtship. And Griffith leaves the left section of the frame empty until the final moments of the shot when other couples casually enter from 25

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midframe and walk into the recesses of the image, neatly captured in a gap in the foreground foliage. These figures imply a continuity of action, visually reinforcing the atmosphere of forgiveness and faith in the future that the title card had asserted much more overtly. Charlie Keil

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401 BIOGRAPH

THE FEMALE OF THE SPECIES Filming date: finished ca. February 1912 Location: California desert location Release date: 15 April 1912 Release length: one reel Copyright date: 13 April 1912 Director: D.W. Griffith Author: none known Source: none known Camera: G.W. Bitzer Cast: Charles H. West (The miner); Claire McDowell (His wife); Mary Pickford (Her sister); Dorothy Bernard (The young woman) Archival Sources: George Eastman House, 35mm acetate negative (incomplete); Library of Congress, 35mm nitrate negative (AFI/Mary Pickford Collection); 35mm paper print; The Museum of Modern Art, 35mm acetate fine grain master; National Film and Television Archive, 35mm nitrate positive A PSYCHOLOGICAL TRAGEDY Drear indeed is the aspect of the little mining camp, deserted by all but four survivors of the terrors of this desert land. The graves in the background vividly tell a story of privation and suffering. The little party comprises a miner, his wife and her sister, and a young woman, who is the sole survivor of another family nearby. Death is inevitable should they stay longer, and so the four start their race with death to the desert’s rim. At their first resting place, the wife and her sister go in search of water to replenish their supply. Left alone with the girl, the husband, in a vagary of weakness, makes advances to her. This is seen by the wife from a distance, and in the struggle which ensues, the man, who is a physical wreck, pays the penalty with his life. As the wife and sister stand over the lonely grave, they, wrongly suspecting the girl, are seized with a desire for vengeance, the perpetration of which is only averted by a singular intervention of fate. Biograph Bulletin, April 15, 1912

As the last four inhabitants of an abandoned mining camp struggle to find their way out of the desert, internal divisions threaten to destroy them all. The only surviving male tries to take advantage of one of the women, and when his wife sees this from afar, she mistakenly thinks the other woman is responsible. The husband, already weak, dies when the wife intercedes, leaving the wronged woman to plead her case alone. The wife does not believe her, and goaded on by her sister, she feels compelled to take revenge by killing the other woman. She is on the verge of doing so when the cries of an Indian baby, left alone in its own dead mother’s arms, draw the wife’s attention. Upon discovering the infant, the women forget their differences and continue their trek through the desert united again.

Could a more fitting title be found for a film devoted to the struggles of women than The 27

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Female of the Species? Beyond suggesting a “Darwinian survival story” (Simmon, 1993, p. 92), the title (in combination with its subtitle, “A Psychological Tragedy”) self-consciously announces itself as an examination of the nature of women themselves, a subject Griffith found himself drawn to with increasing regularity in 1912. Whether Griffith gravitated toward “women’s films” because of his fascination with the female psyche, or because it allowed him to showcase a growing stable of expressive female lead actors, or because the dilemmas facing women offered more obvious emotive and dramatic possibilities, is difficult to say, but on the evidence of The Female of the Species, his engagement as a director is unquestionable. This scarcely makes Griffith a candidate for feminist auteur manqué, but films like The Female of the Species reveal the complexity of his attitude toward women, wherein insistence on their inherent frailty is balanced by conviction of their moral superiority. As in many of Griffith’s other desert dramas, the elemental savagery of the environment reduces human behaviour to a base level: the wronged wife and her sister think of little else but revenge from the moment the husband dies. Because Griffith paints the wronged woman as a morally pure victim from the outset, any dramatic tension must emerge from the internal struggle of the wife and so the bulk of the film focusses on Claire McDowell’s anguished face. The reviewer for The New York Dramatic Mirror recognised the film as an acting showcase, remarking that “the three leading roles are played by the three most distinguished leading women of this company, and their particular work in the film would be hard to excel – a fact particularly true of the woman playing the wife” (April 24, 1912, p. 28). The distillation of dramatic elements to the representation of a few core emotions finds its formal equivalent in the relatively stringent application of cuts and the reduced number of settings. Only exteriors are used for The Female of the Species and they possess a strippeddown sameness, thereby forcing a reduced reliance on the arrangement of contiguous spaces found in a typical Griffith Biograph. Griffith employs the bleached California desert most effectively as a type of pathetic fallacy: the barrenness of nature reflects the diminished moral capacity of the wife and her sister as their animus toward the other woman grows. Most striking in this regard is shot 22, an early climactic moment when, with the wind blowing against her intense face, McDowell lashes out physically at Dorothy Bernard, playing the angelic victim. At only sixty-two shots, The Female of the Species is one of Griffith’s most slowly edited films from 1912, far below both the norm of eighty-two for the year. When one recalls that The Girl and Her Trust uses more than double the same number of shots, one has a firmer sense of how drastically Griffith has altered his tendency toward briefer shots for this “psychological” study. Aside from the penultimate shot, wherein the wife finally relents and forgives the wronged woman, no single shot lasts an inordinately long time; instead, the overall cutting rate is affected, and the pacing slowed down. Eschewing rapid cutting does not mean that editing is irrelevant to the film’s dramatic effect, however. As Joyce Jesionowski has pointed out, few Biograph films highlight the centrality of the look to Griffith’s dramatic logic as pointedly as this one. Editing functions to separate the group of three women (most typically by placing the wife and sister in one shot and their intended victim in the other). Shots group themselves in clusters according to this principle of separation and the attendant gazes across the divided shots which ensue. The process of splitting up the group at regular intervals only informs those moments when they reunite with increased tension; as Jesionowski has pointed out, “this is a direct result of cutting between spaces and requiring the audience to imagine the implications of the relationship indicated in the structure” (Jesionowski, 1987, p. 28). The film’s final shot, showing the three women together, but now reconciled, offers resolution on a formal level even while it leaves their ultimate fate undecided. Retaining a more moderate cutting rate, Griffith faced the challenge of signalling intense 28

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emotion without having his actors resort to outsized gestures. The aforementioned concentration on the look directs viewer attention to the faces of the three women, of course, but Griffith gravitates toward indirect means when it comes to communicating ideas that facial expression alone cannot convey. Probably the most striking is when the wife’s sister (played with perhaps a surfeit of modified smirks by Mary Pickford), goads her sibling to contemplate violence. Arms entwined with the wife’s in sisterly solidarity, she slowly extends her fingers to the gun at her sister’s hip. When the wife shows her the gun’s chamber is empty, the sister offers an alternative by sliding the axe she has been holding into the wife’s hands. (It is a mark of Griffith’s mastery with props that the axe had already been featured in several shots prior to this moment, so that its employment never strikes one as a contrivance.) While such gestures might suggest we should see Pickford’s character as the Iago to McDowell’s Othello, they speak with equal force to how desperation fuses love and retribution, tenderness and menace. Rather than painting Pickford’s character as a mere villainess (Jesionowski’s reading), Griffith appears to be opting for a more complicated portrait, wherein she provides genuine support while satisfying her own thirst for revenge. (The fact that the sister does not attempt to block the rapprochement between the wife and the other woman at the film’s end verifies that her interests align with those of the wife.) Griffith’s handling of the sister’s role also indicates that as much as he embraced certain moral polarities nurtured by melodrama, the director often cloaked them in ambiguity. (Could this be what The Moving Picture World meant when it suggested the film would “probably cause a good deal of discussion” [April 27, 1912, p. 329]?) Two of the women of The Female of the Species nearly destroy another in a blind pursuit of vengeance, their moment of salvation arriving in the form of an abandoned infant, who ignites a spark of maternal tenderness, signalled by a single title card reading “MOTHERKIND”. This capsule definition would seem to confirm the assumption that Griffith traded in the most reductive homilies concerning female values and behaviour. But the realisation of the scenario points in another direction, with the primal intensity of the performances (particularly McDowell’s), the nuanced nature of the depicted struggle, and the beautiful bleakness of the final long shot suggesting a director whose attitude creates a complex response even when the narrative’s moral lessons do not. Charlie Keil

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402 BIOGRAPH

JUST LIKE A WOMAN Filming date: finished February 1912 Location: California Release date: 18 April 1912 Release length: 998 feet Copyright date: 20 April 1912 Director: D.W. Griffith Author: George Hennessy Source: none known Camera: G.W. Bitzer Cast: Mary Pickford (Young woman); Grace Henderson (Her mother); Harry Hyde (Fortune Hunter); J. Jiquel Lanoe (Broker); Wilfred Lucas (Wealthy Friend); Charles Hill Mailes, Frank Opperman, Hector Dion (Oil men); W. Christy Cabanne, Marguerite Marsh, Mae Marsh (In club); Robert Harron (Stableboy); Kathleen Butler, ? (Servants); ? (Butcher); ? (Assistant to broker); Mae Marsh (Friend); Kate Bruce (Maid); ? (Messenger); ? (Bill Collector) Archival Sources: Cinémathèque Québécoise, 16mm acetate positive (generation undetermined); Library of Congress, 35mm nitrate positive (AFI/Mary Pickford Collection); 35mm paper print; The Museum of Modern Art, 35mm acetate fine grain master (incomplete); UCLA Film and Television Archive, 35mm nitrate positive (intertitles only, Mary Pickford Collection) WOULD YOU CALL IT CAPRICIOUSNESS? A fortune-hunter is the accepted suitor of the daughter of an apparently wealthy widow, but when she receives notice that the oil stocks, in which her late husband’s fortune is invested, are worthless, he finds the young girl less attractive. The broker who has represented the widow calls to explain the situation and extend his sympathy. Accompanying him is a wealthy friend, who becomes quite interested in the girl, although he is twice her age. He. [sic] later, makes a formal proposal of marriage, believing that he can win her love through kindness. The girl for the sake of her mother accepts and they are married. Despite his great love for the girl he is unable to overcome the great difference in their ages, and enjoining the broker to secrecy, he buys the worthless oil stock so that she may be independent, and he then leaves her to go back to his oil fields. Learning of his sacrifice, the nobleness of it arouses the girl’s love and she follows him to tell him of her awakening. Biograph Bulletin, April 18, 1912

A young woman marries a wealthy older man she does not love, to save her mother from losing her home and falling into poverty. The marriage is unhappy, although the husband adores his young bride. She confesses the truth to him. He is heartbroken, but agrees to an annulment. Secretly, he buys up the mother’s worthless bonds to restore her home and income. When his bride discovers his unselfish actions, she falls in love with him at last.

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Just Like a Woman has a degree of complexity and sophistication for 1912, or, at least, for Biograph. A young woman marries a man twice her age for money instead of love. She is not condemned for such a mercenary act, and comes to learn that she has won a wonderful husband. This might be a common enough story in the social and literary life of its times, but as a topic for American movies it might be more characteristic of the twenties, especially when used as a source of comedy or satire. Just Like a Woman is as much about an innocent girl growing to maturity as it is about marriage for money. The opening scene shows Mary Pickford as still just a child, playfully hitting her sister (Mae Marsh) with a racket and running about the garden. Later, she hides from her rich suitor underneath a table in the garden, assisted by a large dog that charmingly gets in the way of the camera’s view. The secondary line under the main title in the Biograph Bulletin asks, “Would you call it capriciousness?”, as though to tell us that the theme of the film is the peculiar nature of womankind, but the film itself denies this view. Capriciousness could only apply to these early scenes, when Mary’s character is still immature. These are the kind of scenes that Mary Pickford plays so well, with her capacity for portraying mischievous bits of comedy. When she does consent to marry the man, it may be a bad decision but she is not a gold-digger looking for wealth and security. She only wants to save her mother from falling from a comfortable lifestyle into a life of poverty. Her motives are good, according to the narrative slant. It is not a case of forced marriage, either: although her mother proposes it, she tells Mary that she does not have to do it if she cannot love him. Mary is too young to know her mind. What she does have is strength of character. At their lowest moments – when mother and daughter learn that the oil stocks the widow has inherited from her late husband are worthless, as well as that Mary’s young suitor has turned out to be a worthless fortune-hunter, slipping away as soon as he finds she has no money – Mary comes up with a forced smile, fingers pushing up the corners of her mouth. This is the smile that Lillian Gish used to memorable effect six years later in Broken Blossoms (1919). There is a big difference, of course. Mary is trying to cheer her mother in the face of bad news, while poor Lillian is desperately trying to stave off a brutal beating. The actor’s gaze has become a practiced expressive device. It is one of the ways the characters reveal their feelings and how they relate to each other. It would become the most frequently-used device for such purposes, of course, usually emphasized by the close-up, but Griffith did not yet feel the necessity to use a close-up for such situations as the fixed gaze of the new rich suitor that tells us that he is drawn to Mary at first sight while she is still unaware of it, much as the steady gaze of the sentry in the hospital scenes of The Birth of a Nation (1915) reveals the soldier’s adoration of Lillian Gish as she passes by unknowing. The position of the actors’ bodies in space and their relation to each other are sufficient to give meaning to the gaze. The arrangement of the actors in formal compositions that reveal emotions and carry narrative, is truly skillful in these later Biographs. There is sophistication and subtlety in the scenes of troubled married life. The bride shows her discontent, surrounded by luxury, flowers and jewels provided by her adoring husband. After she tells him the truth about her feelings, she runs out and sprawls on a bed, an image suggestive of their failed sexual relations. But I must admit that the prints I viewed were out of order, and I am unsure whether the one image follows the other. The heart-broken husband then destroys the flowers he brought her (as Lillian Gish destroys the flowers in the garden when her baby dies in The Mothering Heart [1913]). It is difficult not to be reminded of other famous scenes in Griffith’s films while viewing these Biographs. The Kern County oil boom at the turn of the century, revitalized by new oil field discoveries in 1908, provided an exotic setting for films made in California. The oil derricks are seen standing in the landscape in many of the California films. The hero of Just Like a 31

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Woman has become wealthy in the oil fields, and the widow’s late husband had probably been bamboozled by boomtown speculators into buying worthless stocks. Mary’s disappointed husband returns to his work in the oil fields when the marriage comes to an end. She comes there riding on horseback when she seeks reconciliation. She finds him talking to his foreman, the tall oil derricks looming up in the background. The notes by anonymous reviewers in the “Comments on the Films” column of The Moving Picture World were commonly aimed at the exhibitor, just describing the genre and offering generalized opinions as to good or poor potential box office. They seldom offer the critical sensitivity shown by the writer of this note: A very artistic and well-acted picture full of brilliant moments of insight into human moods and showing imagination in a marked degree. The story is quite fresh throughout, although the situation or situations very close to it have been used many times. The unusually high quality of the work comes chiefly from the almost faultless naturalness with which the story is led forward by the producer who astonishes us at times by the unconstrained way in which a group of figures in its scenes, with the perfect illusion of unconsciousness, affect each other. The ability to accomplish this is often considered to be the surest hall mark [sic] of a true dramatist, and even prized above clever plot construction. (The Moving Picture World, May 4, 1912, p. 425)

Just Like a Woman does not yet exist in a restored version. The Museum of Modern Art prints are only work prints made in the course of the preservation of the original nitrate, which is so badly deteriorated that much of it cannot be clearly seen. The Library of Congress prints, made from the Aywon reissue version, have new intertitles, much more numerous than in the original, in what appears to be a failed attempt to make a two-reel film of it. It is partly out of order and apparently not the complete reissue print. However, the Aywon material is the best print to be looked at for now. The original intertitles do exist in the MoMA material. In the Aywon reissue, some credits are given and character names are supplied. As we have to suspect that these are not the original character names, I have not repeated them here. There is still a lot of work and study needed to complete the restoration of this film. Eileen Bowser

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403 BIOGRAPH

ONE IS BUSINESS; THE OTHER CRIME Filming date: finished February 1912 Location: California Release date: 25 April 1912 Release length: 998 feet Copyright date: 24 April 1912 Director: D.W. Griffith Script: George Hennessy [“The Greater Evil”] Camera: G.W. Bitzer Cast: Charles H. West, Dorothy Bernard (Poor couple); Edwin August, Blanche Sweet (Rich couple); Frank Evans (Landlord); William Carroll, ? (Foremen); Kate Bruce, Kate Toncray (Maids); ? (Briber); Robert Harron (Delivery boy); W.C. Robinson (Brickyard worker); Frank Opperman (Rich man’s foreman) Archival Sources: Library of Congress, 35mm paper print; The Museum of Modern Art, 35mm nitrate negative AS VIEWED FROM DIFFERENT ANGLES Two young couples, upon their wedding, vow to follow the straight path. One is in ordinary circumstances, the other a little better off. Later on the poor young man is thrown out of work and he and his wife are in sore straits, but the other, being a power in politics, is in a decidedly improved condition. We see him offered a bride of $1000 to vote for the passage of a franchise in favor of the Street Railway, with a promise of more if it passes. This he hides from his wife, for although he considers it a business transaction, he is loath to let her know for fear she will not understand. She makes the discovery, however, when the poor man, driven to despair by poverty, tries to steal this money. Her eyes are opened when she reads the letter accompanying the money, and instead of allowing her husband to call the police, she makes him let the man go free, and see his act as she sees it. The politician now realizes the straight path is the right path. Biograph Bulletin, April 25, 1912

Two young couples begin married life with idealistic ambitions. Their subsequent lives are a study in contrast. The poor man loses his job, and he and his wife sink into dire poverty. The richer man becomes a power in politics, and he and his wife enjoy a very comfortable life. The politician is offered and accepts a bribe to vote for the proposed street railway. The poor man happens to witness the passing of the money to the politician, and desperate, he plans to steal it. The rich man’s wife catches the thief in the act and holds him at gunpoint. Then she discovers the letter offering the bribe to her husband. She persuades her husband to see the error of his ways. Instead of calling the police they let the thief go free. The politician returns the bribe. Then he comes to the poor man’s home and offers him a job.

A number of moral melodramas from Biograph contrast the life of the wealthy with that of the poor. One is Business; The Other Crime is a much richer and ironic version of this genre. The protagonists are more deeply imbedded in the life around them, an effect expressed 33

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primarily by the compositions of people in the space and in relation to each other, and especially by the remarkable use of light. The action involving the chief characters goes on in the foreground, dark against luminous backgrounds in which other people are constantly in motion. These backgrounds pulsate with light and movement. Whenever the poor man goes to look for employment, the light-filled background shows people at work, moving about their business, while the unsuccessful job-hunter speaks to the foreman in the foreground. Inside the poor couple’s cottage, the light from the window touches the characters as they pass by, and later, the window provides a pool of light for the despairing young couple, sitting down in the foreground. It is a dazzling display of camerawork and lighting technique. The most striking image of all is the slope in front of the poor people’s cottage. It is astonishing. Far in the distance, down the slope, we see imposing buildings, industrial buildings, perhaps factories, sometimes misty, sometimes clear, but always in the light, while in the foreground there is dark contrast. As an example of Griffith’s repetition of location images, this is one of the strongest, and the meaning it carries is surely more complex than usual. We the spectators are positioned in front of the unseen cottage, which must be behind us, or, suggested by the interior shots, we are inside looking out the window with the wife, but no window frame is included in the shots. We are located in the home and out there in front of us is the great wide world, bright and shining, and full of risk. It is not necessary to actually show the home to convey its meaning. Home is not the house, but the shelter from which we set forth to conquer, or to be defeated by, the world in front of us. The image is clearly metaphorical: we are shown no practical reason that the politician should even know who the thief is or where he lives, and yet, up the hill, the politician and his foreman come to offer work to the poor man at his own humble home. This use of light is to some extent a reversal of earlier practice. The “great wide world” in the Biograph universe is full of temptation and evil, and more often represented as the dark side; here, the attitude is less simplistic. Poverty is not shown to be a virtue: it sets people aside from society, it isolates, and it lowers moral quality, turning the poor man into a thief. Nor in this parable does money fail to buy happiness: the rich couple are perhaps more superficial in their marital ideals than the poor couple, but they appear to enjoy their wealth. It is his greed that leads the politician astray. The representation of these more complex concepts may have led to new ways of composition and lighting, while the conditions of producing films in California facilitate matters with outdoor location filming, wide western landscapes, and the brilliant natural light. Details enrich the contrasting lifestyles of the characters. The politician constantly holds a cigar in his mouth, a symbol of wealth and self-indulgence. Flowers adorn his comfortable rooms. The poor couple sits at a bare table with empty plates in what appears to be the one room in which they live, since there is a bed in it. At the beginning, the two wedding scenes contrast not only difference in circumstance but also in character: the poor bride and groom are solemnly serious about their vows while the richer couple – making the same vows – are casual about them. In the print viewed, splices are visible where inserts were cut into shots. That fact reveals that a dialogue title is cut into the middle of a shot, an unusual step in this period. It proves the occasional exception to the rule concerning Biograph practice at this time, according to evidence I found in the Biograph screenplay records, which show that the regular use of the practice of cutting dialogue intertitles into midshot only began in late 1914 (Bowser, 1990, pp. 143–45]. The reluctance to cut into the shot led to many instances of awkwardness in the early period, when dialogue occurs too far in advance of the time that the actor mouths it. Filmmakers feared to disrupt the continuity of the single-shot scene. When they began to break up scenes into several shots, they also moved the dialogue title to the point where 34

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it occurred within the scene. In the case of the intercutting in One is Business; The Other Crime, we may suppose that Griffith felt the awkwardness of placing the dialogue at the beginning of the shot, and deliberately broke the rule. The Moving Picture World comment on this film notes its “very artistic photography”, but the reviewer shows little awareness of (or is unable to articulate) its outstanding qualities, only noting that “it puts a barb into complacent hypocrisy” (May 11, 1912, p. 527). Eileen Bowser

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404 BIOGRAPH

THE LESSER EVIL Filming date: begun February, finished March 1912 Location: California Release date: 29 April 1912; reissued by Biograph, 3 January 1916 Release length: 1009 feet Copyright date: 27 April 1912 Director: D.W. Griffith Author: George Hennessy Source: none known Camera: G.W. Bitzer Cast: Blanche Sweet (Young woman); Edwin August (Her sweetheart); Mae Marsh (Her companion); Alfred Paget (Smuggler leader); Charles Hill Mailes (Revenue officer); Charles H. West (Go-between); Frank Opperman, Robert Harron?, William Carroll, J. Jiquel Lanoe, Charles Gorman, W.C. Robinson (In smuggler band); Harry Hyde, Charles Hill Mailes, Frank Evans (Policemen); W. Christy Cabanne (In rescue boat) Archival Sources: Library of Congress, 35mm nitrate positive (AFI/Dorothy Horton Collection); 35mm paper print; The Museum of Modern Art, 35mm nitrate negative; National Film and Television Archive, 35mm nitrate positive (incomplete); UCLA Film and Television Archive, 28mm diacetate positive THRILLING ADVENTURE OF A FISHERMAIDEN As per appointment, the girl goes to meet her sweetheart outside an old shack. This spot is selected as being the most sequestered. Unknown to anyone, this shack is used by a gang of smugglers for the reception of contraband goods for shipment. This gang is just preparing to take away a cargo when the girl arrives. Not finding her sweetheart there, and hearing voices, she imagines he is inside the shack, and enters. The gang becomes panic-stricken at the entrance of an outsider. It is not long before they realize the importance of the situation, and as she has discovered their secret, they dare not leave her behind. Carrying her aboard their ship they sail away, just as the girl’s sweetheart, who was late on account of the stopping of his watch, arrives at the place of meeting, and helplessly witnesses their departure. The young man rushing off, gets the Harbor Officers to attempt a rescue. In the meantime, the girl is in great peril on the ship, as the captain, who has locked her in his cabin, defends her from the onslaught of his drunken, mutinous crew. Finally, his ammunition being reduced to one cartridge, she begs that it be turned upon her, choosing death rather than falling into their hands. Good fortune, however, ordains that the rescue party shall deliver her from peril. Biograph Bulletin, April 29, 1912 A sea and fishing village love story, with fisher folk, smugglers, beauty in danger and distress, and the hero coming to the rescue with U.S. revenue men in a speedy, wave-leaping motor boat. It is well acted, giving realistic naturalness and rough humor. In fact, because of the skilful manner in which the whole situation has been handled, it impresses one as having much freshness of interest. The ‘lesser evil’ is death; the heroine preferred death to being the sport of a smuggler’s ship-load of drunken, mutinous sailors. The hero arrives in time… . The Moving Picture World (May 11, 1912, p. 527)

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A young woman in a fishing village arrives at a beach shack for a rendezvous with her sweetheart, who is not yet there. She interrupts a gang of smugglers at work; they kidnap her and take her to sea. Her fisherman sweetheart, delayed by a stopped watch, arrives only in time to see her carried away. The sea captain, touched by her innocence, protects her from the advances of his drunken, mutinous sailors. Her sweetheart comes to the rescue with the help of United States revenue officers in their motor launch, and climbs on board just in time to save her. She helps the captain escape the law by keeping silent when he jumps overboard and swims to shore.

To us almost a hundred years later, the “lesser evil” idea seems really ludicrous, and just a cheap thrill, but we must give consideration to the fact that this film is made three years before The Birth of a Nation (1915), where “the lesser evil” is chosen and carried out. In fact, we are painfully aware that there are areas of the world even today where the victim of rape is still held responsible for her “honor.” In The Lesser Evil the concept appears to be no more than a conventional plot motif offered as a contribution to the suspense of this thriller at sea. The rather passive role does not fit well to the strong personality of the buoyant Blanche Sweet. As we know, she needed only a monkey wrench to hold off the intruders in The Lonedale Operator (1911). Here, she does not take her awful situation with great seriousness; she even introduces a note of comedy, making faces as she accepts her fate and awaits a bullet. The film is not a tragedy, it is a thriller. It may even be meant as a parody of the melodrama, as the Moving Picture World comment reprinted above seems to suggest. The thrills of a chase at sea presented problems for early filmmakers. The boats move too fast and the camera’s view is not agile enough. Boats wander all over the frame, because the camera is mounted on other boats with unsteady movements, or due to the distance of the boats from a camera on shore, or simply because there is no steady frame of reference on the always-shifting water. The camera needed to be mounted on a gyroscope to obtain steady framing and focus, as would be done later. The movements must be broken down into even smaller parts, closer and shorter shots, to portray the full excitement – and this film already contains 110 shots in the 955-foot length of the re-issue print. There are some impressive shots of the speedboat as it races to the rescue, with white foam breaking by its side against the darker sea. For the most part, though, the spectacular seascape of the California coastline is not as much exploited in The Lesser Evil as in some of the other Biographs. Nevertheless, there are beach scenes that continue to explore the interesting new way of lighting, the movements of people in the light behind the darker figures in the foreground. This style of lighting may have been difficult to avoid on the beach with the background of the brilliant sea. The 35mm print from the AFI/Horton Collection at the Library of Congress is a reissue print from the 1915–1916 period of Biograph’s own reissues, using the original intertitles and adding a new main title crediting D.W. Griffith’s work, and cast credits. These confirm the cast lists in D.W. Griffith and the Biograph Company – following the listing as far as Charles Hill Mailes – and also include Mae Marsh, whose role is insignificant here. No doubt her credit on the reissue version reflects her increased celebrity by the time of the reissue. I also viewed 16mm answer prints at Museum of Modern Art, coming from the preservation master and not assembled in order. The intertitles are the same in all prints, bearing the main title at the top of each. Eileen Bowser 37

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405 BIOGRAPH

THE OLD ACTOR Filming date: finished February 1912 Location: California Release date: 6 May 1912 Release length: 998 feet Copyright date: 4 May 1912 Director: D.W. Griffith Script: George Hennessy [“The Eyesore”] Camera: G.W. Bitzer Cast: W. Chrystie Miller (The Old Actor); Kate Bruce (His wife); Mary Pickford (His daughter); Edwin August (Her sweetheart); Frank Opperman (Old Beggar); Charles Hill Mailes (Replacement actor); Alfred Paget (Policeman); Frank Opperman (Stage Manager); William Carroll (His assistant); Grace Henderson (Old landlady); Robert Harron (Messenger); Claire McDowell, J. Jiquel Lanoe, Marguerite Marsh, W.C. Robinson, Vivian Prescott, W. Christy Cabanne (At audition) Archival Sources: Library of Congress, 35mm paper print; National Film and Television Archive, 35mm nitrate positive (Inv. # 2,013,626 A); 35mm nitrate positive (Inv. # 2,013,883); 35mm nitrate positive (Inv. # 2,023,318 A); 35mm nitrate positive (Inv. # 473 A) TRULY ONE OF THE OLD SCHOOL He gets a part in the new play that is to be produced, and goes to the theatre for his first rehearsal in high hopes, only to be thrown into the depths of despair by being told that he is “too old.” A younger actor is engaged to take is place. Downcast, he leaves the theatre, for the maintenance of his little home depends upon his getting work. He has not the courage to tell them of his failure, and deceives them into believing he has succeeded. On the way home he meets a beggar who is suddenly stricken down, and upon investigation by those in authority, a large amount of money is found on him. This impresses the old man, and, unable to secure employment, the idea strikes him to play the new role of a beggar. This he does, using his talent at make-up to effect a disguise, which would not have been penetrated had not his daughter’s sweetheart thrown a gold piece into his hat in mistake for a nickel, which led to his discovery. Good fortune, however, shines upon him later, as he is given back his part in the play. Biograph Bulletin, May 6, 1912

The old actor is told that he is too old for the role in the new play at a time when he is desperate for money to support his wife and daughter. His daughter has won a sweetheart approved by her mother. Seeing their happiness, the old man does not tell them he is out of work. The old beggar he passes every day collapses in front of him and the actor helps him to get home. Going back later to collect his forgotten makeup box, he discovers that the beggar, who died, had collected an impressive sum, which gives the old actor the idea to take his place. He disguises himself with the beggar’s clothes and his own makeup kit. The disguise works well enough, until the daughter’s sweetheart discovers he gave the “beg38

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gar” a five-dollar gold coin by mistake and runs back to collect it. Meanwhile, a new actor has been tried out and found to be inadequate. The old actor is sent for and gets the part.

The 1912 films are made with the authority of a long experience. The films are compact, efficient, convincing, without waste of time, yet with emotions and narrative clearly expressed. My impression is that we see fewer films of the kind that appeared in 1911, those films that suggested a longing for greater length, films that are crowded, compressed, increasingly complex. A greater number of the 1912 films, it seems to me, are fully contained, gracefully narrated, and give a satisfying sense of completion. Whether that is a fair statement, at any rate it is true of The Old Actor, which is related with assurance by filmmakers with a personal knowledge of the milieu that it depicts. It wasn’t necessary to tell the spectator of 1912, I suspect, what is in the box that the old actor carries everywhere with him, although today one could not be sure of instant recognition. It is his icon: the makeup box, in a day when every actor was expected to supply his own and know how to use it. He cannot work without it. When the old actor leaves the box at the beggar’s home, it is a sign of his emotional turmoil at the moment; he soon notices the lack and rushes back for it. The intertitles do not make clear who is the old woman played by Grace Henderson, yet I feel sure that audiences of 1912 immediately understood her as the beggar’s landlady, not his mother or his wife, in a day when urban poor and middle classes too commonly lived in rooming houses. That explains her anger at the beggar’s untimely death – he probably owed her rent. The scenes of the loungers outside the stage door, and the unruly actors milling about on stage talking and reading lines, would certainly have been familiar to most of the young movie actors. They probably enjoyed the comic sequence showing the “replacement” actor unable to follow the director’s instructions or to please the leading lady. Charles Hill Mailes seems to have fun pretending to be this totally incompetent actor. None of the major characters have much individuality except for the old actor, played by W. Chrystie Miller. Here, for once, the character actor is given the leading role. Kate Bruce, in her traditional role as the mother, scarcely gets to move through the whole passage of time of the film. She sits at the side of the screen in her chair in the living room, only once getting up to go to an inner room with her daughter, and later to return directly to her chair. She is an iconic mother, working with her hands all the time, beaming on her family. Mary Pickford has little to do here except portray her happiness with her love and her new situation, unable to stay still, dancing around a little, but with her customary restraint. The old actor’s appeal to our emotions is the whole of this simple film. That is made more evident in the scene where he sits on the porch steps and begins to recite from Shakespeare, finding a message for himself in the passage: “ALL THE WORLD’S A STAGE…” The intertitles for this speech appear in italics, to show that it is a quotation. For this key scene, Griffith chooses to use a change of camera position in mid-scene, to take us closer to the actor. To cover the cut, he puts in a brief shot of Mary dancing around the room inside the house, followed by a second intertitle: “STRUTS AND FRETS HIS HOUR UPON THE STAGE / AND THEN IS HEARD NO MORE.” After the old actor is seen to speak this line in the closer view, however, the camera is placed back to its original position over a direct cut. The intimate moment is over. The change of position in mid-shot is not needed to clarify anything. A practical purpose for it could be to enable to actor’s full figure to be included as he gets up from the porch steps and turns to enter his house. Even in this case, however, the closer view operates for expressive purposes, placing an emphasis on the particular scene in which the 39

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character communes with his soul. It should be counted among the steps toward the practice of breaking up scenes into multiple shots. The Library of Congress 16mm viewing print, 400 feet in length, has no main title, but the title does appear on the intertitles, which are original. The print begins with the title “Approved by Maryland State Board of Censors/signed/Chas. E. Harper, Chairman”. Eileen Bowser

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406 BIOGRAPH

A LODGING FOR THE NIGHT Filming date: finished March 1912 Location: California Release date: 9 May 1912 Release length: 999 feet Copyright date: 13 May 1912 Director: D.W. Griffith Author: George Hennessy Source: “A Lodging for the Night”, by Robert Louis Stevenson, from New Arabian Nights Camera: G.W. Bitzer Cast: Charles H. West (Dick Logan); Mary Pickford (Mexican Girl); Charles Hill Mailes (Her father); William Carroll, ? (Tramps); Frank Opperman (Gambling hall owner); Frank Evans (Gambler); W.C. Robinson (Bartender); W. Christy Cabanne, Robert Harron (In gambling hall); Robert Harron (Victim); Mae Marsh, W. Christy Cabanne (First Mexican couple); ? (Second Mexican couple); Alfred Paget (Sheriff); W.C. Robinson, Adolph Lestina (Deputies); Hector Dion (Porter) Archival Sources: Library of Congress, 35mm paper print; 16mm acetate positive (from 35mm nitrate positive, decomposed; Mary Pickford Collection) A STORY OF THE OLD SOUTHWEST Dick Logan, a young writer in search of local color, stops at a little border town in the Southwest and engages lodging at the Mexican Inn. Two tramps see the amount of money he has and plan to secure it. In the town he befriends a Mexican girl by stopping her uncle from beating her for having broken a water jar. That night, to while the time, he plays faro and breaks the bank, which greatly augments his already large amount of money. Retiring to his room, he is awakened by the efforts of the two tramps to get into the room. He steals out and asks for lodging for the night at a nearby house, which happens to be the home of the Mexican girl and her uncle. Here he gets real “local color” as the tramps have followed him and they enter the room through the window, while the Mexican, who also covets his money, enters through the door. The girl, however, saves him from harm, and it looks as if Dick had found a real heroine for a real romance. Biograph Bulletin, May 9, 1912

Dick Logan visits a frontier town in the Southwest and takes a room in the local cantina. Walking around the town that evening, he flirts with a pretty local girl carrying a pitcher of water. Responding to his advances, she drops and breaks the pitcher. This is seen by her father who threatens to beat her, but Logan placates him by paying for the damage. He returns to the cantina and joins the crowd at the faro table. He wins a large amount, and this is witnessed by two tramps among the gamblers. They decide to climb into his window that night, murder him and steal his money. Logan goes to bed, putting his money in a purse under the pillow. When the thieves open his bedroom window, he wakes, realises his danger, takes the money, and leaves the cantina. The thieves see him go and pursue him. He knocks at the door of the girl he flirted with earlier, and offers to pay her father for a room 41

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for the night. Her father accepts and takes him to a bedroom in the house, but pockets the door key before Logan can lock himself in. Suspicious about the missing key, Logan decides to stay awake all night, but finally blows out the light and falls asleep on the bed. The thieves have followed him to the house, and now set about climbing in the window there. The girl, whose bedroom is in an attic reached by a ladder from the living room in the house, sees the thieves coming through her window, and when she looks down into the living room, also sees her father preparing to creep into Logan’s bedroom, undoubtedly for nefarious purposes. She climbs out of the window onto a lean-to and thus reaches the street, whereupon she runs to the sheriff’s office. Meanwhile, the thieves have opened the window and climbed into the pitch-dark room, but Logan has heard them and ducked down at the foot of the bed. As the thieves feel for him in the bed, the girl’s father opens the door, effectively concealing Logan behind it, and creeps in to steal the money. He blunders into the thieves, who set upon him, believing him to be Logan. Although the sheriff and his deputies insist on finishing a hand of poker before coming to the rescue, when they reach the house, the fight is still going on. They break down the door and seize the thieves and the girl’s father. The girl pleads for her father, and Logan pretends he was helping him against the thieves. The sheriff and his deputies take the thieves away. The girl orders her father to go into her attic, and she sits against Logan’s door with a knife to fend off further intruders. Logan, too, sits against the other side of the door with his own knife at the ready.

This film was made in California during the third winter visit of a Biograph company. In the first two visits to the West Coast, almost all the films can be said to be aggressively Californian – they emphasise settings and subjects that are unique to that state, or to the American Southwest. Sometimes the Californian connection is fairly superficial – As It Is in Life (1910) has a story which might be set anywhere, but uses the tourist attraction of a pigeon ranch for its backgrounds, and The Twisted Trail (1910) is a Western which happens to be set on a California apple farm – but only a few titles have no local colour at all (Gold Is Not All, 1910, is the exception that comes to mind). This is much less true of the 1912 California films; the main impulse behind the trips seems now to be the California climate, allowing filming to continue through the winter unhindered by the inclement weather of the American Northeast. The incessant demand for new stories means that very many films, whether made in New York or in California, seize on opportunities provided by the discovery of interesting locations or props like cars and trains (with the scenarist obliged to “construct his piece in the interest of ‘the pump and washing-tubs’”, as Percy Fitzgerald remarked [pp. 23–24], denouncing the equivalent phenomenon in nineteenth-century theatre), and this is true of several of the films I have to review this year – the park and perhaps the hall exploited in When Kings Were the Law, the racing car and locomotive in A Beast at Bay. His Lesson and Home Folks, however, seem to have no such motivations (unless the gum trees that are so heavily emphasized by a curious device in His Lesson would have had more local associations in 1912 than they do now). A Lodging for the Night is thus the exception in my 1912 films in having a strong regional character, “a very tense and dramatic picture of the old Southwest”, as the Moving Picture World review has it (May 25, 1912, p. 728), and as much a repeat of Fate’s Interception as A Beast at Bay is a repeat of A Girl and Her Trust. The review in The New York Dramatic Mirror (May 15, 1912, p. 29) draws attention to the implicit reference in the title to a story in the Robert Louis Stevenson collection New Arabian Nights. (The “Motion Pictures” section of the Mirror was still edited by “Spectator”, i.e., Frank Woods, at this time, but the individual film reviews now carry a by-line initial, 42

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either “C.” or “J.” This one is by-lined “J.” I do not know whether Woods himself was “C.” or “J.”, or if he had handed over the grunt work of individual reviews to two assistants. Moving Picture World reviews in the weekly section “Comments on the Films” continue to be anonymous.) The plot of A Lodging for the Night does not seem at first sight to have much in common with that of the story “A Lodging for the Night” in New Arabian Nights, which relates a conversation between the poet François Villon and a respectable burgher of Paris when the poet seeks shelter in the latter’s house from a bitter winter night, but it does share with it, and with other stories in the same collection, the device of motivating an unexpected and intriguing encounter by the main character’s seeking shelter in the house of someone he does not know (in the Biograph film the hero has met the heroine just before seeking refuge in her house, but this acquaintance is so brief and superficial as not to make much difference). Such a motivation is convenient formally for both the short story and the onereel film, because it minimises exposition; since the characters know nothing more about each other than what they (and, in a film, the spectators) can see, there is no back-story except what plausibly emerges from their interaction. Other Biographs draw on New Arabian Nights (e.g., The Suicide Club, 1909), and more generally, Stevenson’s short story is an important model for the one-reel film (as opposed to the early feature, which draws far more heavily on the multi-act stage play), as important as that of Guy de Maupassant (The Necklace, 1909). O. Henry seems less important; there are no explicit Biograph adaptations (but perhaps that is simply because he was vigilant in the defence of his copyright) and few endings involving an unexpected ironic twist (the “snapper” ending). Both the Mirror and the World reviewers are enthusiastic about A Lodging for the Night, the former calling it a “delightful dramatic romance”, the latter remarking on the positive response of the audience at the show the reviewer attended, and calling the film “a Saturday night feature”, i.e., a film suitable for the lead spot in the nickelodeon programme on the most important night of the week (though whether because a special attraction would be worthy of the night that would have the best house anyway, or because something extra was needed on Saturday, when the usual clientele of the nickelodeon might be drawn rather to some “evening-filling” entertainment, I am not sure). Both reviewers comment favourably on the acting, and in particular, the ability of the Biographers to use details to bring out the characters they portray: “The action reveals [...] little unexpected flashes of character” (World); “The plays teems with those little touches of nature which so quickly establish a kinship between the people in the picture and the spectators: for instance, the sardonic laugh to which the young author is compelled to give vent despite the dangers which encompass him” (Mirror). In fact, the acting is fairly opaque, and (in the copy I viewed, a video dupe of the Library of Congress’s master positive struck from the original negative, donated by Mary Pickford, and hence a copy without intertitles) some actions and motivations are easily missed or even ambiguous. Both Charles West as the hero, Dick Logan, and Charles Hill Mailes as the Mexican girl’s father continue to use mime, that is, gestures that supply speeches which cannot be heard, but these are not the highly conventional gestures of earlier Biographs – the hand held out three feet from the ground to indicate a child, the circle in the air to mean a pretty face – but what might be called imitations of actions. Thus, when Mailes is waiting outside the bedroom door waiting for Logan to fall asleep before stealing his money, he pats his pocket, a fairly clear indication of a claim to have the key to the door (of which more later). However, he then makes the gesture with both hands of dragging or sweeping something from the bedroom toward the outer door of the house. Is he suggesting he will kill Logan and dispose of the body? If not, what? When, near the end, Logan accedes to the girl’s pleas on behalf of her father and lies to the sheriff, indicating that the father was not an assailant, 43

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he waves his hands up and down and passes them across his body from the direction of the bedroom door to the window, almost as if playing downward arpeggios on an invisible piano. This seems to indicate someone running from the door to the window, but what has this to do with the case? It remains unclear, in the absence of titles, whether he claims the father entered the room without any bad intentions, or that the father was helping him against his assailants. Even when mime is not involved, the characters’ intentions are often unclear. The Biograph Bulletin summary suggests that Logan seeks refuge in the house that “happens to be the home of” a girl he has already met, that is, presumably, inadvertently. But he already knows the home, as it is visible from the plaza in which he flirts with the girl, and as he sees the father come from it and the girl go into it. And in the night, he traverses this plaza before he knocks on the door of the house (admittedly, he does not go straight from the plaza to the house). Nothing in West’s reaction suggests surprise when the girl’s father opens the door; he does stop and stare at the girl once inside and she has come down from her attic to greet him, but there are reasons for that other than surprise at seeing her. A title may have stated otherwise, but the most natural way of interpreting the visible action is that Logan seeks out that particular house. And even the “sardonic laugh” mentioned by the Mirror is not fully clear. West performs it after Logan has discovered that the door to the bedroom in the house in which he has taken refuge has no key. This suggests he expects an attack, so when he then sits in a chair, I initially assumed he had decided to stay awake to await it. But then he goes and blows out the light, and sits on the bed. A few seconds later, he stretches full length on the bed and apparently goes to sleep. Does he resolve to stay awake, then change his mind? Does he fall asleep from sheer weariness? Or does he pretend to fall asleep to lure the assailants on to make their attempt? Mary Pickford avoids these problems. Her miming consists simply in pointing at things she sees (her father in the room below, the window out of which she will climb) and well-motivated gestural communications (jumping between her father and the sheriff when the father is caught with the thieves, rising on tiptoe a moment later to whisper a plea to Logan – a gesture helped by West’s tallness – and threatening her father with a knife at the end as she orders him off up into the attic in order to protect Logan next door), and she uses her usual pouts, smiles, and hipwiggling to indicate her flirtation with and attraction to Logan. This obscurity of some characters’ inner thoughts is compounded by the difficulty of seeing some of the most significant actions, a difficulty familiar from other Biographs of this year (I comment on this with respect to Home Folks, but it is notorious in The Musketeers of Pig Alley). While showing him the bedroom he has offered him for the night, the Mexican girl’s father surreptitiously removes and pockets the door key. The action is performed very quickly while West’s back is turned, and is immediately followed by a cutaway outside the house, so it is almost as hard for the spectator to see as it is for Logan. The speed is partly required by the very short shots (the film has over 100 shots, not counting the missing titles), but it would presumably have been possible to use a closer shot to show the action. (Later, when the thieves climb in the window and Logan crouches at the foot of the bed, and then the father enters the room and the door he opens cuts off Logan from the spectators’ view, there is such a cut-in to show Logan crouching between the open door and the bedboard.) If the pocketing of the key is not seen, West’s gesture when he seeks in vain for a key to the door, and Mailes’s when he pats his pocket, are very hard to interpret. Unless a missing title originally clarified matters, the whole proairetic sequence leading to the father’s entering the room would easily go unnoticed. More generally, however, the “unexpected flashes of character” and “little touches of nature” are humorous asides, lightening up the melodramatic aspect of the events. Some of these are Western stereotypes – the sheriff and deputies too engrossed in their poker game 44

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to come to the rescue until the hand is played out – but most are motivated by an easy contempt for the Latino characters and ambience: Logan’s laugh as a drunk is dragged off the sidewalk beneath his feet; his disgusted glance at the bed he has just hired as he rebuttons the coat he had been taking off before lying down on it; the above-mentioned sardonic laugh when he realises that here he cannot rely on the laws of hospitality; even his casual acceptance of the Mexican girl’s advances (though this seems to become more serious at the end). Less racist is the relatively extended epilogue. After the sheriff and his deputies have taken the two thieves off to jail, the girl’s father goes down in his knees to thank Logan, but the latter tells him to get out, whereupon he exits left, leaving the girl and Logan together. Cut next door: the father enters right, glances heavenwards and crosses himself in relief. Cut back next door, but to a closer framing, of the girl and Logan. He bends down and kisses her cheek. She is surprised, but smiles, then turns and exits left. Cut next door: she enters right, her father comes to embrace her gratefully, but she snatches up a knife, brandishes it at him and orders him off up the ladder to the loft. He meekly obeys. She gets a chair and places it with its back to the door to Logan’s room. Cut back next door, in the closer framing: Logan gets a chair, places it back to the door, and sits in it facing right. Cut back next door: the girl sits in the chair facing left, gestures angrily at the ceiling with the knife, then settles down to wait. Cut next door: Logan lifts a knife and sinks it into the doorjamb behind him, then smiles and settles back. Cut next door: the girl waits, smiling. Fade out. Whereas epilogues in the 1911 Biographs (e.g., the tramps lifting their hat to the heroine in The Lonedale Operator [1911] when they learn she has fooled them by sticking them up with a wrench rather than a revolver) are brief and are usually part of the climactic scene, in this film – and in A Beast at Bay – they are multi-shot sequences of their own. Moreover, in A Lodging for the Night, the joke – that the couple is sitting back to back with the door between them – is an editing effect, and the director feels no need to bring all its elements together into a single scene with a split set. Although this epilogue depends on establishing the spatial relation between two scenes, the relations between interiors and exteriors are inconsistent. Action matching around doors and windows is precise. Room-to-room cuts as characters move from one room to the next are direction-matched, and usually temporally matched as well, though when the sheriff and his deputies break down the door to the girl’s house, after the cut they are considerably further into the house then they were before. Cuts when the thieves climb into the two bedrooms are similarly precise as to action, with one tramp in the same position on the windowsill as he climbs into the room in the cantina, and the casement window at the same angle as a thief opens it to climb into the bedroom in the girl’s house. (Interiors and exteriors also match insofar as the window, both in the real exteriors and the interior sets, is a sash window in the first case and a casement in the second.) However, in both houses the main room of the building, which opens more or less directly from the street with a door in the rear, is next to a bedroom with the window in the rear wall, joined by a door in a wall roughly parallel to the camera axis in both setups. This arrangement would put the window in the same wall as the outer door, a few feet down the road. But the real exteriors used for the windows from the outside are both clearly the alleyways between houses, so presumably at 90 degrees to the street. 90 degrees has somehow got lost in the interior. Exteriors and interiors are thus being considered with different notions of spatial verisimilitude, the former governed by the plausibility of the location for the action to be performed there – thieves don’t climb through windows opening directly onto the main street, but round the side or the back of houses – the latter by the doll’s-house principle, where the rooms within and between which the action takes place are side by side. When Logan blows the candle out, standing by the window in the rear of the shot in the 45

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bedroom in the Mexican girl’s house, the light on the set drops markedly, though not so much as to reduce characters to silhouettes. (The film relies on tinting and the stage convention that if characters behave as if they are in pitch dark, they are, notwithstanding the fact that the spectators can see them perfectly well – contrast the true chiaroscuro of the robbery scenes in Le Courrier de Lyon, SCAGL 1911.) As the master positive copied in the video I viewed derives directly from the camera negative, this change cannot be an effect of tinting in an original release print subsequently copied archivally in black-and-white. The video copy did not allow me to check whether there was a splice at this point, indicating a pause in the action as the lighting was adjusted. Although Charles West’s stance at the window could have been easily held, there is no sign of the assumption of a sustainable pose regularly seen when early film actors wait for the pause necessitated by an in-camera effect such as a dissolve or simultaneous transformation. All in all, it looks as if the light simply drops instantaneously in the middle of the shot. I know of no way this could have been done, except by turning off a light or lights. No big deal, except that the standard account says that films made on the West Coast at this time were shot by natural light alone, in which case adding to diffusion screening, a relatively slow process, would be the only way a lower light level such as this could have been achieved. The light seems non-directional, so, if it is artificial, the Los Angeles studio must have had at least some of the Cooper-Hewitts used in New York. Ben Brewster

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407 BIOGRAPH

HIS LESSON Filming date: finished March 1912 Location: California Release date: 16 May 1912 Release length: 999 feet Copyright date: 16 May 1912 Director: D.W. Griffith Author: George Hennessy Source: none known Camera: G.W. Bitzer Cast: Edwin August (Bob, the husband); Dorothy Bernard (Mary, the wife); Charles H. West (Young man); Harry Hyde (His friend); W.C. Robinson (Hired hand); Charles Gorman (Porter); Grace Henderson (Cleaning woman); Kate Toncray, Mae Marsh (Visitors) Archival Sources: Library of Congress, 35mm paper print; The Museum of Modern Art, 35mm nitrate negative IT AWAKENS HIM JUST IN TIME He had no thought, but to work and save money. His poor wife did nothing but drudge, with no return other than an existence. This cannot last; it poisons one’s spirit in time. Day after day it was work, without an affectionate word or glance from her husband, who always met her plea for a new hat or dress with the expression, “We cannot afford it, we must save our money; besides, your hat and dress are good enough.” One day, a young man stops at the farm-house to get a drink of water. He imagines from her sad face that all is not as it should be, and tells her that her eyes are too beautiful for tears and her hands too delicate to carry the burdens set for her. The husband sees and hears and is at last made to realize that her life, without the sunshine of love, is but a little better than death, and so he makes a change for the better. Biograph Bulletin, May 16, 1912

Bob and Mary run a small farm with only one farm hand. They have to work hard, and Mary is wilting under the strain. Bob is unsympathetic, and responds to her complaints by pointing out that he works hard, too. When a woman friend shows off a new hat and lets Mary try it on, Bob is scornful of such fripperies. One day when they drive to town to the market, a tourist visiting the region and staying in the town notices Mary’s beauty. After Bob and Mary have carried out their business in town and are on their way back to the buggy, she admires a hat in a shop window, but Bob says they have no money to spare for such luxuries. A few days later, when on a fishing outing, the tourist stops at the farm and asks for a glass of water. He recognizes Mary and commiserates with her on the drudgery she is forced to endure. Coming back from the fields, Bob sees the tourist talking to his wife and is jealous. Some days later, Bob sets out to drive to town in the buggy, leaving Mary at the farm. He stops when he sees the tourist approaching the farmhouse again, and watches. The tourist knocks on the door, again asks for a drink, but asks Mary to bring it to him while he sits on the bench near the barn. Bob follows them and hides in the barn, watching and lis47

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tening as the tourist makes love to Mary. Bob goes and gets his gun and returns to the barn. Mary is about to yield to the tourist’s advances and Bob to shoot one or both of them, when Mary changes her mind, pushes the tourist away, and runs back to the farmhouse. The tourist walks away, and Bob follows him. He confronts him in the fields and threatens to shoot him, but the tourist tells him he has only himself to blame if his wife leaves him. As the tourist calmly turns his back and walks away, Bob runs to his buggy. At home, Mary decides to run away. She packs a few things and writes a goodbye letter to Bob. Before she can depart, however, Bob returns from town, carrying the hat Mary had admired in the shop window, and bringing a woman servant to take over the housework from Mary. The two are reconciled, Bob having learnt his lesson.

His Lesson contains a sequence to which Tom Gunning devotes six pages of his D.W. Griffith and the Origins of American Narrative Film. I am sure he will forgive me if I quote him at length (I have omitted his references to the frame stills that illustrate the book, as well, of course, of those stills themselves): Buried in the Library of Congress’s paper print collection Griffith has left a film (never to my knowledge discussed before) that contains a brief sequence that seems designed to call attention to the power of the narrator in creating suspense. The sequence comes from His Lesson (1912), which re-works a familiar Biograph triangle. An overworked and neglected country wife (Dorothy Bernard) becomes enamoured with a holiday fisherman from the city (Charles West). Learning of the flirtation, her husband (Edwin August) sets out to kill his would-be rival. The sequence covers this encounter between the two men, after the farmer has trailed the fisherman through the woods. Shot sixty: August confronts West at the edge of a clearing, trees visible behind them. As the two men stand arguing, the camera pans away from them to the right, passing over a grove of trees, coming to rest on one tree as the breeze rustles its leaves. Shot sixty-one: a parallel cut back to Bernard in her kitchen. She rises wearily and moves toward the camera. Shot sixty-two: Cuts back to the framing of the trees that ended shot sixty. Slowly the camera now pans to the left, reversing the previous trajectory, until it reveals West and August still arguing, although at a somewhat farther distance from the camera than in shot sixty. The pan in shot [sixty] jolted me when I first saw it at the Library of Congress, an experience repeated each time I have looked at it since. One assumes at first that it is going to reveal a new element of the situation, but it reveals – nothing. At least nothing of narrative interest – merely trees catching the breeze in their leaves. Is this like the preeminently non-classical moment in Two or Three Things I Know about Her in which Godard on the soundtrack wonders whether to concentrate on his main character or on the October foliage of a nearby tree? The next three shots continue the suspense, and resolve it through the more common interrupting technique of parallel editing: Shot sixty-two (whose beginning was described previously): West walks away from August, exiting right. As he leaves, August raises his rifle, aiming off-screen as if he were going to shoot. Shot sixty-three: Another parallel edit back to Bernard in the kitchen as she brings in the wash and begins her laundry tasks. Shot sixty-four: A return to August, his rifle still aimed off-screen. Slowly, he lowers the barrel and exits in the opposite direction, leaving his rival unharmed. The cut between shots sixty-three and sixty-four is a rich example of the many narrative roles such interrupting cuts can play. The cut suspensefully interrupts August’s act of firing the gun

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(will he shoot West?). In addition, the cut to Bernard provides a causal link: she is the subject of the men’s enmity. Finally, the cut provides subjective motivation for August because it articulates August’s decision whether or not to shoot. Bernard’s washing plays a role as well because the family disharmony that sets this story in motion came from August treating his wife as a household drudge. The articulation of August’s decision not to shoot indicates that he realizes his own fault in the matter: his neglect and overwork of his wife have led to her flirtation with the fisherman. While these three shots focus their narrative meanings more clearly than the previous triad (shot sixty-two, of course, operates in both groups), the pans in shots sixty and sixty-two perform essentially the same role, albeit in a more flamboyant and experimental manner. The narrator system displays its force here precisely by removing attention from the center of the story. However, by asserting this power, Griffith only reminds the audience of his ultimate bonding with the story. As a suspense technique, it increases involvement with the fictional happenings, making us, like Scheherazade’s auditor, Shariar, impatient for its resolution. Like Griffith’s “empty” shots, this movement away from the characters is not a movement away from narrativization. Rather, the camera movement celebrates the narrator’s role in creating a story, calling attention to its control over discourse. Unlike the apparently, and often beautifully, aimless camera movement sometimes encountered in pre-Griffith cinema, the narrative intention of this pan is never in doubt. However, it does more than simply direct attention to an important element previously off-screen. It draws spectators’ attention to the expectations they have invested in the story and its unfolding, an unfolding controlled by the narrator system. Unlike an anti-narrative technique in the middle of an apparently narrative film, such as the interpolation of documentary footage in the beginning of L’Age d’or, this is not a deconstructive moment aimed at short-circuiting conventional expectations. Like all the devices of the narrator system, these pans assert the film’s control over significance. (Gunning 1991, pp. 280–85)

The analysis of shots 62 to 64 is well taken (though, despite our having viewed the same print, by my count this should be shots 68 to 70, and the discrepancy would not be accounted for simply by my having counted titles as shots and his not having), and, of course, repeats a point Gunning first made about the scene in After Many Years (1908) where the shipwrecked hero kisses his wife’s portrait on a locket, and there is a cutaway to her in their home (Ibid., pp. 110–12). Gunning there linked this use of the cutaway to the use of a vision scene at the same moment in stage versions of the “Enoch Arden” story, described by A. Nicholas Vardac (pp. 64–73). And in Theatre to Cinema: Stage Pictorialism and the Early Feature Film, Lea Jacobs and I generalised the point, linking the whole development of not just the cutaway but of alternation in film in general to the pictorial tradition in the theatre, the tendency at the high point of situations to suspend the forward narrative movement and to group together the interconnected elements of that situation in a perspicuous view. On stage, not just the vision scene but also the stage tableau exemplify this tendency, and it can be seen to underlie many other features of nineteenth-century theatrical method that were adapted into the early narrative film. The point of the cutaway to Mary in the middle of the confrontation between Bob and the tourist is not to establish the simultaneity of the actions (it is of no significance for the narrative to know that Mary was doing the washing up while Bob was contemplating shooting her suitor), or even that Bob and the tourist were thinking about Mary (so it is not a vision scene – we are not supposed to understand that either Bob or the tourist thinks at that moment of Mary doing the washing up). The point is for the spectator to see these things in a causal and moral relationship to one another, and to suspend the resolution of the narrative’s choice between Bob’s shooting the tourist and his not shooting him to bring this picture forward for contemplation. 49

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Such an analysis places the essentially new device of alternating editing in a historical continuity – it is a new way of doing an old thing. In his discussion of shots 60 to 62 (my shots 66 to 68), however, Gunning wants to make a wider claim for Griffith, not as someone who carried forward a tradition, but rather as a (or the) founder of narrative cinema (the “narrator system”, as Gunning calls it). Alternation in general will not allow such a claim, of course, since it was already practised in essentially the same way (if not so extensively or with such sophistication) by filmmakers at Pathé and Vitagraph before Griffith ever made a film. The two “pointless” panning shots are different. They seem to be going to bracket some new narrative element – a witness to the scene, leading to some peripeteia at the proairetic level, or a symbolically significant element of the scenery, setting off the moment connotatively – but all that the pans lead to and away from is some gum trees waving in the wind. They arouse in the spectator narrative expectations which are then frustrated, calling attention to narrative devices, and hence to their creator, who is thus designated not just as the narrator, but as the founder of the narrator system. I have to say that I do not find this account convincing – either the claims made about the sequence or the broader claim for Griffith as founding father. I, too, was surprised by the pan to nothing, and the explanation that it was a case of “exposing the device” was near at hand for me, too. But this surprise and this explanation are near at hand for us because of the way a somewhat similar pan away from the action occurs in Two or Three Things I Know about Her, and equivalent exposed devices in many other modernist films. The two contemporary reviews of His Lesson that I have seen, in The Moving Picture World (June 1, 1912, p. 829) and The New York Dramatic Mirror (May 22, 1912, pp. 29–30), express no such surprise. It is not clear that either refers to this sequence, though both contain what might be responses to it. The Mirror (in a review without a by-line) describes the film as “not only simple, earnest, and spiritually convincing, but strongly introspective”; while the World critic calls it “another tract” and notes that “[o]ne scene seems over-careful in its plainness. The effect is as though one were reading in words with divided syllables.” If these remarks were inspired, in part, by this sequence, it seems clear that they treat the “pointless” pans as means of emphasis, adding a ponderousness to the moral conveyed by the dialogue title that precedes the first pan: “WOULD YOU COMMIT THE UNPARDONABLE SIN, THE TAKING OF A HUMAN LIFE, WHICH NO POWER, HUMAN OR DIVINE, CAN RESTORE? BESIDES, WHO IS THE MOST TO BLAME?” This is Griffith’s customary apothegmatic (or “didactic”?) use of the title I discuss in relation to When Kings Were the Law, and the World reviewer may have seen the pans as further underlining the lesson, while the Mirror sees them as marking that Bob and the tourist are preoccupied with the issues in the title, i.e., they are introspecting. Obviously, these readings of the reviews are speculative, but the point is that the reviewers cannot think of the device as “experimental” in the sense of “experimental art” (they might have thought of the pans as experimental in the sense that the filmmakers were trying to apply emphasis in a new way, but as experiments in that sense they were obviously unsuccessful, because there is nothing like them in later Biographs or the films of any other company that I know). Biograph was releasing two films a week in the summer of 1912, and it is important to think of the films, like the films of the classical cinema later, as mass products (one-reel films, made as quickly as possible to a strict cost standard, are indeed more like mass-produced goods than the individually planned features of the classical cinema). There is something original about each of them, but if the originality stands out too much against the background, it becomes uninterpretable, or even invisible. This is a cinema without founders. To look for them is anachronistic, and invidious of all the other filmmakers making their own marginally original films at the same time. Ben Brewster

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408 BIOGRAPH

WHEN KINGS WERE THE LAW Filming date: finished March 1912 Location: Fenyes Estate, Pasadena, California Release date: 20 May 1912; reissued by Biograph, 31 January 1916 Release length: 1049 feet Copyright date: 20 May 1912 Director: D.W. Griffith Script: Wilfred Lucas [“The Necklace”] Camera: G.W. Bitzer Cast: Wilfred Lucas (King of Romanda); Harry Hyde (His cousin); Dorothy Bernard (The king’s favorite); J. Jiquel Lanoe (Cardinal); Claire McDowell, Kate Toncray (Ladies-inwaiting); W. Christy Cabanne (Courtier); Frank Opperman (Bishop); Alfred Paget, Charles Gorman (Soldiers); Frank Evans, Charles Hill Mailes (Serfs); William J. Butler, Kate Bruce, Mabel Normand, Mae Marsh, Charles Hill Mailes (At court) Archival Sources: Library of Congress, 35mm paper print; The Museum of Modern Art, 35mm nitrate negative; National Film and Television Archive, 35mm nitrate positive; 35mm nitrate positive (printed 1944) THE AWFUL RESULT OF THEIR INDISPUTABLE WORD Over the Kingdom of Romanda there reigned a King who was greatly influenced by his favorite, whom he devotedly loved. He presents her with a necklace of fabulous worth and enjoins that she never part with it, which command she swears by the stars to keep. About this time an impecunious cousin of the King calls to beg the loan of money, which is refused. The favorite promises to intercede for him. The cardinal and the favorite are bitter enemies, because of her thwarting many of his pet schemes, and he plans a revenge by inciting jealousy in the King. The scheme he devises is to have the necklace missing and found in the cousin’s pocket. The plan succeeds so well that the King condemns the seemingly guilty pair to an air-tight chamber, where they would have suffocated to death had not the lady-in-waiting. [sic] who helped in the plot, become horror-stricken and confessed. The cardinal, himself, was plunged into the depths of remorse, as he did not think the scheme would drive the impetuous King to such extremes; he merely wished to have the favorite exiled from the court. Biograph Bulletin, May 20, 1912

The 17th century in the absolutist monarchy of Romanda. The King has a beautiful favourite. He gives her a necklace, and she swears to wear it always. The King’s impoverished cousin visits the court to request a loan, but the King refuses. The favourite intervenes to hinder an intrigue of the Cardinal, who is a powerful Minister. When the cousin expresses his approval of her action to the favourite, the King sees them in earnest talk together, and suspects an affair. The Cardinal decides to take revenge. He arranges for one of the favourite’s ladies-in-waiting, who is jealous of her mistress, to steal the necklace and have it brought to him. The king calls for his favourite, who has retired for the evening. When she comes, he sees she is not wearing the necklace and sends her to get it, but she is unable to find it. She returns to the King without it. The Cardinal plants the necklace in the cousin’s pocket, and 51

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makes sure that it will be found there by the King. When he finds it, the King orders the favourite and the cousin to be walled up together in an airtight room in the palace. When she sees this, the lady-in-waiting repents and confesses she stole the necklace for an agent of the Cardinal. The Cardinal’s agent is interrogated and admits the plot. The wall to the sealed room is knocked down just before the favourite and the cousin are asphyxiated. The favourite is restored to favour, and the cousin obtains his loan.

When Kings Were the Law “breathes the glorious age of Louis XV, in its fountains, its gargoyles, its grassy avenues, and its resplendent interiors”, according to the reviewer (by-lined “J.”) in The New York Dramatic Mirror (May 29, 1912, p. 28). (The Moving Picture World reviewer [June 1, 1912, p. 830] says Louis XIII, and the costumes are 17th century rather than 18th century.) The exteriors were filmed in a large formal garden or park. There cannot have been many of these in the Los Angeles region when the film was made, and I wonder if these are not the gardens of Henry Huntington’s house in San Marino, which were already established at this time, although not opened to the public until 1928. The interiors are more remarkable. Most of the company’s films shot on the West Coast in 1910 and 1911 are all in exteriors, or have one interior, shot on an open-air stage. Two of the films I have to review from 1912 are the same: His Lesson has two sets, one for the farm kitchen, the other for the interior of the barn (just two rough unwindowed wooden walls at right angles, and straw and farm machinery, so possibly a real location); A Beast at Bay, one (perfunctory) set for the interior of the hut where the convict takes refuge at the end of the film. But Home Folks has five different sets, none of them spectacular, but all full room sets – two rooms in the family’s farmhouse early in the film, and three in their town house later on – as does A Lodging for the Night – the bar and the bedroom in the cantina, and the main room, the attic bedroom and the ground-floor bedroom in the Mexican girl’s house. Such diversity was normal in East Coast Biographs in this and earlier years, but even the larger studio at Georgia and Girard Streets that Biograph occupied in Los Angeles from 1911 on must have been stretched to provide such an abundance, even though the interiors are such that the same flats could have been used with different furnishings for many of these rooms. When Kings Were the Law has six different interior settings. Three of these are very simple, as a relatively close medium-long-shot framing allows the set to be reduced to a couple of flats with wood panelling hung with drapes for the doorways and furnished with a few chairs – exactly the kind of sets one might expect in a costume picture made in a relatively under-equipped studio (though the panelling in the walls even in these minimal sets is threedimensional, not just painted canvas). The fourth (the favourite’s chamber) and the fifth (a reception room in the palace) are larger, with tapestried walls and considerable depth. But the sixth is a huge banqueting hall with a practicable minstrel’s gallery on the rear wall, which is two storeys high. By this time the glass-walled and -roofed sheds of the East Coast studios of the bigger American producers were large enough for the erection of sets on this scale, for example, the stock exchange set in The Passer By (Edison, released 21 June 1912), which similarly has a gallery on the rear wall, in this case representing the visitors’ balcony. The Biograph Company was not able to build such sets on its 14th Street New York premises, since the studio was in the basement of a brownstone townhouse and therefore lacked the necessary height. Such constraints did not affect the company’s open-air stage in Los Angeles, but I do not know of any examples of such a large set from other Biographs shot on the West Coast. It would also have been difficult to use the muslin awnings regularly deployed to diffuse the light in interior scenes in California-produced films; yet the light 52

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on the scenes in the banqueting hall in When Kings Were the Law is diffuse. Moreover, it seems unlikely that such a large set would have been built for no purpose but to provide a spectacular setting. The stock-exchange set in The Passer By has two storeys so that, at a crucial moment in the action, the hero could be distracted by the sight of the woman he loved on the balcony, miss his chance of a coup, and go down to ruin. In When Kings Were the Law, although there are always live courtiers on the gallery, it and they play no part in the story, and once the setting is well established, the principal actions in it are filmed in a closer framing that leaves the gallery off above the top of the frame. All these things suggest that this is not a set, but a real building. But this, too, presents problems. From the parts of the room one can see, it is a four-walled and roofed hall. Such a space could not have been lit in the way this setting is, with strong diffuse light from the upper left illuminating the whole floor space. If it is a real building, it must be some kind of large conservatory, with the invisible left-hand wall almost all glass, and perhaps a glass roof, too (the glass must have had some kind of diffusing property, unless by chance they were able to film on overcast days, or indirect “north” light alone was strong enough). American companies were filming in such spaces, especially in California with its abundant light – for example, the scenes shot in the ballroom of the Beverley Hills Hotel in the Vitagraph film Deception, released 9 December 1913. If this setting in When Kings Were the Law is a real one rather than a set, and the exteriors are in the Huntington gardens, is this a building on the estate, perhaps the house (which now houses the art gallery but was built in 1910)? And is the favourite’s chamber also real? If not, it is very well matched with the panelling in the hall. The film has a title quite unlike any other Biograph title I have seen. In the paper print, after a scene in the favourite’s chamber in which she searches in vain for the lost necklace and then follows the King’s aide off to go to the hall, there is a title with the standard Biograph intertitle arrangement: the film’s title is at the top in underlined small capitals, and there are two AB monograms lower left and right (though it is black on white rather than the white on black it would have been in a release print). In the centre, however, in upper and lower case rather than the standard large capitals, is the following: “Sire! consider our guest.” ... “Ah! see! our looms do not weave such texture as this of foreign fabrication.” “Eh, what’s this?”

There follows a scene in the reception room, with the favourite entering hesitantly and the King getting more and more angry. The Cardinal comes to front centre and speaks as if to divert the King’s attention from the favourite. There is then a piece of blank footage with “space for title” written on it. Then the reception room scene resumes. Assuming the print can be trusted to represent the original paper, the dialogue title was intended to be cut in here, rather than preceding the shot as it does in the print. The film has other dialogue titles that are less surprising. After the scene showing the jealous lady-in-waiting’s theft of the necklace, there is a standard Biograph title, all capitals, and in inverted commas: “WHERE IS THE NECKLACE?” (Except where it seemed significant, I have not reproduced the line divisions in these titles.) There follows a scene in the reception room in which the favourite enters and goes up to the King, who points to her neck and speaks, whereupon she feels in vain for the necklace and says she will go and get it. Later, when the King has ordered his guards to drag the favourite and his cousin into a room to the left of the hall, and his courtiers attempt to dissuade him from sealing them into it, he shouts and a title follows, like the previous one: “I AM THE LAW”. The next shot is inside the 53

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room that is to be walled up. In neither of these cases is there any indication of an alternative placement for the title. The second of these could be said to be a standard dialogue title according to the norms of the classical cinema, being cut in where spoken and representing words spoken (though not, as classical dialogue titles usually were, book-ended by temporally continuous fragments of the same scene). However, the words stand for much more than just what the King happened to say on this occasion – they epitomise the subject matter of the film. The first is even more ambiguous in function. It occurs before the scene quite late in which the King asks for the necklace; although marked as dialogue by inverted commas, it could be the title of the whole succeeding sequence up to the point where the King has the favourite and his cousin walled into the room off the hall. Of the other films in my entries for this volume, the prints of A Lodging for the Night and Home Folks lacked titles, so I can say nothing about how dialogue titles were handled in them. A Beast at Bay has two dialogue titles. Both are placed between two different scenes, and probably before the moment at which the words are spoken. The words in the first, which occurs between a long shot of Edith’s car arriving at the station and a closer view of the same car as Jack gets down, might be spoken then, except that Mary Pickford does not speak in either scene, merely pouting to represent the dissatisfaction with her boyfriend expressed in the title’s “I THINK YOU ARE A COWARD”. The second is between scenes from the two sides of an alternation – Jack finding the abandoned car, and Edith and the convict hiding in the hut – and definitely precedes the moment when the convict, initially to the rear of the scene, comes forward and looks Edith up and down: “HUH! YOU WITH YOUR SILK CURLS AND FINE CLOTHES, ME STRIPED CANVAS”. His Lesson has three dialogue titles. The first is between two different scenes, the house porch and the farm kitchen, and between two significant bits of action: the departure of two visiting friends of Mary’s, and Bob and Mary’s departure for market (these could have been entirely different occasions, but the friends’ visit is made to coincide with Bob and Mary’s preparations to go to town): THE DRUDGING WIFE “OTHERS HAVE, WHY NOT I?”

(The first line is the same size as the rest of the title, not in small capitals at the top like the title of the film, which is there in all these titles.) The second is cut into the scene in which the words are spoken, but at a point when one character has gone off and the other is not speaking, and the words – “THOSE EYES SHOULD VIEW BRIGHTER SCENES: THOSE HANDS CARRY LIGHTER BURDENS” – might either be spoken by the tourist later while he is alone waiting for Mary to bring him a drink of water (he gestures to his own eyes while she is still off) or later still when she has re-entered and given him the glass (he points to her eyes after drinking the water). The third is like the second one in A Beast at Bay, located between scenes from two sides of an alternation and spoken at the end of the succeeding shot (in fact the speaker, the tourist, is not on at the beginning of this shot, and the conversation between him and Bob does not begin until nearly the end of shot): “WOULD YOU COMMIT THE UNPARDONABLE SIN, THE TAKING OF A HUMAN LIFE, WHICH NO POWER, HUMAN OR DIVINE, CAN RESTORE? BESIDES, WHO IS THE MOST TO BLAME?”

Barry Salt has remarked that a film made only a few weeks before these ones, Fate’s Interception, “shows that he [Griffith] still does not know the best place to put the one spoken title in the film” (National Film Theatre, London, programme note, August 19, 1976). Griffith is, as usual, not so much backwards as idiosyncratic. In previous volumes of The Griffith 54

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Project, I have several times pointed out that he did not use titles as an economic means to convey narrative information otherwise hard to represent, or to give access to the words characters are supposed to speak. Titles for him are, literally, titles; they name the next scene or series of scenes, as the title names a picture, or they are apothegmatic generalisations that are illustrated by the next scene or series of scenes. Dialogue titles can serve this function just as well as expository titles, in the way that “Ecce Homo” is a piece of Biblical dialogue but provides the title for innumerable paintings. (This dominant characteristic does not, of course, prevent both kinds of title also conveying significant narrative connections or providing access to dialogue.) Given this, it is hardly surprising that the dialogue titles are not usually cut in at the point at which the words are spoken, but precede the scene they name. Moreover, like the first title from His Lesson, they can be composite, including expository and dialogue parts (one can imagine a painting with the title and sub-title “The Drudging Wife, or, ‘Others Have, Why Not I?’”). By this time however, this use of titles is clearly under pressure. Some of this is the pressure of time, as more and more complex material was handled in the fixed one-reel form. As the number of titles increased (in the films I discussed last year, made in November 1911, the largest number of titles in a reliable print was eight, where in the films I analyze in this volume, made in March 1912, i.e., only four months later, it was twelve, and the smallest number was ten), the apothegmatic title began to seem too weighty, and so many proairetic points had to be made that the images alone were insufficient for them, so there had to be titles without scenes to illustrate them. In my essay on Home Folks, which I saw in a print lacking titles, I note that narrative information as important as establishing that the heroine has got married must have been conveyed in a title without any corresponding scene. Partly it is the pressure of example – the later standard usage was already so established that Griffith felt he had to conform to it, or, at least, try it out. This last seems to be the explanation for the anomalous dialogue title in When Kings Were the Law. Here we have a dialogue title cut into the scene at the point at which the words (at least some of them) are spoken, and it is differentiated from expository titles by the font employed. By this time, some companies’ dialogue titles were plainer than their expository titles, lacking the decorative frames and company trademarks found in the latter. The intention, as in the classical cinema, was to make dialogue titles as “invisible” as possible, so audiences could feel they had understood the words spoken by the characters without having had to read them. If that was the intention with this title in When Kings Were the Law, it really is an example of the kind of incompetence Salt implies. Other filmmakers, too, tried dialogue titles that included speeches from more than one character, especially in European films (there are several in Assunta Spina), but they always present problems of correct assignment of the fragments of the dialogue to their speakers, a problem minimised by the standard classical usage of book-ending single-speaker dialogue titles with close-ups of the character speaking. (This problem of assignation in two-speaker titles was partially solved in the 1914 Selig version of The Spoilers by using the playscript convention of prefacing each fragment with the speaker’s name, but this, too, draws attention to the narration, and was not taken up in any other film I know.) In the unique title in When Kings Were the Law, the first fragment is clearly enough the Cardinal’s attempt to draw attention to the King’s cousin’s clothes and hence to the pocket containing the necklace; it takes a little thought, however, to work out that the third fragment is the King’s response on finding the necklace, which in fact occurs in a big close-up after the return to scene, i.e., two shots away from the title, thus negating the simultaneity achieved by cutting the title in where the first piece of dialogue is spoken; and the second is ambiguous: it might be a further remark of the Cardinal’s, an earlier comment of the King’s, or an intervention by another of the 55

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courtiers. Perhaps the division of the three fragments into two paragraphs is meant to represent the fact that the King’s final remark occurs after a pause. If this was an experiment, it would be difficult to claim that it was a successful one, and Griffith does not seem to have pursued it, as later Biograph one-reelers – and even the next dialogue title in this film – revert to his former apothegmatic practice. Ben Brewster

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409 BIOGRAPH

A BEAST AT BAY Filming date: finished March 1912 Location: California Release date: 27 May 1912 Release length: 998 feet Copyright date: 29 May 1912 Director: D.W. Griffith Author: George Hennessy Source: none known Camera: G.W. Bitzer Cast: Mary Pickford (Young woman); Edwin August (Her ideal); Alfred Paget (Convict); Mae Marsh (Young woman’s friend); Charles Hill Mailes, William Carroll, Henry Lehrman, W.C. Robinson (Guards); ? (Rowdy bum); Charles H. West (Engineer); Robert Harron (Farmer); J. Jiquel Lanoe (At station); W. Christy Cabanne (Station master); W. Christy Cabanne (In sports car) Archival Sources: Library of Congress, 35mm nitrate negative (plus intertitle roll, AFI/Mary Pickford Collection); 35mm nitrate positive (AFI/Mary Pickford Collection); 35mm paper print; The Museum of Modern Art, 28mm diacetate positive; National Archives of Canada, two 16mm acetate positives (Historical Films Collection, generation undetermined); National Film and Television Archive, 35mm nitrate positive (printed 1920), plus misc. items A CONVICT’S WILD DASH FOR LIBERTY A dangerous convict has escaped from prison and is skulking through the woods, pursued by prison officers. The officers separate and go in different directions in the hope of heading him off. This works well for the convict, who surprises one of the guards, and, overpowering him, makes him change clothes with him. About this time Edith is accompanying her sweetheart Jack to the railroad station in her auto and leaves in a huff, calling him a coward for not having entered into a street brawl with a drunken tramp, who insulted them on the way down. Jack has some time to wait before train time, and, upon looking after the departing auto, is surprised to see it held up by the disguised convict, who forces the girl to aid him in his escape. Two of the guards, arriving at the station, inform Jack of the true condition, and the three, knowing the railroad track to run parallel with the road, induce the train despatcher [sic] to let them have an engine to pursue the fugitive and the girl. Here follows the most thrilling pursuit ever witnessed, – a race between an engine, a touring car and a racing auto. Jack now has an opportunity to prove his mettle and takes advantage of it. Biograph Bulletin, May 27, 1912

Edith’s boyfriend Jack is going on a trip (the names here are taken from the Biograph Bulletin – the film’s intertitles do not name any of the characters). She offers to drive him to the station. On the way to her tourer, they are accosted by a drunken tramp. Jack refuses to fight when the tramp challenges him, and the tramp lurches off. Edith is disappointed that her beau should be so unmanly. When she reproaches him, he says he sees no point in 57

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brawling in the street over nothing, but she is unconsoled. She leaves him at the station and drives off along a road by the tracks. Meanwhile, a convict has escaped from jail. Pursued by prison guards with rifles, he is able to ambush and overpower one of them, take his gun and exchange clothes with him. Continuing his escape, he comes to the road where Edith has stopped to look at something lying in the road. The convict emerges and makes her drive him down the road at gunpoint. Waiting at the station, Jack sees the convict hijack the car. At that moment, the pursuing guards also arrive at the station, and Jack shows them the departing car. As the road parallels the railway line for a considerable distance, Jack and some of the guards obtain permission to commandeer a locomotive and try to catch up with it. Edith tries to feign a breakdown of the car, but the convict is not fooled and she is forced to continue driving. The tourer passes a racing car going the other way. The racing car later passes the other group of guards, who hail it, and when the driver says he has seen the car with the convict, they commandeer it, turn it around and set off in pursuit. Just as the locomotive is about to catch up with Edith’s car, a line of buildings conceals the road from the tracks, and the convict makes her drive off on a side road. They abandon the car, and he forces her across fields until they can take refuge in a hut. The pursuers get down from the locomotive, and split up, as they are not sure which way the convict and Edith have gone. Jack finds the abandoned car. The convict threatens Edith in the hut and she screams. Hearing the screams, Jack runs across the fields. When he is close to the hut, the convict shoots at him, but misses. Jack makes a dash for the hut and would have been shot had not Edith jogged the convict’s arm as he aimed. Jack bursts into the hut and he and the convict engage in a hand-to-hand struggle. The guards in the racing car find Edith’s abandoned car, then, hearing the shots, run across the fields. They break into the hut just in time to save Jack and arrest the convict. Edith apologises to Jack for having doubted his courage, and the two are reconciled.

A Beast at Bay is another Griffith locomotive chase, coming only a few weeks after A Girl and Her Trust. The Biograph Bulletin summary suggests that it is a three-way chase involving a locomotive, an ordinary touring car, and a racing car, but the film itself is just a race between the locomotive and the touring car; the racing car appears quite late in the alternation of the other two vehicles, and seems quite redundant to the story. Possibly the scenes involving it were made opportunistically at a different time from the rest of the film and spliced in at a late stage (or they were filmed before a narrative context had been invented for them). Different reviewers responded in very similar ambivalent terms to this rather ad hoc character: “While it makes a gripping film of its kind, it has received rather indifferent treatment, in comparison to the usual run of Biograph subjects” (The New York Dramatic Mirror, June 5, 1912, p. 28, by-lined “C.”); “It is not quite up to Biograph’s high standard; but doesn’t drag and is both humorous and exciting” (The Moving Picture World, June 8, 1912, p. 944). (By contrast, one later commentator, Richard Schickel, in D.W. Griffith [p. 169], regards A Beast at Bay as an improvement on A Girl and Her Trust, and calls it “the most sophisticated of all Griffith’s Biograph chases”.) Perhaps it should be noted that the chase involves tracking shots, and hence required maintaining a moving vehicle carrying the camera keeping the speeding tourer and locomotive in frame together, but this device was employed in other chase films of this year, notably A Girl and Her Trust (and also in European films like Feuillade’s Erreur tragique of 1912). Interestingly, the scene illustrated by a still in the Biograph Bulletin, showing the racing car carrying prison guards in hot pursuit of the tourer with Mary Pickford and Alfred Paget, never occurs in the film, nor could do so without considerable alteration of the plot sequence. Up to now, most of the illustrations in 58

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the Biograph Bulletin look as if they might well be actual frames of the film illustrated. This is the first one I know that is definitely a publicity still and nothing else. The film begins with a close shot of windblown bushes, from which the eponymous villain’s head emerges, looking round cautiously, before he comes out and exits left. This is a reworking of the opening emblematic shot found in many narrative films from the first years of the century: a magnified view of a character or object which epitomises the subject of the film. In early films, such opening emblematic shots are typically coupled by a matching closing emblematic shot (e.g., the shots of the villains in expensive suits and convict garb respectively that open and close Bold Bank Robbery [Lubin, 1904]). Pairs of shots with a symbolic rhyme (but not a closer view) framing the film at the beginning and end are occasionally found in Biographs after the primitive period, e.g., the pans to the house and back at beginning and end of The Country Doctor (1909), and the shots of ploughing at beginning and end of A Corner in Wheat (1909). Between 1905 and 1912, while the closing emblematic shot remains quite common, especially in comedies (e.g., The Curtain Pole [1909], and the Mack-Sennett-directed Oh, Those Eyes!, filmed in January 1912) but also in dramas (e.g., A Drunkard’s Reformation [1909]), I cannot think of any other examples of an opening one. Of course, this one, like most of the later closing emblematic shots, is more closely integrated into the narrative than those in the early films, and can be seen as adumbrating a standard device of the classical epoch: beginning a sequence with a view of some significant detail rather than an overall establishing shot. The film ends, rather, with a short epilogue. Edith and Jack are left alone together in the hut after the guards have dragged the manacled convict away. She shows him a scratch on her wrist and he kisses it better. She then points to an imaginary scratch on her cheek and asks him to kiss that better, too, and they embrace. Cut to a view of one of the guards looking off into the hut, laughing, and entering it. Cut back inside the hut as the guard enters and calls the couple off right. Fade out as they follow the guard out of the hut. This is quite short, providing the usual relaxing humour after the tension of the chase and rescue, and allowing Pickford a little space for a typical piece of flirtatiousness (perhaps what the World reviewer is referring to when he says, “at moments, [the film] also gives a chance for first class Biograph acting”). Nevertheless, the Mirror reviewer though it too long: “They made up with each other in a bright, amusing way, but they almost started another story while doing it.” The film contains another illustration of Griffith’s rejection of the standard point-of-view sequence. When Jack sees the hijacking of Edith’s car, he is standing on the station platform. She has dropped him off at the station and is driving away from it on a road that parallels the tracks. He looks through a pair of binoculars, and the next shot shows a closer view of the car from the front, i.e., from the opposite side to that on which Jack is standing. Both before and after the series of shots including ones with Jack looking through the binoculars, we see (somewhat longer-framed) shots of the car from the rear, i.e., from Jack’s supposed direction, but the actual incidents he is supposed to be viewing are filmed from the “wrong” side. Of course, filmed from the “right” side, the car would have blocked most of the significant action, so presumably it is the spectator’s need for a clear view rather than a reluctance to use reverse angles as such that motivates this non-standard procedure. The final confrontation between the convict holding Edith prisoner in the hut and Jack approaching from the outside does involve reverse angles, but, by classical standards, directionally “mismatched” ones. In the shots of Jack approaching, the corner of the hut is front right, while Jack runs in rear left. In the reverse shots of the convict shooting from the hut, the hut is front left, and the convict fires off front right. Elsewhere Griffith uses the same non-classical matching rule in exteriors found in other films of this period, one which also 59

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involves a reversal of screen direction: if a character moves off screen in one shot and onto screen in the next, the exit and entrance will be on the same side of the frame The film has 105 shots in (the equivalent of) 988 feet of 35mm film, i.e., an average shot length of 9.4 seconds at 16 frames per second. The other films I analyze in this volume have between 77 and 101 shots (though the missing intertitles in A Lodging for the Night would have taken that film’s total to around 110, and those in Home Folks to over 90). The faster cutting is motivated by the thriller genre (both reviews cited above call it a “melodrama”) and the chase format; but other marked switchback films of the period go much further – A Girl and Her Trust, for example, has 135 shots. In 1909 in A Drive for a Life, when Arthur Johnson’s character has to race in his car to rescue his girlfriend, he needs to be driven by a chauffeur. In this film, when Mary Pickford’s character’s boyfriend has to go to the station, she quite casually drives him there in her car, and later the villain seems to think nothing of having her drive him in a breakneck chase. Neither review sees anything unverisimilitudinous in this. Somewhere in these years automobiles changed from being the equivalent of carriages, implying servants to drive them and owners with the social position to keep a coachman, to being tools for everyday living. One could, I suppose, construct a reading where Edith is punished for her audacity in assuming the man’s role by being therefore vulnerable to the villain’s aggression, but if so, the film seems to make nothing of it – in particular, there is no shot showing Jack taking over the driver’s seat from her at the end. Ben Brewster

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410 BIOGRAPH

HOME FOLKS Filming date: finished ca. March 1912 Location: California Release date: 6 June 1912 Release length: one reel Copyright date: 10 June 1912 Director: D.W. Griffith? Author: none known Source: none known Camera: G.W. Bitzer Cast: Mary Pickford (Young woman); Charles Hill Mailes, Kate Bruce (Her parents); Robert Harron (Her brother); Wilfred Lucas (Blacksmith); W. Christy Cabanne (His assistant); Charles Gorman, ? (Movers); Mae Marsh, William Carroll, Frank Opperman, Charles H. West, W.C. Robinson, Charles Avery, W. Christy Cabanne, Kate Toncray (At barn dance); Alfred Paget, Frank Evans (Outside dance) Archival Sources: Archives du Film, Bois d’Arcy, 35mm nitrate positive (English intertitles, Will Day Collection); 16mm acetate positive (generation undetermined); Library of Congress, 35mm nitrate negative (AFI/Mary Pickford Collection); 35mm nitrate positive (Kemp Niver Collection); 35mm paper print; The Museum of Modern Art, 35mm acetate fine grain master; National Film and Television Archive, 35mm nitrate positive; 35mm acetate positive (printed 1970) WHERE AGE FORGETS ITS OWN YOUTH A stern father rules his little [f]amily by what he thinks to be the Bible’s precepts, but it is simply the influence of his own narrow mind, he forgetting entirely his own youth. Hence when his boy suggests going to a barn dance, he flies into a rage and commands that the boy remain at home. The boy, however, becomes rebellious and goes, and for this act of disobedience the father drives him from the house and forces the rest of the family to swear never to mention his name again. A short time later they move to a new neighborhood, and the boy’s sister meets and marries the village blacksmith. The old father has often regretted his harshness to the boy, but his stubborn nature prevents his admitting it. The sister, though, realizes his feelings and writes to her brother, who begs to come home. This almost causes trouble of another nature, for the blacksmith, who knew nothing of the brother, saw his wife in the apparent stranger’s arms, and suspicious, was about to leave without asking an explanation. Biograph Bulletin, June 6, 1912

A farm family consists of a stern, religious father, his rather cowed wife, and a teenage son and daughter. One evening, the son is dressing to go to a neighbourhood barn dance, when the father comes into the room. Seeing the son’s collar and tie and hearing his plans, the father forbids him to go. The son is rebellious, but seems to submit. When the father himself goes out, however, the son ignores his mother’s and sister’s pleas, puts his tie back on and goes to the dance. He returns fairly soon, but not soon enough to prevent his father finding out where he had gone. When his father bawls him out and manhandles him, tear61

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ing the collar and tie from his neck, the son loses his temper and strikes his father. The father tells him to get out. The father then sends his wife and daughter to their rooms. Finding the collar and tie still in his hands, he throws them down, but then, overpowered by fond memories of his son, he presses them to his heart. The daughter climbs out of her bedroom window to take what money she has to her brother outside, and he leaves. Soon after she has climbed back into her room, her father visits her and makes her swear on the Bible never to mention her brother’s name again. Some time later, the family moves to a small town. The local blacksmith courts the daughter, and when her father advertises a room to let, he takes it. He eventually summons up the courage to propose, and she accepts. They are married, but continue to live in her father’s house. The blacksmith goes away for an extended trip. While he is away, the daughter receives a letter from her brother, asking her to intervene to bring about a reconciliation between him and his father. After consulting with her mother, she approaches her father and asks him to read the letter. He angrily denies he has a son, but the daughter sees that he is fondling the collar and tie. She decides to take a chance and invites her brother to visit. Her brother arrives and is entering the house just as the blacksmith comes home from his trip, carrying a fur jacket as a present for his wife. Looking through the window of the house, he sees his wife embracing a strange man. His first instinct is to leave her there and then, but he decides to go into the house to confront her. She takes her brother in to see their parents. Her father again tries to refuse to recognise his son, but she points to the treasured collar and tie, and the father has to admit he misses his son. The two are reconciled. Meanwhile, the blacksmith has come in next door, and finding no one in the room, puts the fur jacket on the table and writes a letter denouncing his wife and saying he will never see her again. Hearing voices next door, he decides he must confront her in person and bursts in on the reunited family. When he is introduced to his wife’s brother he realises his mistake, and running to the next room, tries to retrieve and destroy the letter, but she is too quick for him. She roundly bawls him out for his mistrust when she has read the letter. He is speechless with embarrassment, but she finally forgives him and they, too, are reconciled.

The print viewed, part of the Library of Congress Paper Print Collection, does not in fact derive from the copyright deposit paper print, but from an original negative donated by Mary Pickford. Like all such negatives, this one lacks intertitles, and, although the titles probably survive on the paper print (the other paper prints from this period include their intertitles), this reference print has no titles. Although it is visible that the father makes his daughter swear an oath after her brother’s expulsion, the content of that oath is only clear from the Biograph Bulletin summary and reviews. Similarly, it is only from these sources that I interpret the mysterious negotiations between the blacksmith, the daughter and the father after she has passed the blacksmith in his forge as the blacksmith taking lodgings in the family’s house. Other titles are less easily supplied, so scenes important for the establishment of character become obscure. I would dearly like to know, for example, what it is that the blacksmith makes the heroine read to him from a book he is carrying that she clearly interprets as an indirect proposal, a proposal which, after a moment of feigned prim disapproval, she accepts. Not just such connotative material, but crucial proairetic information was presumably conveyed only in titles. Thus there is no marriage scene, or even any scene emphasising props such as wedding rings which would establish the marriage visually. The only visual indication I can see that the heroine has married is that Mary Pickford’s costume changes at that point in the narrative from a young girl’s clothes to something more mature, something which would perhaps have conveyed that she was a married woman more 62

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unequivocally to contemporary audiences than it does to me. That they are married is stated in the Biograph Bulletin summary and in all contemporary reviews, and was presumably established in a title, but it seems almost an infringement of the scène à faire principle that such an important plot development could be conveyed only in words rather than images. This would seem to be a sign that the 1,000-foot limit is beginning to constrain the filmmakers; or rather – since two years earlier Frank Woods had attributed weaknesses of Biograph films to the need to convey too much in too little time (in a review of the Frank Powell-directed All on Account of the Milk, The New York Dramatic Mirror, January 22, 1910) – that the methods Griffith developed to cope with these constraints are, by 1912, reaching the limit of their effectiveness. Griffith’s typical method is to look in plots for a small number of key situations, and then compress the narrative connections so as to be able to dilate the key moments. Home Folks combines two hoary plots: the outcast son reconciled with his stern father (a version of the story of the prodigal son, except that it is the father who resists the son’s overtures of reconciliation rather than the son being ashamed to admit his error and return home); and the husband who oversees his wife embracing a strange man who turns out to be, not a lover, but her long-lost brother. The two plots converge on the moment when the son returns simultaneously with the daughter’s husband, making this the major situation of the film; but each plot has to have an establishing situation, too: the son’s expulsion, and something demonstrating the love of the daughter for her husband. In this case, Griffith decided to concentrate on the courtship for the latter (the scene with the book, which takes place in a garden with lateral cuts back and forth as the blacksmith moves away and waits to hear his fate after handing the daughter the book), with the result that the marriage disappears from view – three situations is about all one can handle in a quarter of an hour. Even so, the film shows other signs of squeezing: when a character moves through a door over a cut (a very frequent occurrence in a Biograph film), in this more than in any other Biograph I have seen, there is nearly always an ellipsis – the cut occurs as the character approaches the door, and after it the character is already well into the next room. All this is not to deny that this film is, as the New York Dramatic Mirror reviewer (bylined “C.”) has it, “a real Biograph” (June 12, 1912), a comment echoed by The Moving Picture World’s “Into this simple pastoral, Biograph has put its best” (June 22, 1912, p. 1127). What seems typical of the best of Biograph to these reviewers is not a switchback melodrama like A Beast at Bay, but an old-world tale of simple country life. Such films emphasise character, and hence call more heavily on the acting skills of the company. The World reviewer praises particularly the acting of Mary Pickford as the daughter and Charles Hill Mailes as the father, and the Mirror agrees: “It is a wonderfully good picture from a technical standpoint, externalizing as it does the innermost recesses of the heart of the characters and the heart of the drama itself. So vivid and true is the character drawing, and the truth contained in the portrayal of the situation that the spectator must of necessity follow with enduring sympathy the viewpoint of each character as expressed by the player” (“technical” here is a reference to acting rather than what we would now think of as film technique). The acting is very restrained, with the possible exception of Wilfred Lucas as the blacksmith (the broadness of whose gestures is obviously motivated both by his profession and by his clumsy character). The rapid pace at which many establishing incidents are got through contributes to this – there is no time for marked posing. Even violent moments like the son’s striking his father are over so rapidly that I did not see that this was what happened on first viewing, and also missed the oath Mary Pickford swears to her father. But even the milked situations, where the pace is much slower, show this restraint without, in this film, sacrificing the representation of complex inner states. Thus Mailes is able to convey the father’s ambivalence 63

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toward his son by the use of a recurrent prop – the collar and tie he tears from his son’s neck in the expulsion scene, which he cannot bear to throw away after the expulsion and instead presses to his bosom, and which his daughter’s glimpse of months or years later brings about the reconciliation. Pickford, on the other hand, conveys complex inner feelings by rapid changes of mood conveyed by facial expression and slight changes in posture, running a gamut of emotions in each scene. This might be thought of as like the sequences of poses expressing complex reactions to situations performed by European actresses such as Lyda Borelli and Asta Nielsen, except that there is very little repetition or modulation, which would not have been possible given the fast editing even of these drawn-out situations. Whereas the European divas gave virtuoso expression to highly conventionalized feelings, Pickford here finds (or is given by her director) unexpected reactions to the situation, which create a sense of sincerity and spontaneity largely by surprise. Thus, when, near the end, she reads her husband’s letter denouncing her for infidelity, her reaction, rather than the stereotypical grief at his misunderstanding, is plain anger. In this film, mirabile dictu, there is – though not unequivocally – a point-of-view shot (to be precise, two point-of-view shots in a short alternation of viewer and viewed) which is taken from the side on which the viewer is supposed to be standing. The family’s town house front door is always filmed from beside the porch, with the door to the house on the left and the garden path to the street leading off right. Characters entering the house thus exit left. Inside the house, however, they always enter the first room we see (let us call it the hall, although the functions of the various rooms inside the house are not really clear) from the left. The house is on a corner, with one street from rear to front right just off in the shots of the porch, and another across the rear behind the house. When, at the climax, the heroine’s brother and husband arrive more or less simultaneously, both are seen in the same shot, the brother approaching and going onto the porch, the husband entering rear right and pausing at the corner in surprise at seeing a strange man on the porch. After a cut-in to show the husband watching and a cutaway to the heroine crossing the hall from right to left, we return to the shot of the porch as the brother exits into the house, and the husband exits along the sidewalk behind the house. In the hall the brother enters left and embraces the heroine who is standing front right. The next shot is along the sidewalk behind the house, facing the husband as he comes towards it (i.e., a 90degree change of angle). There is a window in the wall of the house on the right. The husband stops and looks off right into this window. Back to the hall, from the same position as before, to show the heroine and her brother embracing; there is a window at the rear in all the scenes in the hall (which is always shot with the same camera set-up), but no one appears in it in this scene. Back to the previous scene: the husband expresses anger. Back to the hall: the heroine and her brother embrace again, and she leads him to the door rear right. Back to the street: the husband expresses grief, turns and goes back to the street corner, where he stands in indecision for a moment, makes as if to throw down the fur jacket he has brought as a gift for his wife, then changes his mind and exits right. Thus, if we assume that the hall is immediately adjacent to the front door, or there is only a simple anteroom between them, the camera turns 180 degrees between the views of the porch and those of the hall, and hence the camera is more or less where the husband is when he looks at the brother and sister embracing through the window, which must be, not the window we see in the rear of the shots of the hall, but one on the opposite side of the room that we never see in the interior shots. So the two scenes sandwiched by shots of the husband looking off into the window are true point-of-view shots. Of course, and this is the reason for the somewhat tortuous nature of my description, this all depends on a plausible but by no means necessary inference as to the relationship 64

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between the front door and the interior rooms. In the scenes in the farm house at the beginning of the film, despite the elliptical nature of the cuts from interior to exterior (mentioned above), the continuity of action and direction as the father and the son exit and enter by the door to the outside (on the right in the farm kitchen scenes, on the left in the porch scenes) clearly establishes the relationship between interior and exterior. This is, of course, the way almost all Biographs establish such relationships. In the town house, however, characters entering the house change screen direction, and there is usually less necessity for immediate continuity of action, so things are not so clear. Could the house have some odd interior geography that requires incomers to turn 180 degrees between the front door and the hall? Or could the interior and the exterior simply have no consistent relationship (I have noted inconsistency of this kind in A Lodging for the Night, and it is not uncommon in films of this period, given the fact that location and studio scenes were shot separately, days or weeks apart, and there were not, by all accounts, detailed scripts or continuity records)? Under either hypothesis we could be meant to think that it is through the window in the rear of the hall scenes that the husband sees the brother and sister, even though if that is the case he ought to be visible in that window. Compounding this ambiguity, Griffith makes no attempt to establish this window beforehand, even though the husband’s seeing his wife embrace a strange man through it is the climactic scene of the film (contrast the way the window is carefully set up for the somewhat similar moment in Enoch Arden, Part II [see DWG Project, #337], where the returned Enoch sees his wife and her new husband inside their house). It may be that in this instance, too, Griffith simply did not have the time given the amount of narrative information he needed to convey in the allotted thousand feet. Ben Brewster

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411 BIOGRAPH

A TEMPORARY TRUCE Filming date: finished April 1912 Location: California Release date: 10 June 1912; reissued by Biograph, 15 August 1916 Release length: 1507 feet Copyright date: 10 June 1912 Director: D.W. Griffith Author: George Hennessy Source: none known Camera: G.W. Bitzer Cast: Charles Hill Mailes (Mexican Jim); Claire McDowell (His wife); Charles Gorman (Jack, the prospector); Blanche Sweet (Alice, his wife); Alfred Paget, Frank Opperman, ? (Drunken cutthroats); W. Chrystie Miller (Murdered Indian); Robert Harron (His son?); Frank Opperman (Indian chief); Wilfred Lucas, J. Jiquel Lanoe, W. Christy Cabanne, Alfred Paget, Jack Pickford, W.C. Robinson (Indians); Mae Marsh, ? (Murdered settlers); Frank Opperman (Bartender); Frank Evans, W.C. Robinson, William Carroll, Bert Hendler? (In bar); J. Jiquel Lanoe, Harry Hyde, Alfred Paget, W.C. Robinson, Frank Evans, William Carroll (Among rescuers); Harry Hyde (Outside Pony Express office); W. Chrystie Miller (Indian on street) Archival Sources: George Eastman House, 35mm nitrate positive (incomplete); Library of Congress, 35mm paper print; The Museum of Modern Art, 35mm nitrate negative (excerpt) A STORY OF THE EARLY WEST Mexican Jim, a good-for-nothing of the mining camp, spends most of his time in the tavern o[f] the little town. On this particular day, having drunk up more than usual, he quarrels with Jack Hardy, a young prospector. Jack, under other circumstances, would have disdainfully ignored Jim’s drunken garble, but he felt in none too good a humor, for things were not prospering with him, and his young wife was growing homesick for the East. Hence Jack’s temper was on tap and he made Jim the laughing-stock of the town by giving him a walloping. Jim vows to get even; but how? He carries off Jack’s wife and leaves a derisive note for Jack, and another at the saloon, to the effect that the [j]oke is turned. Jim has forcibly taken Jack’s wife as far as an old deserted wellbox in the hills, when Jack, who started after them, comes up and opens fire. Jim has the advantage for he is sheltered by the well-box, and furthermore, Jack is careful for fear of hitting his wife. This warfare does not last long because of an outbreak among the young Indian braves, who have started out to avenge the death of one of their tribe at the hands of a party of drunken cutthroats, so Jack and Jim form a truce to fight the common enemy. The finish of the story is quite unique, and the production as a whole is one of the most convincing Western stories ever made. Biograph Bulletin, June 10, 1912

A young prospector straightens out a good-for-nothing layabout, who takes his revenge by kidnapping the prospector’s wife and taking her into the ravines. While battling with the abductor, the young prospector is obliged to declare a truce with him, and even to forge an 66

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alliance with him, when both of them fall under attack by a band of Indians. The Indians are on the warpath because of the gratuitous murder of an Indian by a gang of drunken white men.

This film actually tells two parallel stories, which are completely unrelated except for the fact that at the end of the film they cross paths. One story is about the adventures of a prospector, his wife, and a shady character, Jim, who abducts the wife. The other is the story of a group of Indians that sets out on the warpath because a group of marauding white men kills an Indian. The destiny of each group crosses simply because the first group finds itself in the sights of the vengeance-seeking second. The parallel construction runs throughout the film without any explanation by the narrator (in the form of intertitles or by any other means). Its only expression is through the editing, which alternates the two strands without ever explaining the relationship that exists or may exist between them. It is only very late in the film, in its last sequence, that the two strands of this compound narrative cross. Until the scene of the altercation between the prospector and the layabout, the film is relatively linear. Before this scene, the camera consistently adopts a markedly “wait-and-see” attitude, following the various characters in their comings and goings. After this altercation, the camera initially resumes this “wait-and-see” attitude and continues to follow the characters’ movements in the profilmic space. Thus the camera follows the prospector when he re-enters the saloon. But then the camera changes its stance, and finds itself outside the saloon so that the spectator can witness the reaction of the lout after he has been walloped by the prospector. This is a change of tack that is simply narratory, in the sense that there is nothing in the action taking place in the profilmic space to warrant a change in camera set-up. The camera then returns to its normal, “wait-and-see” attitude and continues to follow the unfolding of events. It thus returns inside the saloon to show the prospector taking his leave of the innkeeper, and then exits the saloon and shows us the two protagonists crossing paths once again in the street, etc. At the end of this sequence, the narrator transports the spectator to another space, that of two Indians (by all appearances, father and son) who are on an excursion in the mountains. This episode unfolds simultaneously with the sequence we have just seen (we are able to make this hypothesis because of the way the shots that immediately precede and follow this episode both show, in relative continuity, the layabout taking a drink in the saloon). And yet this episode depicts a line of action which, for the moment, has absolutely nothing to do with the first story (apart from an inferred, relative spatial proximity). The first shot of this new sequence is followed by a shot that also appears to be unrelated to it: in a space similar to that occupied by the Indians, three rowdy white men (they appear to be drunk, and an intertitle will soon confirm this for us) advance toward the camera and notice, on their left (the spectator’s right), a point of interest we cannot see. They discuss the situation while looking off-screen right and pointing in the same direction. The narrator then returns to the two hiking Indians; by doing so, this indicates to the spectator that they are the object of the three white men’s gaze. One of the white men takes aim at the Indians and opens fire in their direction, killing one of them – the apparent father of the other. The relationship between the three white men and the two Indians is shown in a systematic A-B-A-B alternation, and it is interesting to note that the spatial proximity of the two groups is purely the product of the spectator’s mental construction of the scene. To establish this proximity, the spectator must work with the cues provided by the acting, the direction of the characters’ gaze, and the matches created through editing, because the two groups are never shown together in the same image, the same frame. The intense interaction between the two groups 67

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is thus a pure construct, a product of the editing. And yet the two groups are at a relatively short distance one from the other, and they communicate with each other by their gaze (as well as by the rifle bullet, which travels from the white men’s space to that of the Indians), without ever being physically joined in the same space by the camera. It is also interesting to note that the systematic A-B shot alternation is carried out at a rapid pace, with each shot lasting only two to seven seconds, approximately (the shortest shots, in fact, are only about forty frames long). In this film the parallel editing between the two lines of action is maintained throughout. It is as if the narrator constantly wants to inform the spectator of the point the action has reached in each of the storylines as they continue to unfold, whether or not the spectator is present to witness them. Thus, after the layabout has hatched his plan for revenge, but before he steals into the prospector’s home to abduct his wife, we are shown what the Indians and the prospector are up to: the son has coffined his father’s body and is beseeching the heavens; the prospector is in the mountains, looking for a vein of gold. We are thus shown the activities of the other parties to the story, who are busy elsewhere with other matters but who will soon cross paths with the layabout and the woman he is about to kidnap. The kidnapping takes place and Jim, the layabout, leads the prospector’s wife into the woods. Just as the ravisher is about to bind and gag the woman, the narrator – in order to save time and to avoid having to show the complete unfolding of this activity, whose details are of little interest to the spectator – decides to shift momentarily to something else. We thus see a brief cutaway of Jim’s own wife (this is, in fact, the second time in close succession that we have seen Jim’s wife in this way). Then the camera returns to Jim and the prospector’s wife, who is now bound and gagged. The camera then takes us to the Indians, who are searching for whites in order to take their revenge. A prospector and his wife, who are unfamiliar to the spectator, are seen walking along a narrow road. The narrator shows us the Indians, who see them and open fire. The couple are hit and fall to the ground. We return to the Indians, who are savouring their success. Once again, the narrator forces the spectator to make inferences, because throughout this skirmish the protagonists, who occupy adjacent spaces, are always shown separately, in different shots and settings. (It is only in the sequence’s final shot, which shows the couple stretched out on the ground, that the Indians enter the frame, thereby confirming their proximity.) The final sequence in the film begins with the gunfight between Jim and the prospector. When the Indians arrive on the scene, these two are obliged to declare a truce. The long sequence of the final battle, while it doesn’t achieve truly epic status, is an impressive display, nonetheless. This sequence alternates between the protagonists, each of whom is generally filmed from the same camera setup throughout, thereby allowing for a certain economy of means. This recurrence of the same points of view is matched by a systematic use of shot–countershots of the gunfighters: first, of Jim versus the prospector; later, of Jim and the prospector versus the Indians. It is worth noting the way in which the grand finale of the gunfight is edited in order to heighten the suspense: will the whites coming to the rescue arrive in time?. This sequence ends in a moment of terrible anguish, when the three whites (Jim, the prospector, and his wife) realise that they have run out of ammunition. This moment in particular seems to vaunt the narrator, who does not hesitate to prolong it in order to heighten the suspense. André Gaudreault

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LENA AND THE GEESE Filming date: finished April 1912 Location: California Release date: 17 June 1912 Release length: 1012 feet Copyright date: 25 June 1912 Director: D.W. Griffith Script: Mary Pickford [“The Goose Girl”] Camera: G.W. Bitzer Cast: Mary Pickford (Lena); J. Jiquel Lanoe (Her sweetheart); Kate Bruce (Gretchen); Mae Marsh (“Adopted” daughter); Edwin August, Claire McDowell (Her noble parents); W. Chrystie Miller (Courtier); Charles Hill Mailes, Harry Hyde, Frank Opperman, William Carroll, Grace Henderson, Alfred Paget, W. Christy Cabanne (Nobles); W.C. Robinson, Frank Opperman, Charles H. West (Servants) Archival Sources: Academy Film Archive, 28mm diacetate positive; Library of Congress, 35mm paper print; The Museum of Modern Art, 35mm nitrate negative A STORY OF OLD HOLLAND For reasons of State, the first-born, a baby girl, is sent away and placed in the care of Gretchen, a trusted peasant woman, who is the widowed mother of a little child about the same age. The two children grow up as sisters. Later, upon her death-bed, the noble lady repents and sends for her child to reinstate her. Gretchen takes this opportunity to make a great lady of her own daughter Lena, the goose girl, by sending her to court instead of the real heiress. Hence Lena is taken before the noble lady as she breathes her last, happy in the belief that she has made reparation. Lena is now a great lady, but the title is a great misfit, – court etiquette with her is hard work. She longs to be back with Gretchen and her “geeses.” She endures it as long as she can and then bolts. Gretchen, by this time, is sorry for her deception, and is only too eager to straighten the affair. Biograph Bulletin, June 17, 1912

An aristocratic lady is forced to give up her newborn daughter. The girl is sent to the country to live with Gretchen, a peasant widow with a daughter of her own. The little girls are raised as sisters. On her deathbed, the aristocratic mother decides to reinstate her daughter, now a young woman, as heiress and sends for her. But the peasant woman sends her own daughter to become the woman’s heiress. The girl is brought before the lady, who dies before her eyes. Great effort is expended to instill strict aristocratic etiquette in the young peasant woman, but without success. Revolted by her lack of freedom compared to the time when all she did was raise her geese, the young woman escapes and returns home. In the end, the truth is revealed, and the young noble woman assumes her position.

It is said (see in particular Robert Henderson, D.W. Griffith: The Years at Biograph, pp. 134–35) that it was upon seeing their friend Mary Pickford in this film that the Gish sisters had the idea of visiting her, and that this is how they came to be introduced to Griffith. 69

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This, it would seem, is all that Lena and the Geese is remembered for today. Except, perhaps, for the scene in which Lena (Pickford), happy to be back among her geese, bursts into a somewhat frenetic dance for joy. Henderson, for example, comments that “[i]t was a rather unremarkable although charming film, notable chiefly for a blithe dance executed by Mary as she returned homeward with her geese. Griffith liked the little dance step for its symbolization of girlish innocence and made a mental note to use it, with variations, in future films” (D.W. Griffith: His Life and Work, p. 110). And yet this film, which not only starred Mary Pickford but also was written by her, contains elements of particular interest. Foremost among these are several scenes with shot transitions of considerable narrative fluidity. One is the sequence in the first part of the film in which the peasant woman emerges onto her doorstep to call her daughter, who is exercising the geese. This sequence reveals a highly developed way of connecting shots, a method based on a systematic alternation between two adjacent spaces. After moving from inside her house to outside – through a doorway, not through cutting – the mother looks off screen to the right. The narrator, through an intertitle, introduces the viewer to the peasant’s daughter: “LENA, GRETCHEN’S CHILD’S GROWN UP”. The narrator takes pains to demonstrate this to the viewer by having Lena lead her geese toward the camera until she is framed full figure. The camera then returns to the shot of the mother, who continues to look off screen. She calls in the direction of the off-screen space. We return to the full-figure shot of Lena, who hears her mother’s call. She replies and exits the frame to the left. Back to the shot of the mother, still in the doorway; then Lena enters the frame and joins her mother. This sequence clearly shows Griffith’s increasing mastery of the movement of characters in adjacent spaces, especially in the way he links interiors and exteriors. It also reveals how Griffith created spatial and temporal coherence between adjacent spaces, a coherence which allows characters to communicate with each other, from within either of these spaces, without necessarily showing the two characters together in the same shot. Here it is the spectator, and the spectator alone (helped by the cues provided by the mise-en-scène), who mentally constructs the extended space that includes the mother on the doorstep of her house on the left and Lena exercising her geese on the right. Another alternation of this kind is found elsewhere in the film. When the aristocratic lady’s messenger arrives to demand that the peasant woman return the foster daughter to her natural mother, now on her deathbed, Gretchen calls her own daughter instead. But her daughter doesn’t hear her calls; hence the alternation that develops. And yet the first shot of Lena in this sequence is completely gratuitous; it consists of a cutaway to Lena talking to her geese, which shows her before her mother decides to call her. This is to say that the only justification for the relationship between these two shots derives from the narrator. After this shot of Lena, we return to her mother and the messenger. Then the mother calls off screen to her daughter. Back to the shot of Lena talking to her geese, but she doesn’t hear her mother’s call. Back to the mother, who continues calling. Back to Lena, who still doesn’t hear her. Back again to the mother, who decides to go and fetch her daughter. The two of them are joined in the next shot, in the space occupied by the daughter. All of this demonstrates the degree of narrative refinement that Griffith had reached, a refinement visible even in a film as secondary as Lena and the Geese, which has been commented on by very few historians but is worthy of rediscovery. Overall, the film is founded on a loose but constant parallel in the depiction of peasant and aristocratic life. (“Aristocratic life”, when, in fact, one of the scenes of this life is that of the repentant mother’s death.) Once Lena is introduced to the noblewoman as her daughter, the film’s world is flipped around: from here on, the primary space depicted is the world of the aristocracy. But this doesn’t prevent the narrator from establishing a parallel between 70

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the two spaces just the same: in one world, Lena is shown learning aristocratic etiquette; while in the other, her mother, her sweetheart, and her geese are shown bored to death back on the farm. Through his incursions into Gretchen’s world, Griffith, moreover, goes out of his way to personalise Lena’s favourite goose. At times the characters speak to it, and at others, the narrator even makes it the subject of a few shots and gives it something of a role to play. Thus the sequence when Lena’s mother and sweetheart are commiserating over her absence: the mother, sitting in the house, calls off screen, through the door, to the goose on the doorstep outside the house. An entire shot is devoted to the goose, which seems to have understood the off-screen call and complies with the mother’s request to come and join her inside the house. The spectator’s participation in mentally constructing a larger space is directly solicited a second time in the film, when the noble lady dies within the enclosed space of the castle. Griffith sets his sights high and endeavours to depict more than a few courtiers present at her death. He sets his sights high, but his camera’s field of view is limited: he doesn’t want to distance his camera from his actors too much (in fact, from this period on, his tendency is to bring the camera in close, particularly in this film, which is composed almost exclusively of full- or three-quarter-figure compositions). Thus in this scene he is only able to frame some half-dozen extras at a time. To keep this from being our only image of the event, he films a score of other figures, but separates them off into two distinct shots. The first, more proximate group is situated just outside, to the right of, the space of the dying woman’s bed, while the second group is farther away, off to the side of the space occupied by the first group. The physical location of this second group of extras plus the fact that they are part of the same spatial and temporal setting must, moreover, be deduced from the cues provided by the mise-en-scène alone, since there is no real connection between the shots. Each shot shows, in isolation, one of these two spaces; the only possible connection between them might be the direction of the characters’ gaze and movements, or the systematic alternation between these two adjacent spaces (the third example of this in the film). Here again, it is the montage that comes to the rescue of the narrator. Also worthy of note in this film is the complexity of the montage in the final sequence, when several lines of action cross: Lena escapes from the castle; the courtiers pursue her; we see her mother bored at home; her sweetheart is shown heartbroken; etc. All these threads are woven tightly together, in rapid alternation, before converging in the climax, when Lena returns home, the true heiress to the throne is discovered, and the lovers kiss. André Gaudreault

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THE SPIRIT AWAKENED Filming date: finished ca. April 1912 Location: California Release date: 20 June 1912; reissued by Biograph, 12 June 1916 Release length: one reel Copyright date: 28 June 1912 Director: D.W. Griffith Author: none known Source: none known Camera: G.W. Bitzer Cast: Blanche Sweet (Young woman); W. Chrystie Miller, Kate Bruce (Her parents); Edward Dillon (Christian farmhand); Alfred Paget (Renegade farmhand); Mae Marsh (His girlfriend) Archival Sources: Library of Congress, 35mm paper print; The Museum of Modern Art, 35mm nitrate negative A STORY OF THE CHRISTIAN AND THE RENEGADE The girl, her father and invalid mother toil to keep their small farm which is mortgaged. The mortgage falls due, and gathering together their earnings, they find the sum not quite enough. On the farm are two farm-hands, – one a true Christian, who is the butt of the other, a renegade. The renegade imposes upon the Christian boy, regarding him to be without spirit. The boy learns of the family’s need, and gives his mite which increases their store sufficiently to pay off the mortgage. The renegade learns of the mortgage money, and, having victimized one of the young women of the village, decides to get this money and get away. It is now that the Christian boy shows his spirit and after an exciting chase and fight, succeeds in recovering the money. Biograph Bulletin, June 20, 1912

Seeing that the family that employs him cannot meet its mortgage payment, a young farm hand, who is particularly devout and always ready to turn the other cheek, gives them some of his own earnings. His workmate, who does not share his Christian values and regularly bullies him, hears about his employer’s sum of money – set aside to pay the mortgage – and is taken with evil designs on it. He steals the money and escapes on horseback. After an epic chase, the thief is soon overtaken by the devout farm hand who, realising his naïveté, recovers the stolen money and thus wins the heart of his boss’s daughter.

In the film’s opening sequence, the farm owner takes a tour of his property (or “POSSESSIONS”, in the language of the intertitles), as if to give the spectator the opportunity to discover its principal elements: the farm land, the farmyard, and the barn. This establishment of the terrain provides the spectator with an initial encounter with the sites where the action will take place, particularly the barn, to which the story will return on several occasions. It would seem that the goals of this “landlord’s tour” are more descriptive than narrative. Indeed, our passage from one space to another is marked by an indefinite tem72

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porality, and there is no progression to the action, apart from the simple presence of the farm owner himself. Moreover, the film’s first edit is highly discontinuous, on the visual, temporal, and spatial levels. The first shot shows the old man in the foreground, seemingly contemplating the extent of his domain. We see his daughter in the background, feeding the poultry. After the father walks out of the frame, a shot change creates an extremely pronounced visual discontinuity; we have the impression that the camera has approached the young woman through a kind of cut-in. While previously she had been in the extreme background of the set, she is now seen in a close medium shot (three-quarter figure). The change in scale provoked by the camera’s dramatic approach (because of her distance from the camera before this cut, the young woman had been barely recognisable) produces a pronounced visual shock. But this effect of discontinuity is not limited to the visual plane alone. On the spatial level, the young woman, while she is still looking after the poultry, is actually no longer in the same decor (she is now closer to the building); while on the temporal level, her actions are not in strict continuity with what she was doing in the previous shot (she is now looking after the young chicks). Another instance of discontinuity occurs when the film moves next to an intertitle, “TOILING TO KEEP THEIR POSSESSIONS”, which is followed by a shot showing us the young woman again, now sewing in her room. We thus find ourselves, without any warning whatsoever, in another space and time (the latter, we will discover, is in strict continuity with the principal thread of the film’s story), without anything having led us there, apart from the desire of the narrator to carry out a demonstration (rather than a narration). At this point the narration, properly speaking, begins. We quickly learn, by means of different camera placements and a series of matching cuts, that precisely at the moment when the young woman is wearing herself out with her sewing, her mother and father realise that they haven’t been able to put aside enough money to meet their mortgage payment. In fact, the camera has something of an ubiquitous presence in this film, particularly in this sequence, when the young woman stops sewing and joins her parents in another room, bringing them her own modest contribution to the mortgage payment. The narrator “knows” that at this precise moment the farm hand is approaching the house and that he will soon enter the space now occupied by the three family members. If it wanted, the camera could just passively wait where it is until the boy enters the room. But of course, like any good storyteller, the narrator knows all – and shows it! Thus the shot that interrupts the visual flow to show us what we couldn’t see if we remained glued to the action inside the house: the boy approaches the house through the gate to the yard before arriving, in the next shot, inside the house. This shot anticipates the action yet to come and, viewed according to a strict definition of narrative efficiency, is useless. It adds nothing except proof of the narrator’s knowledge, the extent of his power, and the flexibility of the – filmic – discourse he articulates. The same is true of the untimely interruption right in the middle of the next sequence (the altercation between the two farm hands), when we cut away to the young woman as she settles in to resume her sewing. It is as if the narrator, having brought the two young people together in one scene, feels obliged to keep us abreast of what is happening to each of them after they have gone their separate ways – he to the right, toward the barn (where the other boy will bully him), and she to the left, to her sewing room. We see in this film, moreover, how Griffith was in the process of clearly resolving the problem of representing different locations where the action is taking place. He avoids any sort of false matching shot based on movement or location. This is particularly apparent in the theft sequence, when the renegade steals the old man’s money. This sequence’s montage makes it possible to construct a clear mental image of the geography of the locations where 73

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the action takes place: to the left, the bedroom, where the old man has just hid the money; to the extreme left, the young woman’s bedroom; in the centre, the gate that must be passed through to reach the house; and to the right, the barn. These different locations are briskly sketched in a dynamic montage, within which the actors’ gaze and movements are consistent with the position of an “ideal” spectator (ideal, at least, for the incipient institution). The film follows upon the momentum it has thus established and ends on a final scene of derring-do, a furious chase on horseback, which shows, in a systematic and well thoughtout alternation, the three characters who take part in it (the two farm hands and the young woman). This lengthy sequence opens with an initial alternation between the scene of the crime (where the young woman comforts her father) and the scene of the escape (where the villain subdues the honest farm hand, who has tried to prevent him from fleeing). André Gaudreault

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THE SCHOOL TEACHER AND THE WAIF Filming date: finished ca. April 1912 Location: California Release date: 27 June 1912 Release length: one reel Copyright date: 10 July 1912 Director: D.W. Griffith Author: none known Source: “MLiss”, the short story by Bret Harte Camera: G.W. Bitzer Cast: Edwin August (The school teacher); Mary Pickford (Nora, the waif); Charles Hill Mailes (Her father); Bert Hendler? (Street faker); Claire McDowell (His girlfriend); William Carroll [blackface] (His assistant); Robert Harron, Mae Marsh, Ella Hall? (School children); Alfred Paget, Frank Opperman (At spelling bee); Grace Henderson (A mother); Jack Pickford (Extra) Archival Sources: Library of Congress, 35mm paper print A PASTORAL COMEDY DRAMA Little Nora is called the madcap of the village. She was not vicious but merely mischievous, with her heart in the right place. Her madcap nature is not to be wondered at as she was allowed to run wild, her mother being dead and her father a laborer. The school commissioners write to her father insisting that she be sent to school, and she would have been happy there if the scholars had not made her the butt of ridicule. This she strenuously resents and in her unhappy, lonesome condition, she listens to the flattery of a traveling street faker, who would have succeeded in taking her away with him had not the school teacher, who saw in her a diamond in the rough, prevented it. Biograph Bulletin, June 27, 1912

A wild and uneducated girl, negligently raised by her overworked and widower father, is forced to attend school, where she is tormented by her classmates. Rebelling against this situation, she runs away from school, her home, and her village to follow a smooth talker who has promised to marry her. Luckily for her, the schoolteacher frees her from the shady character’s grip and puts her back on the right path … and back in school.

The film opens on a sequence that is assembled in an unusual manner. The sequence consists of a three-part alternation (A-B-A) of two contiguous spaces, filmed at an approximately 75-degree angle in a natural outdoor location. The action is for the most part continuous (two little wretches torment the girl’s little ram, and she comes to its rescue), particularly in the two matching shots, but the modern-day spectator is left with a slightly uneasy feeling because of the relationship between the two camera setups, which does not respect the – not yet established – institutional editing codes. It is clear that in this film Griffith is still in an experimental stage and that he is trying out different forms of expression. 75

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We then move to a shot of the girl’s father calling her from inside the house; he looks and calls off screen to the right. We cut back to the girl who, right from the beginning of the shot, reacts to her father’s call, which she has evidently heard. This is a good example of connecting two shots which show characters who are not framed together but who are in relative spatial proximity. The space of the farm where the heroine and her father live is presented in a fragmentary but coherent manner, and it is easy for the spectator to situate him- or herself in this space, in that the narrator, in his framing of each fragment of the space, sticks consistently to a perspective from either the left or the right. This is done to such an extent, and so well, that from the very beginning of the film we understand that this space is composed, on the extreme left, of the kitchen and the house where the girl and her father live (Space 1), which opens, when exiting it toward the right, onto a space identifiable as situated between the house and what appears to be the hen house (Space 2). When the characters cross this space, moving toward the right, they arrive in the space of the film’s initial shot (Space 3), where there is a stake to which the girl’s sheep is tied. Then, finally, even further toward the right, is the space that leads to the schoolhouse (Space 4). With this blueprint in mind, the attentive spectator can spot the places where the narrator effects a narrative economy. This is the case, for example, the first time the girl goes to school, and the narrator decides to skip a space (Space 3) he deems to be unnecessary in depicting her trajectory. There is another interesting example of the way two adjacent spaces in this film are connected, and that is when the girl, leaving school one day, is taunted by her classmates. She walks out of the frame in order to confront them (we see a river in the background) and throws a rock at them that she has picked up off the ground. A cut takes us back to the initial shot, in front of the school, and her classmates move as if dodging the rock she has thrown. The two spaces are thus presented in a series of shot–countershots (of five shots in length: A-B-A-B-A) from a vantage point midway between the two, by means of a camera that shifts about 45 degrees from one shot to the next. Thus the film already respects the ideal shot–countershot setup, just as the institutional “language” of cinema would soon dictate. As a whole, the film is constructed around an alternation between what is going on around the girl and what is going on around the schoolteacher, when the latter is not in the same space as the former. The narrator takes it as his duty to be constantly reminding the spectator of the never-distant presence of the schoolteacher, who is clearly quite concerned about the girl’s various misadventures. In this film we see a particularly interesting formal device, in the way a character is photographed going through a doorway. We know that during this period going through a doorway was an important moment in many Griffith films because of the critical problem for matching the shots that the movement of a character from outside to inside a building posed. Especially because, as a general rule, the interior would have been a studio set, which could be situated miles from the location where the exterior shot was filmed. Most often, the latter was a natural, outdoor location. A number of difficulties were thus posed for matching the studio shot and the outdoor shot, difficulties related to the direction of the character’s movement and gaze, the camera setup, etc. In this film the problem was resolved in an unusual manner. First, we see the father in what is seemingly a natural decor, but one we have not seen before. It consists of the exterior of the farmhouse, seen from rather close up, whose door is clearly visible (thus, according to the schema set out above, this is a depiction of Space 2, but seen from a narrower angle). The door is decorated with three iron horseshoes, which are nailed to the door at about the height of the character’s eyes. The father pushes the door open and begins to enter the house. At this moment a cut brings the spectator inside the house, so that we can follow the rest of the action. Thus in this shot we 76

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see the character following through on pushing the door open and entering the house. But, to the great surprise of the modern-day researcher, the door seen from inside the house seems to be the same door, literally, as the door we saw in the previous shot (the horseshoes are the proof of this). One of three things could be happening here. It could be that both shots, the interior and the exterior, were truly shot in studio and on location respectively and that the same door (or an exact duplicate) was used for each. But this would represent a degree of sophistication, which was improbable for the period in question. Or, both shots were filmed in an artificial decor in a studio and are thus truly, physically adjacent. Or, finally, both shots were filmed in a specially constructed house (one without a roof or a fourth wall!) at an outdoor location. This is the most likely hypothesis. But the fact remains that the two shots are made to match, in a rather unique way, by the use of a common element of decor, something that was quite rare for the period. This relationship between the two spaces on either side of the door is relatively important, because the film systematically alternates between these two spaces in a dozen or so scenes. The film’s penultimate sequence is quite interesting from the point of view of spatial editing, especially if we recall that not too long before this film was made, the sequence’s entire action would have been depicted within a single shot. (In this sequence the girl prepares to leave town with the smooth talker in his covered wagon, but the schoolteacher arrives on the scene, hails a passing church minister, and challenges the smooth talker to honour immediately his promise of marriage. The smooth talker then makes his way to the head of his horse-drawn wagon and makes off in a flash.) In fact, it would have been a simple matter to place the camera so that all this action could be shown in one go, and that is precisely how it would most likely have been done a year or two earlier. But here Griffith decides to use a rather complex spatial and temporal fragmentation (five shots using two camera setups), rendering in a dynamic way the penultimate development of the storyline, even if the modern-day spectator has the impression that the camera setups don’t entirely conform to the soon-to-be established norms. The film’s final development is when the schoolteacher, as the girl’s “protector”, permits himself to caress her and kiss her hair, a scene that was at the bounds of the morally acceptable. André Gaudreault

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415 BIOGRAPH

MAN’S LUST FOR GOLD Filming date: finished May 1912 Location: California Release date: 1 July 1912 Release length: 1000 feet Copyright date: 10 July 1912 Director: D.W. Griffith Author: George Hennessy Source: none known Camera: G.W. Bitzer Cast: William J. Butler (Prospector); Blanche Sweet, Robert Harron (His children); Frank Opperman (Claim jumper); Charles Hill Mailes (Mexican); William Carroll, Jack Pickford (Among Indians) Archival Sources: Library of Congress, 35mm paper print; The Museum of Modern Art, 35 mm nitrate negative AS IT IS IN THE GOLD COUNTRY Gold is the seed of avarice, theft, murder and, in fact, most of the evil of the world. In our picture we show the father of a little family killed by a claim jumper who tries to take possession of his claim. Further on the claim jumper discovers the rich Skeleton Mine guarded by a grim sentinel, the skeleton of its first victim. Bags of gold lay by and the claim jumper lugs two off. Out of water and fatigued, he buries the gold intending to come back for it later. However, his strength fails him and some distance on he falls exhausted. In this plight he is encountered by the son of the miner, whose claim he tried to jump and killed, but the boy’s feelings towards him are now softened by his pitiful condition. Before the claim jumper dies he draws a map of the location of the gold. The boy and girl start out and they are made to realize the struggle gold induces. Biograph Bulletin, July 1, 1912

A prospector living in a desert cabin with his grown children is shot to death by a claim jumper, who soon thereafter finds bags of gold in an abandoned, perhaps haunted mine. His canteen empty, he buries the gold next to a grave and is near death himself when the prospector’s son comes across him. Although tempted to shoot, the son takes pity and revives the claim jumper, who draws a map of the gold’s location before dying back at the cabin. The prospector’s Mexican assistant steals a look at the map and rushes off on foot while the brother and sister load their covered wagon. The Mexican digs up the bags of gold and hides his tracks before the siblings arrive. “THE MEXICAN’S LUST STILL UNSATISFIED”, he steals their wagon to carry more gold just as the siblings are attacked by Indians. While the son gets down to his last bullet in the Indian battle, the Mexican accidentally startles the horses and the wagon runs over him. Finding the riderless wagon with its ammunition, water, and gold, the brother and sister escape, never glimpsing the Mexican dying alone in the scrub brush.

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The deserts of southern California prompted a considerably grimmer kind of Western from Griffith than had the forested East, with its relatively idyllic Indian tales. The cactus landscapes encouraged primal stories of greed and vengeance, the most compelling of which may be Over Silent Paths (1910), with its admirable avenging daughter, and The Female of the Species (1912), with its tough trio of survivalist women. While Man’s Lust for Gold lacks the interesting gender politics and deeper characterizations of those earlier films, it is not without formal and cultural interest. For a film without a chase exactly, it moves quickly, and one can see it as a little tour de force of cutting, especially between contiguous spaces. (Shots average less than nine feet, or less than nine seconds at 16 frames-per-second projection.) The pace was apparently too rushed for reviewers: “This Western melodrama is presented as all stories of this kind should be presented, except that perhaps one should not expect too much in an age where speed seems to be the thing” (The New York Dramatic Mirror, July 10, 1912, p. 28). Even Blanche Sweet as the prospector’s daughter can find little time for gestural subtleties amidst all of the complicated travel across the land by four major centers of interest: the claim jumper, he Mexican, the brother-andsister, and the band of Indians. The loose connections among them aren’t helped by the shallow plot logic: The claim jumper apparently just happens to find bags of gold soon after murdering the prospector and then happens to run out of water. His fatal accident is so abrupt that it is difficult to catch what has happened in one viewing. The Moving Picture World seems to refer to this structural weakness in calling Man’s Lust for Gold “a picture that is largely a series of loosely connected scenes” (July 13, 1912, p. 148), and the reel needs twelve intertitles primarily to keep the actions straight. Perhaps the events were intended to possess a dark inevitability rather than workaday logic, if the gothic hints from the skeleton outside the mine entrance had been pushed further. But, like Sergio Leone’s The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966), this film probably needs to be taken as an entertainingly outlandish search for gold in a grave, a location similarly revealed by the dying criminal who buried it. Griffith and Billy Bitzer had clearly learned much in the two years since their first desert films. Actors are now seldom left to perform in the center of the frame and the camera has risen to a height just above them, eliminating the confusing cactus-cluttered ground, flat horizons, and blank skies. Wind and dust also add to the atmospherics here. A conventional racial hierarchy is introduced slowly. Charles Hill Mailes plays another “MEXICAN … GOOD FOR NOTHING” (as his character was labeled in A Temporary Truce). He slumps around the edges of early scenes and then shows a wily guile in faking his tracks by walking backwards (in shots Joyce Jesionowski [1987, pp. 122–23] has discussed). The Indians, introduced late (shot 62 of the reel’s 107), are at least given a hint of motivation for their attack in the intertitle “THE OLD INDIAN BOASTS OF DEEDS OF THE PAST” (the film apparently being set in the present of 1912, although it’s never explicit). The attack also allows for another save-the-last-bullet-for-the-woman scene, anticipated when Bobby Harron as the son first holds up four fingers as he and his sister crouch behind a rock and finally indicated with a single upraised finger as he moves his six-gun toward her head. Such a scene had provided the title to Griffith’s siege-by-smugglers story The Lesser Evil (1912), where death for Blanche Sweet again would have been a lesser evil than unspeakable ravishment but where closer views allowed the situation to be played less hieroglyphically. The moralism of Man’s Lust for Gold is not as heavy in the film itself as in the surrounding texts: the film’s title, the opening intertitle (“IT IS THE SEED OF AVARICE, THEFT, MURDER”), and the ironic final intertitle (“THE PROFIT”) before the Mexican dies unnoticed. Presumably the siblings are to be seen as having relatively less gold lust, even if they perform a little 79

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dance of glee when they locate the “Skeleton Mine”. The Death Valley finale of Von Stroheim’s Greed (1925) inevitably comes to mind here, although Griffith’s closest antecedent will come in 1913 with Just Gold, in which three brothers murder each other or die thirstcrazed, shooting at phantoms in the desert. Scott Simmon

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416 BIOGRAPH

AN INDIAN SUMMER Filming date: finished April 1912 Location: California Release date: 8 July 1912 Release length: 1000 feet Copyright date: 12 July 1912 Director: D.W. Griffith Author: George Hennessy Source: none known Camera: G.W. Bitzer Cast: W. Chrystie Miller (Widower); Kate Bruce (Widow); Mary Pickford (Her first daughter); Mae Marsh (Her second daughter, or the maid?); Harry Hyde (Young man); Jack Pickford, Kate Toncray, Frank Opperman, Bert Hendler? (Among boarders) Archival Sources: George Eastman House, 28mm diacetate positive; Library of Congress, 35mm nitrate negative (AFI/Mary Pickford Collection); 35mm nitrate positive (AFI/Mary Pickford Collection); 35mm paper print HOW A HAIR TONIC ADVERTISEMENT NEARLY UPSET A ROMANCE The lonely old widower arrives in town and seeks out a pleasant, homelike boarding place. The house he selects may be pleasant and homelike, but most of all it is owned, if not operated, by a widow, – her daughter being the real manager. The widow and widower are impressed with each other at first sight, and a very pretty romance is imminent, but it came very near being spoiled. The widower realizes that his hair is both white and scant and so feels that unless he shows a little less age, his chances with the widow are slim. Hence he writes to a hair tonic manufacturer for aid. This letter he tries to keep under cover, but the widow sees his efforts to hide it and, of course, imagines it is from another woman, so turns about to make him jealous. A most unique trick of fate smooths out the ruffles. Biograph Bulletin, July 8, 1912

An elderly man takes lodgings at a seaside boarding house owned by a shy widow and managed by her daughter. Attracted to the widow but feeling that his scanty white hair hurts his chances, he writes for information about hair restorer and then hides the response. The widow, assuming that the hidden letter must be from another woman, contrives to make him jealous by framing a man’s photo torn from a magazine. On a day at the beach, the two studiously avoid each other – until the rising tide wakes them from their naps and they must be rescued by boat from high-water rocks by the daughter and her beau. While marooned, the widow steals a look at the letter and the misunderstanding between the old couple is resolved. Last seen back at the boarding house, the widow is lovingly rubbing hair tonic onto his head.

This slight but charming film is another of Griffith’s fables about old men who learn that romance transcends youth – with a little aid from cosmetic products. An Indian Summer 81

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relies on tiny gestures of attraction, jealousy, and reconciliation for its gentle situational comedy. One can get a sense of the revolution in both acting and editing in the four years since Griffith began directing by placing this film next to Father Gets in the Game (1908), which made lively knockabout of another such elderly man’s rejuvenation from gray hair, under the tutelage of “Professor Dyem”. By 1912, the man’s uncertainty can be made poignant by parallel shots of the widow alone in the next room and then underlined by further intercutting the easy romance of the daughter and her beau outdoors among the flowers. It is evidently spring for the younger couple – the film was shot in April in Los Angeles – and the title An Indian Summer, referring to the late-blooming romance of the old folks, captures the fragile warmth of the simple story. As for the plotting, reviewers couldn’t help but notice that the ocean-tide resolution, along with the fact that the letter from “Kahn’s Celebrated Hair Restorer” was still in the old man’s pocket, “seems improbable” (The New York Dramatic Mirror, July 17, 1912, p. 29). “Little Mary helps out in the play”, noted The Moving Picture World (July 20, 1912, p. 244) about Mary Pickford’s undemanding role as the daughter, in half-acknowledgment of acting credits still denied by Biograph. An ensemble of varied acting styles is always one of the pleasures of Griffith’s films set in boarding houses, although An Indian Summer has a more limited range than ambitious boarding-house films, such as The Broken Cross (1911). W. Chrystie Miller, age sixty-nine, restrains the flamboyance he had put into his most recent lead role as the title character of The Old Actor (1912). Reviewers also singled out Mae Marsh’s performance as a maid (probably not intended as a second daughter – a Cinderellaish one if so – as the D.W. Griffith and the Biograph Company filmography takes her), though she would have been unknown by name even to trade papers, having previously played only background figures or friends of the leads. Griffith regularly gave maids memorable bits of “business” to enliven the ensemble, and Mae Marsh’s character reinforces her amusingly sour view of romance by dusting away invisible cobwebs from the household’s tentative lovers. As The New York Dramatic Mirror aptly put it: “There are several characters in the boarding place who have little to do, but they do that little well.” Scott Simmon

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417 BIOGRAPH

HEAVEN AVENGES Filming date: finished May 1912 Location: California Release date: 18 July 1912 Release length: 994 feet Copyright date: 23 July 1912 Director: D.W. Griffith Script: George Hennessy [“I Will Repay”] Camera: G.W. Bitzer Cast: Dorothy Bernard (Ynez); William J. Butler (Her father); W. Christy Cabanne (Her sweetheart); Charles H. West (Owner of grove); Grace Henderson (His mother); W. Chrystie Miller (Doctor); Frank Evans (Sheriff); Kate Toncray (Maid); W.C. Robinson (Servant) Archival Sources: Library of Congress, 35mm paper print; The Museum of Modern Art, 35mm nitrate negative THE UNERRING JUSTICE OF PROVIDENCE The old widower stricken ill, his daughter Ynez takes his place in the orange grove. The rich owner of the grove, while making his rounds, sees Ynez and is attracted by her beauty. A man of whims, he is in a measure infatuated with her. Being in poor health, owing to heart trouble, he is cautioned by his physician against undue excitement, hence none of his own household try to thwart him when he proceeds to fascinate the girl. Of course, his nature being capricious, he soon tires of the pretty senorita and the pledge he bestowed proves worthless. Fearing the scorn of her father, she leaves his house. Her former sweetheart tells her father of his suspicion and the old man goes to the orange grower, but he pleads in vain. It is then that both the boy and her father vow vengeance. Fate intervenes, however, for the man dies, a victim of heart failure. Later the poor girl is drawn back home where she finds a father’s heart yearning for her return. Biograph Bulletin, July 18, 1912

The daughter of an ailing Mexican-American farmworker takes his place in the orange groves. She attracts “THE RICH OWNER, WHO IS AFFLICTED WITH HEART TROUBLE”, and agrees to a clandestine meeting. Some time later, he evicts her from his house, giving her “THE WORTHLESS PLEDGE” of a ring. In despair, she writes her father to “think of me as dead,” and the father “PLEADS IN VAIN” with the owner to marry her. The daughter’s former boyfriend and father each determine to settle things with rifles. As the grove owner leaves his home, the father is on the point of shooting from the path and the boyfriend does shoot from behind bushes. The owner collapses, the father is apprehended. “THE BOY BELIEVES HIMSELF GUILTY”, but we learn from the doctor that the owner has died from a heart attack, not a bullet. The homesick daughter returns, forgiven by her father and, after a little persuasion, by her old boyfriend.

Sometimes the very titles of Griffith’s films reveal their limitations. “Heaven” avenges here because no other explanation for the film’s resolution seems credible outside of a deus-ex83

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machina. The happy ending comes because the landowner dies of a heart attack a split second before he would have been shot by either of the two workers set to murder him. “Fate intervenes” as the Biograph Bulletin puts it, a resolution parallel to that of Fate’s Interception earlier in 1912, another tale of vengeance over a seduced young Hispanic woman. This would be the last Griffith film with the beautiful Dorothy Bernard, playing the daughter, Ynez. Her acting over the previous two years was never extraordinarily subtle, nor is it here in her scenes of despair, although she has a fine comic moment when she is first ushered into the grove owner’s huge limousine and must twice be shown how to sit in it. Interestingly, this Mexican-American woman-of-sin is not the focus of blame. She may be a little too proud of the beauty of her colorful shawl, but she wears it in memory of her dead mother at the prompting of her father. Her Mexican-American boyfriend (future journeyman director Christy Cabanne) is depicted as annoyingly possessive, performing a little you-belong-to-me gesture after running forward in a deeply staged shot after the owner leaves the grove. Following the kiss that the owner grabs from the girl in the back of his limousine, a “LATER ON” intertitle covers quite a gap; the shot that follows, showing the owner shaking hands with a tin-star sheriff, seems obscure, unless the law is somehow needed to assure the girl’s departure, now that the owner has had his way. Some of the cutting is also uncharacteristically clumsy (as between shots 27 and 28, when the father exits his rustic home and is instantly at the rich man’s doorstep). Two of the leads have weak hearts – the father and the grove owner – but the film is not enervated. The owner musters sufficient energy for seduction, and the father later runs with a second rifle to beat the boyfriend to be first to avenge his daughter’s honor. Doubling the pattern in so many Griffith films about Latin races, blood vengeance motivates both the father and boyfriend. The film also has its bucolic side, used effectively when woodsy backgrounds – the misty grove, the family home seen from a hillside – are introduced in scenes of joy that are brought back to the audience’s mind when the setups are used again in moments of despair (as the daughter wanders alone and the boyfriend runs rifle-armed). The author of the scenarios for both Heaven Avenges and Fate’s Interception was George Hennessy, who wrote regularly for Biograph for almost two years, initially comedies directed by Mack Sennett then dramas for Griffith as well, among them The Miser’s Heart (1911), which deftly interconnects its large cast of characters, and One Is Business; the Other Crime (1912), which is clever with its parallels between rich and poor. However, it is evident from Heaven Avenges – as well as the previous two Griffith productions, Man’s Lust for Gold and An Indian Summer, both of which Hennessy also wrote – that he was not skilled at inventing plots that unfold with logical twists or even with much linear coherency. Griffith and his performers make quite a lot from these stories – the flamboyant cutting of Man’s Lust for Gold and the acting charms of An Indian Summer especially – but it is hard to imagine Hennessy’s initial story outlines being greeted with enthusiasm. Record of his produced scenarios ends in 1915. Reviews for Heaven Avenges were positive but in a curiously perfunctory way. Neither of the brief notices I have found could single out a distinctive detail. For The New York Dramatic Mirror, “The settings are good, the production is a smooth one, the story is easy to follow, and the acting is excellent” (July 24, 1912, p. 29). The Moving Picture World spent two sentences of its three-sentence review by saying, “Perhaps this film will be fairly described by classing it as an unusually good Biograph drama. Certainly this is no over-statement” (August 3, 1912, p. 445). The reviewers sound somehow weary of their praise, and this may be the place for me to suggest that a number of Griffith’s films of 1912 begin to seem complicated without being quite compelling, sophisticated on the surface even while 84

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they are routine at the core. Admittedly this gets to be a very subjective judgment and there are a great many exceptions (including the next film in this project, the two-reel The Massacre), but it may be that Griffith was already becoming restive with the one-reel format and that the Biograph company had already reached its heights of invention. Scott Simmon

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418 BIOGRAPH

THE MASSACRE Filming date: finished 21 May 1912 Location: California Release date: 7 November 1912 (Europe) / 26 February 1914 (U.S.A.) Release length: 2097 feet Copyright date: 30 October 1912 Director: D.W. Griffith Author: D.W. Griffith Source: none known Camera: G.W. Bitzer Cast: Wilfred Lucas (Stephen); Blanche Sweet (His ward); Charles H. West (Her husband); Alfred Paget (Indian chief); Harry Hyde, W. Chrystie Miller, Dell Henderson, J. Jiquel Lanoe, Charles Hill Mailes (In wagon train); Frank Opperman (Old settler); Jack Pickford (Young boy); W.C. Robinson (Among Indians); Charles Gorman, Edward Dillon, Robert Harron (In cavalry); Prologue: Claire McDowell (Stephen’s belle); Edward Dillon (John Randolph); Kate Toncray (Maid) Archival Sources: Library of Congress, 35mm paper print; The Museum of Modern Art, 35mm nitrate negative (incomplete); National Film and Television Archive, 35mm nitrate positive As the woman he loved lay dying, the former suitor swore to protect the child of the other man, just killed in battle. The baby grown to womanhood, the man’s love for the mother was felt again, but a stranger claimed the girl’s love. So the man with his trust left for the far Northwestern country and joined in the government wars against the Indians. There again he met the life which he had sworn to protect. How well he succeeded, the returning young husband could most appreciate, after one of the most deadly massacres and Indian battles of the period. The Moving Picture World, February 21, 1914, p. 1006

In the Old South, a young woman chooses one of her two suitors, who are best friends. Two years later, “THROUGH HER FORMER SUITOR, THE AILING WIFE RECEIVES NEWS OF HER HUSBAND’S DEATH” in the Civil War. Before the wife’s own death, the former suitor, Stephen, “SWEARS PROTECTION” of her infant daughter. Out on the Missouri frontier, his ward grows to womanhood. He asks her to join him as his wife in pioneering to the far west. Although she tentatively agrees, he has “THE REALIZATION” of her desire for a husband closer to her age when a traveler stops for water. After the young couple marry, Stephen goes west alone as an Army scout. Two years later, the couple joins a wagon train with their own baby. Further west, Stephen “TAKES PART IN THE SURPRISE ATTACK” by the Army on an Indian village. When the wagon train reaches the far west, the husband has to depart “TO MILITARY HEADQUARTERS ON URGENT BUSINESS”. Stephen is among the Army escort to the wagon train as it passes through Indian country, and he meets his ward’s baby for the first time, shaking his head with a rueful smile. As the moving community advances, the Indians gather to plan their vengeance. The pioneers and military escort are besieged together in the attack, then killed off as the Indians circle closer. 86

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The husband races back with a larger contingent of troops but arrives to find only a mass of bodies in “THE VALLEY OF DEATH”. Struggling from under the pile of corpses is one moving hand: The young wife and her infant have survived, Stephen having thrown himself over them in his last act of protection.

The Massacre is Griffith’s largest scale and longest film to date – two very full reels running 2,097 feet or close to forty minutes at correct projection speed. Its complex pleasures and historical advancements are many. If it is the least known of Griffith’s early two-reelers, that’s partly due to its odd release history. Biograph films were typically in theaters a month or two after filming; any delay longer than three months was unusual. By contrast, The Massacre, filmed in California’s San Fernando Valley in May 1912, was not released in the United States until almost two years later, on the last week of February 1914, six months after Griffith had left the company. This was despite the fact that The Massacre was “our most talked of picture of the winter – our biggest spectacle”, as Griffith’s wife and Biograph actress Linda Arvidson remembered (p. 218). Instead of being among the most advanced work of 1912, The Massacre thus became a half-forgotten film of 1914. Considering the speed with which film style and especially film length was evolving, one would expect reviewers to have regarded the film as sadly out of date, but its quality is such that only its subject seemed passé: “Battle pictures have long since ceased to be a novelty, but regard for the fine points of production, such as mark this film, remains rare”, said The New York Dramatic Mirror on March 3, 1914 (p. 29); “As a war spectacle, as a human interest story replete with telling details that show the hand of a skilled producer, and as an achievement in beautiful photography, The Massacre must be placed high up on any list of important films.” The week’s other reviews include five-reel features, and the Biograph review is notable as the only one to fail to list the names of actors (perhaps a result too of most of them having left the company along with Griffith.) Mid-1912 had seen Famous Players’ three-reel French import Queen Elizabeth and tworeel films from U.S. companies were becoming common, but Biograph still seemed to have been resisting longer films. Griffith had made two 1500-foot films as well as a pair of previous two-reel films for release in 1911 – His Trust/His Trust Fulfilled and Enoch Arden – but both of those stories were structured with multi-year gaps between the reels, allowing Biograph to present the second reels as separate sequels. The Massacre also has two “TWO YEARS LATER” intertitles, but they come early in the story and the narrative would make no sense broken at the end of reel one (which comes just after the wagon train reaches the far west). Curiously, the blandly scenic A Pueblo Legend, only slightly shorter and filmed in Albuquerque during the company’s 1912 trip east, was released without apparent difficulty two months later, and became the first film to be promoted by Biograph as a two-reeler. Before The Massacre was filmed, Griffith, who often spent Sundays catching up on the work of rivals, had surely seen some of the Westerns that Thomas Ince had begun to produce with a large cast from the “Miller Bros. 101 Ranch” Wild West show. Reviews for Ince’s “101 Bison” Westerns had been ecstatic right from the relatively simple first one, War on the Plains (which survives in the United States in two slightly incomplete reels), released three months earlier in February 1912: “Here we have looked upon a presentation of Western life that is real and true to life, and that we would like to see again and again…. We have had plenty even of the Fenimore Cooper style of Western drama, based on fact, no doubt, but lurid, highly colored and imaginative to a degree. It marks a distinct step in advance when a manufacturer sees his mistakes and now sets forth to present to the public the great West as it really was and is” (The Moving Picture World, January 27, 1912, p. 298). 87

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The comparison would have hit close to home for Griffith, who had made “plenty” of the “Fenimore Cooper style” Westerns now marked as old-fashioned. Ince’s films soon became the standard against which other Westerns were judged: “Everybody knows the quality of the Bison Company’s Indian and Western military pictures”, The Moving Picture World noted in passing six months later (July 6, 1912, p. 63). But Ince too was still developing the “Indian and Western military” form, and it would not be until the end of 1912 that he would produce what seem now the most accomplished of his surviving Westerns, Custer’s Last Fight and The Invaders. Clearly, Griffith was ready to compete in this form of Western, but the delay in the release of The Massacre prevented it. For all the enduring value of Ince’s Westerns, especially the unrivaled authenticity conveyed through their Lakota (Sioux) performers, in several ways Griffith does improve on Ince’s films in The Massacre. Ince’s Westerns – many directed by Francis Ford – have a documentary immediacy that is paradoxically reinforced by their imprecise, even sloppy, camera work, which often pans back and forth as if the cinematographer is searching for the center of unplanned action. In scale, there is little to distinguish the two: Griffith also rounded up a half-dozen covered wagons. The “101 Bison” films regularly feature perhaps fifty mounted cavalrymen and forty riding Indians. Linda Arvidson’s memory exaggerates the scale of The Massacre – “several hundred cavalry men and twice as many Indians” – but one can count sixty horse-mounted cavalry riding to the rescue and a comparable scale in earlier scenes. Griffith also evidently had access to coyotes and a bear, foreground to the wagons moving “THROUGH THE WILDERNESS” and used effectively when the natives also disguise themselves in bearskins. What really distinguishes Griffith’s battles is a complex spatial coherency – without simple directional consistency – missing from Ince’s battles. For instance, in The Massacre a static line of abandoned wagons is a point of reference to help us keep track of how the pioneers are being pushed back. One would expect the cutting to speed up in the second reel, most of which is taken up with the attack by Indians. But the second reel in fact slows its cutting (with sixty-six shots and eleven titles, versus the ninety-three shots and seventeen titles-and-inserts of reel one). If the second reel nevertheless feels faster, it is because the visuals become more complex: Most of the battle shots are deeply staged, with action on several planes. The long shots of the large battle are seen from far above on a sheer hilltop, and the extreme close-ups are deftly saved until the battle gets most desperate – notably two shots of Blanche Sweet clutching the screaming infant, her face half blocked by a firing gun in the foreground. Even the 1914 New York Dramatic Mirror review, in a rare stylistic comment, praised the distinctive cutting: “Close up views, depicting harrowing details, are varied with comprehensive panoramas of the entire field of battle, and through it all is imparted the impression of implacable, bloodthirsty warfare.” After several uninspired George Hennessy scenarios, Griffith invented the storyline himself here. But script credit is not really the point because The Massacre clearly grows from his earlier films. The Old South prologue takes its casting and situation from His Trust, with the racial component eliminated. Again, Claire McDowell is widowed by the Civil War, and Wilfred Lucas – this time without blackface – pledges “HIS TRUST”, as an intertitle again reads. The prologue ends as heavily played tragedy, her own deathbed scene punctuated by a Biblical citation (Revelation 21:4) and the symbolic extinguishing of a candle by the breeze. The mood lightens as Stephen’s years of responsible foster-parenthood are represented by a single shot of soothing his adolescent ward’s hurt hand – the hand prominent again at the film’s conclusion. (The Rose of Kentucky [1911] suggests that Griffith didn’t necessarily see pairing forty-year-old Wilfred Lucas with a teenaged ward as creepy.) Exactly a year earlier Griffith and the acting company had ended that California winter trip with the wagons-west film The Last Drop of Water (1911). The return of Blanche Sweet and Charles West again 88

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traveling west suggests a challenge to expand upon the earlier little epic; again, too, another man sacrifices himself on the desert to save Sweet. As an “Indian and Western military picture” – a type that, with the exception of a couple films about Custer, would not return until John Ford’s post-World-War-II cavalry films – The Massacre has surprising sympathies. The title might more accurately have been The Indian Massacre – if Ince hadn’t already used that title for a (surviving) two-reeler released two months earlier in March. Both films feature not one but two massacres, and Ince’s title uses the ambiguity of English syntax cleverly: A massacre by Indians is followed by a revenge massacre of Indians, a pattern reversed by Griffith. In The Massacre the “SURPRISE ATTACK ON THE INDIAN VILLAGE” by the Army is pointedly without any justification in, say, some earlier outrage by a native. A shot of the 8th Cavalry spying on the village from a hillside motivates a surprising point-of-view shift to individual Indians within the village. Watched carefully, it’s also clear that when we cut back to the Army on the hill, Stephen as the scout shakes his head “no”, before the commandant, a Custer-mustached figure, orders the troops forward. Like John Wayne in John Ford’s Fort Apache (1948), Stephen nevertheless participates in the attack after his advice has been ignored by the Custer-type. In Ince’s films audiences develop sympathy for the Native American point-of-view because of time spent with the Lakota performers, even when their characters’ actions are bloodthirsty. Griffith, making do without Native American actors, evokes an equal critique of the U.S. Army actions in the Plains wars, but must go about it in a more elaborate way. Earlier, close-ups of Sweet’s baby begin to seem far too extended, too maudlin, as if the two-reel format threatens to allow too much leisure: There are two indulgent close-ups of the baby (shots 55 and 57), and then a third (shot 60) of the baby in back of the covered wagon with a cute dog alongside for good measure. But this sequence is also a setup for parallel shots of a Native American family in their village just before the attack, including a father who returns into his teepee to chuck his infant on the chin while it is strapped to his wife’s back. When the battle ends, the shot of the slaughtered native mother, with her dead infant still strapped to her, is held for an uncomfortable duration: For twenty-five seconds the only moving thing in the shot is a dog – in another echo of the pioneer family – wandering though the smoky background carnage. This coda to battle is one that Griffith will also put to use in The Birth of a Nation (1915): “WAR’S PEACE” will be the concise title card for mangled bodies there. The two-reel format allows many other subtle echoes. At the opening of the Old South prologue, the Southern belle and her husband-to-be toy with branches in a pastoral bower. Later, when Charles West hugs Blanche Sweet after she accepts his marriage proposal, he gets his arm caught in some foreground branches. It looks at first like a small “error”, as he bats the branches away. But the visual echo reminds us that Stephen watches, again from the background, another loss of a woman he loves. This time he pulls his gun, then thinks better of it, and proffers a handshake. The two-reel length also allows time to develop minor figures in the wagon-train community. A gambler (Dell Henderson) offers the baby a swig of whiskey on its birthday; a preacher (W. Chrystie Miller) prefers a Bible to the holster another scout recommends for his hip. When death comes for both, the gambler shooting with a protective arm around the old preacher, it’s a conventional Bret Harte moment, but also “a telling human touch, as developed here”, in the New York Dramatic Mirror’s words. One could call The Massacre a draft for the following year’s end-of-winter-trip Western, the well-known The Battle at Elderbush Gulch (1913), if the earlier film wasn’t in many ways more complex and fascinatingly dark. Both end with sieges by circling Indians, although The Massacre’s pioneers find no sheltering cabin. Linda Arvidson tells a story about screening the rough cut of The Massacre, which incidentally underlines Griffith’s commitment to its details (pp. 218–19). “Doc” Dougherty, who wrote most of Biograph’s intertitles, thought the scene 89

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where the pioneers group together for protection on the ground played fine without a title; Griffith thought the action might still be confusing to audiences – “they may not know what I am trying to show” – and proposed adding the intertitle “DISMOUNTING FOR DEFENSE.” After a two-week disagreement that became a standing joke to the company, the title went in. The Massacre climaxes with a race-to-the-rescue that doesn’t succeed (as famously again in Death’s Marathon [1913]). Indeed, it’s a wondrously grim climax, full of futile heroism, as when a defender tries to bring back a wounded man and is himself shot. The image of the pile of corpses with the one living hand poking through it is unlike anything in Westerns until the Vietnam era. Before anyone notices the hand, the husband is just barely prevented from shooting himself at the sight of the corpses by a soldier who pulls the gun from his temple. One suspects that there may have been more to the Biograph management’s sheepishness over the release of this extraordinary film than merely its length. Scott Simmon

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419 BIOGRAPH

MAN’S GENESIS Filming date: finished ca. May 1912 Location: California Release date: 11 July 1912; reissued by Biograph, 23 July 1915 Release length: one reel Copyright date: 23 July 1912 Director: D.W. Griffith Author: none known Source: none known Camera: G.W. Bitzer Cast: Robert Harron (Weak Hands); Mae Marsh (Lilywhite); Wilfred Lucas (Brute Force); Charles Hill Mailes, W.C. Robinson, Claire McDowell? (Tribe Members); W. Chrystie Miller (Storyteller); ? (Children) Archival Sources: Academy Film Archive, 28mm diacetate positive (deteriorating); 35mm nitrate positive (deteriorating); Library of Congress, 35mm paper print; The Museum of Modern Art, 35mm nitrate negative A PSYCHOLOGICAL COMEDY FOUNDED UPON THE DARWINIAN THEORY OF THE EVOLUTION OF MAN This subject is a distinct departure from the conventional motion picture production, depicting as it clearly does, a theory of grave importance, – Darwin’s argument as to the evolution of man. To introduce the subject, we show an old man telling the story of man to his grandchildren. The story is that of the life of “Bruteforce” and “Weakhands” in the primeval village. The bare fist at this period was the only weapon and, as you may imagine, the law was “might is right.” The boy, “Weakhands,” stood but small chance against the powerful “Bruteforce” and this condition forced him to exercise his brain, hence it was only through his cunning that he managed to win the girl “Lilywhite,” for his lack of prowess made him unpopular as a suitor. “Weakhands” and “Lilywhite,” however, are beset with dangers at the hands of “Bruteforce” who would break up their little home. It is now that the woe of “Weakhands” is darkest, and he despairs until by accident he discovers a new force. Here the brain becomes active and the first invention, the stone hammer, is evolved, and the first conflict between brains and brawn results in victory for brains. Biograph Bulletin, July 11, 1912

An old man stops a boy from threatening a girl with a stick by sitting both of them down to tell a story about the cave-man era: “Weakhands” emerges from his cave and seeks a woman but is run off by stronger men. “Lilywhite”, after her mother’s death, is forced to venture out alone. They meet, are attracted, and “Weakhands” brings her to his cave. But “WHEN MIGHT WAS RIGHT ‘BRUTEFORCE’ WOULD WRECK THE HOME.” “Weakhands” attempts to fight after “Bruteforce” steals away “Lilywhite”, but is easily knocked down a hill. “BRAINS PRODUCE A NEW FORCE” when “Weakhands” toys with a donut-shaped rock that he fits over a stick to create a weapon. “Weakhands” uses it to fight “Bruteforce”, whom he finally must kill. His weapon also intimidates the other men, and “Weakhands” and 91

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“Lilywhite” walk off arm-in-arm. After the old man finishes this story, the boy and girl kiss and also walk arm-in-arm down the hill.

This film, which has come to seem simultaneously ponderous and unintentionally comic, was treated with extraordinary seriousness by reviewers and was successful enough to merit a sequel. The longest of the entirely positive notices was by “The Spectator” (presumably Frank Woods) of The New York Dramatic Mirror, who found Man’s Genesis “little short of marvelous … intensely gripping and fascinating to look upon”. Beyond that, he used the film to berate the ordinary run of moviemakers: “Indeed, the lamentable lack of vision and imagination of so many of the later picture producers might be somewhat dispelled if they would seize some opportunity to see and study a film called Man’s Genesis and others like it. It is possible that by so doing they might come to realize in just a small degree how utterly far behind they are in their conceptions of what constitute dramatic motion pictures” (July 24, 1912, pp. 24-25). Whether or not the film leaves others “far behind”, one has to credit it for being unusual, and it’s easy to imagine the satisfaction Griffith and the acting company would find in something so different from one more domestic drama or rural romance. “This subject is a distinct departure from the conventional motion picture production”, as the Biograph Bulletin put it with rare understatement. Mary Pickford in her autobiography claims that she and Biograph’s other usual female leads refused to wear the revealing grass skirt required of “Lilywhite” and so the part went to sixteen-year-old Mae Marsh, as her first starring role four months after joining the company. Griffith, apparently to keep his actresses in line, also rewarded Marsh with the coveted lead in the forthcoming The Sands of Dee (Pickford, p. 144). Perhaps as a result of the contretemps, arms are the only limbs ultimately bared by the full-length “grass” dress she wears in Man’s Genesis. The film also originates Mae Marsh’s teaming with Robert Harron (as “Weakhands”), which would conclude with their compelling performances in the modern episode of Intolerance (1916). The acting demands are not great here – with everyone hunching forward, and Marsh, after her capture by “Bruteforce”, doing a slow fists-at-temples, woe-is-me monologue before her hugging-empty-air gestures are echoed in parallel ones by Harron. “The Spectator” also uses Man’s Genesis to argue, more convincingly, that certain subjects ideally suit (silent) film, the world of primitive humans before the evolution of modern language being a prime example of what “would be nothing but a howling farce” on stage. The hazards of farce were recognized for the film as well. Linda Arvidson (p. 217) reports that Biograph writer “Doc” Dougherty “couldn’t see the story as a serious one – as a comedy, yes!” “Griffith was determined that it should be a serious story”, but the opening phrase of the long subtitle on the film may be some concession to Dougherty’s view: “A Psychological Comedy Founded Upon the Darwinian Theory of the Evolution of Man.” The comedy in the film is, after all, not entirely unintentional. At its best the film has slightly distancing intertitles, such as “THE PRIMEVAL WEDDING BREAKFAST” to introduce “Weakhands” and “Lilywhite’s” first morning in his cave. In amusing experiments with his newly invented weapon, “Weakhands” gently taps it on his head, a little harder on his leg, and harder still on his head again, then recoils in pain. It wouldn’t be long, however, until incidents played straight here worked only as farce (as when Buster Keaton drags another woman by her hair in Three Ages [1923]). As for “the Darwinian Theory of the Evolution of Man”, there is nothing of Darwin’s ideas discernible unless one counts the unpleasant hints of Social Darwinism in “Lilywhite” being saved from darker “Bruteforce” by “THE BIRTH OF” – not a nation this time but – “AN IDEA”. 92

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According to “The Spectator”, Man’s Genesis was part of a cycle of mid-1912 releases that included films from the Vitagraph and Thanhouser companies also “based on supposed conditions of life when man was in the most primitive state”. Griffith’s own sequel a year later was one of his last films for Biograph, which seemed particularly uncertain over its title. Released both as Brute Force and Wars of the Primal Tribes, it was additionally copyrighted as In Prehistoric Days and The Primitive Man (which had been Man’s Genesis’s working title during production). Bobby Harron returns as “Weakhands”, still with Mae Marsh by his side – any question of the evolution of woman beyond her status as a passive prize not arising. Those who in watching Man’s Genesis worry that the other men will fairly soon catch on to the rock-on-stick trick are proved right in the sequel, but “Weakhands”, clearly the Edison of his era, is ready with another invention: the bow-and-arrow. If all of this leads anywhere in film history, it is partly to the genesis of mankind via the first tool weapon at the opening of Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), but equally to Griffith’s own sad last employment in Hollywood doing odd jobs on Hal Roach’s camp classic One Million B.C. (1940). Such films often seem to require a frame-tale setup: Mountaineers listen to the story of One Million B.C. as they wait out a storm in a cave; Bobby Harron dreams Brute Force while nodding off at an elegant social party. Unfortunately, as a moral fable the frame of Man’s Genesis is even less coherent than the rest of the film. The old man recounts the story to get the boy to put down the stick with which he’s threatening the girl. However, the story ends up demonstrating not the value of disarmament but the importance of inventing a more lethal weapon! Scott Simmon

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420 BIOGRAPH

THE SANDS OF DEE Filming date: finished ca. May 1912 Location: California Release date: 22 July 1912; reissued by Biograph, 2 July 1915 Release length: one reel Copyright date: 23 July 1912 Director: D.W. Griffith Author: none known Source: “The Sands O’ Dee”, the poem by Charles Kingsley Camera: G.W. Bitzer Cast: Mae Marsh (Mary); Charles Hill Mailes, Grace Henderson (Her parents); Robert Harron (Bobby); Kate Toncray (His mother); Edwin August (Artist); Claire McDowell (His fiancée); Frank Opperman, W. Chrystie Miller, ? (Fishermen); Archival Sources: Academy Film Archive, 28mm diacetate positive (incomplete); George Eastman House, 28mm diacetate positive; Library of Congress, 35mm paper print; The Museum of Modern Art, 35mm nitrate negative SUGGESTED BY THE VERSE OF THE FAMOUS ENGLISH POET CHARLES KINGSLEY The lines “O Mary, go and call the cattle home, across the sands o’ Dee” are undoubtedly the best known of the poet’s many gems, and the song has served wonderfully well as the foundation of this production. Mary’s mother calls to her to bring the cattle home and as she goes across the sands where the River Dee empties into the sea, she meets her sweetheart, Bobby. Together they drive the cattle home. A happier pair than this lad and lassie was never seen, until one day there came to the sands an artist and, of course, his wonderful skill shown in incorporating her picture in the scene he was painting, amazed her. On the other hand, the artist became quite interested in the girl and she mistook this for love. When Bobby comes to propose she tells him and her parents she is engaged to the artist, but when the girl fails to bring the artist to meet them the stern old father unjustly accuses her and drives her from home. Later, he has cause to repent his hasty action, for “The creeping tide came up along the sand and never home came she.” Biograph Bulletin, July 22, 1912

Mary, a cowherd, lives at the edge of the sea with her parents and is courted by Bobby, a local farm boy. A painter comes to the seacoast and uses Mary in his composition. Attracted to her, he arranges a tryst and gives her the impression he wants to marry her. She informs Bobby and eventually her parents of her engagement. However, the artist’s wife then arrives for a visit, and Mary realizes her betrayal. Her father, considering her dishonored, turns her out of the house. She wanders to the seaside and Bobby finds her drowned. Years later along the shore, fishermen still hear her ghostly call.

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“The Sands of Dee” ‘O Mary, go and call the cattle home, And call the cattle home, And call the cattle home Across the sands of Dee;’ The western wind was wild and dank with foam, And all alone went she. The western tide crept up along the sand, And o’er and o’er the sand, And round and round the sand As far as eye could see. The rolling mist came down and hid the land: And never home came she. ‘Oh! is it weed, or fish, or floating hair — A tress of golden hair, A drownèd maiden’s hair Above the nets at sea? Was never salmon yet that shone so fair Among the stakes on Dee.’ They rowed her in across the rolling foam, The cruel crawling foam, The cruel hungry foam, To her grave beside the sea: But still the boatmen hear her call the cattle home Across the sands of Dee. — Charles Kingsley

The Sands of Dee stands as one of the masterpieces of Griffith’s Biograph career, a culmination of the poetic film (a genre he explored at Biograph beginning with The Song of the Shirt in 1908 and including Pippa Passes from 1909), and the triumph of Griffith’s productive 1912 trip to the West Coast. In no other film does Griffith respond to his poetic source with simultaneously such delicacy and strength of imagery, and although the 1912 California films frequently make stunning use of the landscapes Griffith could find around Los Angeles, none are more expressive than the images Griffith shot around the coast of Santa Monica for this film. Further, this film gives the first true leading role to one of Griffith’s most unique young actresses, Mae Marsh, who rivals Lillian Gish as Griffith’s greatest performer. Marsh had begun appearing in small roles in Biograph films during the first films made in California in early 1912, sometimes appearing alongside her older sister Marguerite Marsh (also known as Margaret Loveridge). Restricted mainly to either appearances as an extra or to small secondary roles supporting the established Biograph ingénues Mary Pickford and Blanche Sweet, Marsh was finally given two key roles at the end of the company’s stay in California: as the cave girl in Man’s Genesis and as Mary in The Sands of Dee. According to near legendary accounts, Marsh received the lead in The Sands of Dee, coveted by Pickford and Sweet, as a reward for undertaking the decidedly unglamorous role as Lilywhite, the cave girl, and being willing to daringly show her legs peeping from her grass skirt. There is no question that Griffith encouraged rivalry between his actors and that introducing a new 95

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ingénue lead was his way of keeping Pickford and Sweet on their toes. Griffith’s experiment, however, was also based in a careful appraisal of this new comer’s possibilities. The Moving Picture World (August 3, 1912, p. 446) declared, “But the sincere strong, acting of the heroine, and her restraint at the picture’s deeply emotional moments give it a grip that makes it able to hold.” Even Pickford (according to her memoirs written years later), whom Griffith had promised the role and who had been the main target of the new casting due to her refusal of the cave girl role, admitted Marsh’s achievement. However, she added that such an achievement made her reflect that if a “little girl fresh from a department store could give a performance as good or better than any of us who had spent years mastering our technique”, then perhaps film acting was not the true arena for Pickford to display her talents (Pickford, pp. 146–47). Marsh, of course, went on to create a number of extraordinary performances in later Biograph films and features (including not only Intolerance, but also the neglected masterpiece The White Rose). In fact, a letter dated 12 February 1921 from Griffith to Marsh indicates that Griffith hoped to remake The Sands of Dee with her as a feature (The D.W. Griffith Papers at the Museum of Modern Art). Charles Kingsley’s brief and evocative poem hints at, rather than narrates, a story. Mary’s death by drowning remains unexplained: an accident, a murder, a suicide? Griffith, of course, fills in the blanks with a recognizable melodrama situation, the seduction and false marriage plot (basically the same situation that Griffith will explore in Way Down East [1920] and which of course could be traced back to Samuel Richardson’s Clarissa). The melodramatic climax of Mary’s father ordering her out of the house as he learns her seducer cannot marry her reenacts the traditional tableau of the unyielding and outraged father’s outstretched finger, very similar to the corresponding scene with the Squire in Way Down East. But the originality and power of this film comes less from its melodramatic story than from Griffith’s heightened sense of both the interiority of his main character and the expressiveness of the landscape. At points these two elements interact, the landscape bringing out Mary’s emotions. But ultimately they separate and the sense of place literally overwhelms the character. Many of Griffith’s most poetic films had used images of the sea and shore as a lyrical motif, such as Lines of White on a Sullen Sea (1909) or The Unchanging Sea (1910, also shot at Santa Monica and inspired by another Kingsley poem). In these films the sea provides an image of the separation of lovers and of the passage of time, particularly The Unchanging Sea, in which the surf seems eternal while the characters age. But here Griffith uses the features of the shore and the surf, as well as the rocks and cliffs on which Mary’s cows graze, giving this seaside story a pastoral quality not found in Griffith’s other sea films. The topography of these seaside cliffs also give Griffith’s/Bitzer’s composition a sense not only of depth but of verticality, as in the shots in which the hillside pasture of the cows is seen while the sea and beach are visible below. The beauty of the location seems a perfect setting for a story of love’s innocent blossoming, as in the early shots where we see Mary and Bobby running along the shore, shot from a distance, appearing as tiny figures framed within a pictorial border of dark and towering cliffs. The sea-worn rocks provide sitting places that seem to embrace the human in the natural. As in most melodramas of seduction, innocence falls prey to an outsider, here the seascape painter whose clothes (note the paisley print shawl) and manners announce a world beyond Mary’s horizon of experience (the Moving Picture World review [cited above] refers to him as “an aristocratic artist”. But it seems to be his desire to paint her, to include her in his landscape, that awakens something in Mary that had been dormant, not only an erotic attraction to the new and glamorous but also a desire to have herself recognized, and admired, something Bobby with his simple child-like devotion can not offer her. Griffith allows us to inhabit Mary’s psyche through his now well-established technique of a parallel cut that articulates a decision. When Mary emerges from her window to keep her secret 96

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nighttime meeting with the painter, she encounters Bobby, who convinces her to go back in. However, a few shots later, she stands again at the window. Griffith cuts to the artist pacing on the beach, awaiting her arrival. The next shot returns to Mary standing as before, than deciding to keep her appointment after all and climbing out the window. The cut to the artist is a cut to an event actually occurring at the same moment, but it also refers to the subject of Mary’s thoughts as she stands by the window, and so takes on a psychological dimension, becoming what I have called a reference shot. Further, the intervening shot articulates Mary’s change of mind, marking her decision, and revealing her motivation (her thoughts of the artist waiting for her). Thus, shots serve double duty in Griffith’s editing schemes and the psychological is expressed through creases in the unfolding of action. If the pastoral land-and-seascape expresses a certain innocence in the opening of the film, the tone of Griffith’s nature imagery soon changes. As the Moving Picture World reviewer put it, “The backgrounds also are skillfully used to deepen the feeling of tragedy”. The rock formations, which seemed to cradle characters, soon echo with their feelings of loss and isolation. When Bobby sees Mary with the artist, he withdraws from the scene and slumps against rocks that seem to repeat his despairing form. Likewise when Mary in effect repeats Bobby’s discovery and sees the artist leaving with his wife, her figure against the rocks resonates with abandonment. This expressive aspect of nature’s presence works as a motif throughout the film, with cliffs, shore, beach and surf threading through most shots as a lyrical counterpoint to the action, but as the film ends the presence of nature becomes nearly overwhelming and turns increasingly foreboding, a threat to, rather than an expression of, the characters. The drama between characters basically ends as Mary receives her double rejection, first from the artist and then, even more cruelly, from her father. But the film pursues the resonance of these acts of cruelty, their emotional impact principally on Mary and eventually on others as well, through the remaining fifteen shots of this seventy-five-shot film. Alone in the world, Mary stands on the shore, as the surf pounds and runs white with foam over sea rocks behind her. The sea was previously most often subordinated to the shore in the composition of most shots, which gave the drama a sense of being rooted in the earth, with the sea as a sort of eternal background. Now the sea dominates the composition, and its rushing power has never been more evident. Mary throws the false engagement ring the artist gave her into the surf. Not only does Griffith employ again an object with emotional associations as the token of a character’s feelings, but this action of throwing the sign of her (betrayed) love into the sea foreshadows her own act of suicide. Mary has nothing left on land to sustain her. Thus Griffith shows her once more sitting upon a rock, but now the tide has surrounded her perch, cutting her off from land. This nearly allegorical image of overwhelming sorrow and a movement towards self-inflected death, seems inspired by another short poem by Kingsley that Griffith undoubtedly knew, “The Tide Rock”: How sleeps yon rock, whose half day’s bath is done. With broad bright side beneath the broad bright sun, Like sea-nymph tired, on cushioned mosses sleeping. Yet nearer drawn, beneath her purple tresses From drooping brows we find her slowly weeping.

From providing a scenic background, the sea emerges here into the foreground and seems to enter into dialogue with the character whom humans have abandoned. And the voice of the sea speaks of death. 97

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Kingsley’s poem with its repetitions undoubtedly seeks to evoke the rhythms of the surf, as did, in a very different manner, Walt Whitman’s poem “Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking”, which Griffith drew on for his central image in Intolerance. In The Sands of Dee, as in all his poetic films, Griffith not only visualizes elements of the poem but also includes, as intertitles, lines of verses. In fact, of this film’s six intertitles, only one does not consist of lines from the poem. This means that intertitles here, rather than clarifying or specifying narrative action or characters’ motives as they do in most other Biograph films, primarily add a realm of poetic reference to the images. The one title not derived from the poem – “MOONMADE SHADOWS” which precedes Mary’s decision to keep her tryst with the artist – gives even less narrative information than the lines quoted from the poem, and seems intended as much to create atmosphere as to specify the time of day. The alternation that silent film allowed between images and words, here becomes part of the poetic rhythm of the film itself. The quoted lines are clustered in the opening and closing of the film. After the powerful images of Mary against the sea which seems poised to engulf her, these lines, which Griffith has re-arranged a bit from Kingsley’s poem, appear on the screen: THE CREEPING TIDE CAME UP ALONG THE SAND AND O’ER AND O’ER THE SAND AND ROUND AND ROUND THE SAND AND NEVER HOME CAME SHE.

Griffith follows this title, which indirectly tells of Mary’s death, with a shot of the shore completely bereft of any human subjects, as the incoming waves curve gently over the sand. If the human has been progressively displaced by the sea, here one feels the waves have swept the screen free of characters. All that remains is this lyrical image of nature which in its emptiness, having lost Mary from view, is the sign of death. The negation contained in Kingsley’s poem (“never home came she”) is expressed by the inhuman emptiness of this shot. The film does not quote the following lines from Kingsley that describe, by means of synecdoche, Mary’s body borne by the tide (“Oh! is it weed, or fish, or floating hair –/ A tress of golden hair,/ A drownèd maiden’s hair”). But the image that follows of Marsh floating in the waves, face down with the sea foam around her, echoes its delicate evocation of death. This floating maiden recalls the Pre-Raphaelite images of floating dead women, such as John Everett Millais’s painting of Ophelia, and demonstrates Griffith’s ability to draw not only on the poetry but also the visual imagery of Victorian culture. When Bobby retrieves Mary’s body from the sea two shots later, Griffith precedes it with another rephrased line from the poem: THEY BROUGHT HER IN ACROSS THE ROLLING FOAM THE CRUEL CRAWLING FOAM THE CRUEL HUNGRY FOAM TO HER GRAVE BESIDE THE SEA

The repetitive form of the poem still reflects the rhythm of the surf, as before, but now it has a fateful cadence and sense of finality. As the parents enter and stand by Bobby, who holds Mary’s dead body as he weeps, the shot fades. Griffith since 1909 had been using the fade as a punctuation for the last shot of the film. Fades coming before the last shot, however, remain uncommon. Here the fade marks the end of the narrative action, its final tableau of death and grief, posed against the 98

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rocky seashore. But a three-shot coda follows, an extension of the poetic tone of the film, almost a reverberating final echo of the film’s imagery and themes. Griffith’s inspiration comes from the poem’s final lines, which appear in an intertitle bridging the film’s narrative climax and this poetic coda: BUT STILL THE BOATMEN HEAR HER CALL THE CATTLE HOME ACROSS THE SANDS OF DEE.

Although his portrayal of these lines is rather literal, it has a haunting quality, an evocation of the supernatural, which is almost never attempted in the Biograph films. The first shot of the coda shows the symbolic locale of so many shots of the film, the sea shore, as two rather elderly men seem to harken to something off screen, one of them actually putting his hand to his ear. The next shot is an extremely long shot of the towering sea cliff, the waves dashing around them. A tiny figure stands among the rocks in a white dress; we read it as Mary and as the source of the call the boatmen hear. The phantom-like quality of this figure is hard to fully explain. The distance, of course, is primary in creating the effect, but so is the seeming incongruity of Mary standing among the rocks, calling into the sea, rather than toward land. She seems to inhabit the cliffs, like the spirit of the place, absorbed into them, rather than a human figure perched upon them. Further, the misty atmosphere – and quite possibly a degree of soft focus in the shooting – makes her appear to be just on the edge of recognizability, rather than palpably physically present. As if drawn off by her call, the boatmen move to the right and exit from the frame, once more leaving the frame clear of human presence. Griffith holds on the shot for some time after the men have left, ending the coda, and the film, with this image of the sea rolling into shore, no one there to witness it, other than the camera. As in the last shot of The Country Doctor (1909), this emptiness, an image of nature without the human, acts as a sign of death. Finally, this shot too slowly fades out. A number of Griffith’s Biograph films have a circular form, (such as The Country Doctor, and the practice even extends to his first sound film Abraham Lincoln), an aria da capo, in which first and last shots echo each other formally. This is not literally true of the visual form of this film; here the sense of circularity, instead, is pitched onto a thematic level and even, if one can say this of a silent film, onto the level of sound. The opening shot of Mary’s mother calling her “to call the cattle home” makes a bitter contrast with this shot in which the girl’s wraith seems to be eternally obeying her mother’s call. The repeated lines (“and call the cattle home/ and call the cattle home/ and call the cattle home”), although not appearing in Griffith’s intertitle, seem to evoke the effect of an echo in Kingsley’s poem. It is hard not to hear this echo in this penultimate shot, as Mary’s phantom can no longer be called home by her mother; her voice can no longer reach across, not only the sands of Dee, but across the length of this film and the divide it has chronicled between the dead and the living. But this coda eerily shows Mary still caught within that reverberating sound, an unheard call evoked by these images and by the line from Kingsley. In these last shots and intertitle, as well as in the narrative and the structure of the film as a whole, Griffith renders visible his enduring grasp of the cinema not only as the form that can, through parallel editing, knit distant places into a narrative unity but also as the art which can, as in the line he quotes in Intolerance from Whitman’s poem, “unite here and hereafter”. Tom Gunning

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421* BIOGRAPH

A PUEBLO LEGEND Filming date: finished late May/early June 1912 Location: Isleta Pueblo, near Albuquerque, New Mexico Release date: 29 August 1912; reissued by Biograph, 10 October 1916 Release length: two reels Copyright date: 11 October 1912 Director: D.W. Griffith Author: D.W. Griffith Source: none known Camera: G.W. Bitzer Cast: Mary Pickford (Indian Girl [the Little Stranger]); Wilfred Lucas (The Great Brother); Robert Harron (His friend); J. Jiquel Lanoe (Sun priest); Charles Hill Mailes (Old man); Jack Pickford (Young Brave); ? (Captain); Alfred Paget, W.C. Robinson (Apaches); W. Christy Cabanne, Harry Hyde, Charles Hill Mailes (Pueblos) NOTE: Location and filming date taken from “Photoplay People in Albuquerque Until Tuesday”, a news item in the Albuquerque Evening Herald (May 29, 1912). Archival Sources: George Eastman House, 28mm diacetate positive; Library of Congress, 35mm nitrate negative (incomplete); 35mm nitrate negative, plus intertitle roll; 35mm nitrate positive (all AFI/Mary Pickford Collection); 35mm paper print (fragment: 127 frames plus intertitles); 35mm acetate negative; 35mm acetate positive A MYTHOLOGICAL STORY OF THE INDIANS OF THE SOUTHWEST This production, which comprises two reels, was made in the old Pueblo of Isleta, New Mexico, where the incidents of the story were supposed to have occurred. The costume plates, shields, weapons and accessories were kindly loaned by the Museum of Indian Antiques at Albuquerque, New Mexico. The opening scene occurs on a feast-day in early times before the coming of the Spanish to that country. During the Spring Dance of the Green Boughs, the Sun Priest tells the story of the turquoise stone that fell from the sky centuries before and was imbedded in the earth, the recovery of which would mean light, happiness and prosperity to the people of Isleta. The Great Brother, the exemplar of the tribe, is chosen as the one most worthy to be sent on the holy mission. The dangers and hardships which he endures during his long quest go to make a most beautiful portrayal of early Indian symbolism. Biograph Bulletin, August 29, 1912 The first scene occurs on a feast-day before the coming of the Spanish, and shows the Indians participating in the Spring Dance of the Green Boughs. We then show the little stranger girl, who has been adopted from the Hopi, before her oven baking. The Sun Priest is seen in his kiva praying to the Sun God. Later he leaves his kiva and going out to the roadway tells the Great Brother and his friends the story of the turquoise stone that fell from the sky centuries before and was imbedded in the earth, the recovery of which would mean light, happiness and prosperity to the people of Isleta. He then asks the Grea[t] Brother to go in quest of the stone. The Great Brother has fallen in love with the little stranger girl, but will not answer the love call until he has brought back the precious symbol of happiness. He leaves with some of his friends to go

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on his holy mission. While on the way they meet their hereditary enemies, the Apaches, and a fight ensues, the Great Brother and his friends being driven into a cave. The little stranger girl determines to risk death to follow her lover and leaves her home to go in search of him. She arrives at the cave, and later, their messenger having been slain, she goes for aid in his stead. She hastens back to the village and arouses the Indians, telling them of the danger of the Great Brother and his friends. A relief party is formed, and headed by the girl they start on their way. In the meantime the Great Brother’s friend has been captured by the Apaches. The relief party arrives at the cave and drives the Apaches off. The Great Brother learning of the capture of his friend, rejects the ceremonial wedding blanket and his own happiness until his friend is free and his holy mission accomplished. He leaves to go in search of his friend and the War Captain determines to give aid, gathering his warriors together. The Great Brother discovers the captors torturing his friend and frees him. The war party arrives about this time and another fight ensues between the Apaches and the Pueblos, the Great Brother leading in the Pueblos’ final struggle for peace. All this time the girl is at her altar praying to t[h]e Sun God for the Great Brother’s safety. The Great Brother, winning peace for his tribe, determines to find the precious sky stone before he returns, and goes on his way. The warriors return to the village and the little stranger girl is very much disappointed when she learns that the Great Brother is not with them. He spends many weary days and nights in his search for the sky stone, and during this time the little stranger girl is seen at her altar praying for his safe return. At last he returns empty handed, singing the song of despair. In the meantime the girl has found the sky [s]tone imbedded in the earth at her doorway and hastens him. Bringing him to her doorstep she shows him the stone. They then don the ceremonial wedding blanket. Synopsis from Copyright Material submitted to the Library of Congress, October 11, 1912, LU30

In the Pueblo of Isleta, before the coming of the Spanish to the Southwest, the Sun Priest preaches of the great Turquoise Sky Stone, which in ancient time fragmented as it fell to earth. One Pueblo brave, The Great Brother, sets out to find the sacred stone, even though it will mean delaying his marriage with the Little Stranger, the Hopi girl he loves. With a small band of companions, The Great Brother sets out on his quest. Kneeling in prayer before a makeshift altar in front of her home, the Little Stranger seeks protection for her lover from the Pueblo Gods. Crossing the desert, the Pueblo band encounters a large group of Apaches, their sworn enemies, who attack them. The Pueblos, vastly outnumbered, seek refuge among some rocks where they are besieged. Meanwhile, the Little Stranger has decided to follow her lover’s trail. The Pueblos are trapped and have little water as the Apaches move in. The Little Stranger arrives on the scene, sees the dire situation, and bravely rushes into the Pueblo refuge, bringing water. She then decides to return to Isleta and get help. The Pueblo war party arrives just in time to save the Great Brother and his companions, but one of his band is captured by the Apaches and taken off as a prisoner. Returning home, the Great Brother decides he cannot go through with his wedding with the Little Stranger while his friend remains a prisoner and his quest incomplete. After saving his friend, he gathers a Pueblo war party which defeats the Apaches in a large battle. After peace is declared between the tribes, the Great Brother continues his quest for the sacred stone. Praying before her home altar, the Little Stranger faithfully awaits his return and prays for his safety. The Great Brother wanders for years and finally returns, gray-haired and empty handed. However, digging before her altar, The Little Stranger has found the sacred piece of turquoise. The Great Brother returns home to find the object of his quest in his fiancée’s hands. Their long-delayed wedding ends the film. 101

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Perhaps more than any other Biograph film, A Pueblo Legend shows D.W. Griffith’s ambitions as a filmmaker running against the constraints of the production policy of the Biograph Company and especially the policy of weekly one-reel releases to which it limited him. A film of nearly two-reel length (for some reason the Graham et al. filmography incorrectly lists this title as a one-reel film), shot on location at the Isleta Pueblo near Albuquerque, New Mexico, A Pueblo Legend could be seen as one of the high points of Griffith’s Biograph career. Yet the film is almost completely unknown, due mainly to the fact that the Museum of Modern Art possessed no copy, and therefore it was not widely screened. However, even at the time of its original release there are signs that trade journals and even the Biograph Company were not sure what to make of it. Its cultural ambition was (and still is) quite evident. I also feel that its narrative form and structure marks a further development of many of Griffith’s experiments at Biograph. However, there are also problems in the film that seem to spring from Griffith’s lack of experience with more ambitious forms, encountering the limits of some of the solutions he had devised for shorter and simpler films. The review in The Moving Picture World (reprinted below in its entirety) seems to express appreciation and approval of the film, but lacks enthusiasm: This story, which makes more than a reel, is laid in the Pueblo of Isleta in New Mexico. Its period is early Indian, antedating the Spanish occupation. Perhaps it will prove more interesting by reason of its spectacular features than its dramatic quality. There are fine photographs of the pueblo and of its vicinity, and in this phase of the picture alone it will partake of the educational film. There are some excellent landscapes. It is plainly apparent that a great deal of care has been taken in the making of this picture. (September 14, 1912, p. 1074)

This brief review, which reads like notes jotted down in a dim nickelodeon, typifies most of The Moving Picture World’s reviews of this period, revealing another crisis, the disproportion between more ambitious films and telegraphic reviews. Film companies during this era frequently sent out publicity material to trade journals, which occasionally led to longer feature articles. Biograph did this rather infrequently, and did not do it for this film, reflecting their attitude that a reliable high standard for all releases (or at least for their dramas) rather than a few specially designed prestige films formed the proper basis of their business. However, a short story adaptation of A Pueblo Legend, under the name of Marion C. Langdon, did appear in The Motion Picture Story Magazine for September of 1912 (vol. 4, no. 8, pp. 87–94), which was illustrated with stills from the film. Even the Biograph one-sheet publicity bulletin for A Pueblo Legend does not announce the film as anything special, and mentions its unusual two-reel length only in passing. The non-standard length itself must have caused problems in distribution, since Biograph made few two-reel films in 1912 and they did not appear with any regularity, nor did the company give them special treatment. Although a number of films inch past the thousand-foot reel length in 1912, only A Blot in the ’Scutcheon (actually shot in December of 1911), A Temporary Truce (shot in April 1912), and Brutality (shot in October 1912) were released by Biograph in more than one reel. Oil and Water (shot in November of 1912, but released in February of 1913) was a reel and a half, while The Massacre (shot in May of 1912) was actually a few feet more than two thousand. However, this last film, which perhaps even more successfully than A Pueblo Legend anticipates the narrative structure of a feature film, waited until 1914 (!) for Biograph to release it in the U.S. (after Griffith had left the company), clearly showing Biograph’s ambivalence about longer and more spectacular films. 102

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The Biograph company made a detour on its trip back east from its months-long stay shooting in California, to stop in Albuquerque and shoot two films, a split-reel comedy called The Tourists, directed by Mack Sennett and shot mainly around the train station with the Biograph comedy actors, while Griffith shot this film at the nearby Pueblo. One wonders if the film had been planned for a long time. There is no indication of when the story was purchased, and the Graham et al. filmography interprets a somewhat ambiguous indication in the Biograph Story Register as indicating that the author of the story was Griffith himself. While the evidence may not be conclusive, it seems to me that Griffith could have written this story. If so, did he pen it after seeing the Isleta Pueblo and being inspired, or (more likely, if less romantically) was this film carefully planned during the California stay or even previous to it? The elaborate use of location and of authentic Pueblo artifacts (which the film’s opening title says were “kindly loaned by the Museum of Indian Antiques of Albuquerque, New Mexico”) would seem to indicate careful preparation, even if the schematic plot seems almost improvised. Images of the Pueblo Indians of the great American Southwest became part of popular iconography during the early 20th century. The railway detour that the Biograph company took on their return trip from California had been devised and merchandised by the Santa Fe Railway in order to boost tourist traffic along the route. Since the turn of the century the railway (as T.C. McLuhan shows in her wonderfully illustrated study Dream Tracks: The Railroad and the American Indian 1890–1930) had sent artists to the southwest to produce images of landscapes and Indians it could use in its publicity, and in 1907, began issuing a yearly calendar with such images to entice tourists especially to its “Indian Detour”, which came right through Albuquerque and right past the Isleta Pueblo. (It is precisely these tourists, who would dash off the train in Albuquerque to snatch up authentic Indian souvenirs, that Sennett’s film from this trip lampoons.) Was there any commercial arrangement between the Biograph Company and the railway? Whether or not the Santa Fe sponsored the Biograph’s filming around Albuquerque, or simply encouraged it, the film company was venturing into an area whose exotic iconography was already familiar and popular. Indian dances formed a center of the imagery the railway distributed and were a strong draw for tourists. Further, Biograph’s film treatment of the Pueblos had been preceded by several other film companies. The Lubin Company released a film entitled Pueblo Indians, Albuquerque about a month before Biograph released this film. And in 1910, Kalem had released a film whose title, The Sacred Turquoise of the Zuni, certainly recalls Griffith’s film, while its plot of war between Zunis and Apache recalls the film’s first dramatic incident (although Kalem’s synopsis [The Film Index, April 30, 1910, p. 18], describing Pueblo tepees and war bonnets, would seems to indicate it was neither shot on authentic locations, nor greatly concerned about authenticity in any sense). It is precisely Griffith’s concern with authenticity (with occasional obvious lapses) that makes A Pueblo Legend striking, not simply as a sign of his concern with detailed realism (although it does display that aspect of his style) but as part of a fundamentally historicist impulse in Griffith’s work, a desire to display a spectacular recreation of lost civilizations. This ambition which will rule his most famous films – The Birth of a Nation certainly, but Intolerance especially – makes its first unbridled appearance in this film (his attempt to envision the dawn of human culture in Man’s Genesis, one of the last films shot in California in 1912 a few weeks before A Pueblo Legend, also shows this ambition, but on a somewhat more modest scale). There is a strong attempt in this film not only to use Isleta as a background for the story, but also to embed the narrative in an almost encyclopedic portrayal of the processes of Pueblo daily life (e.g., Pickford placing cakes in the oven in the fourth shot; the race that appears as a background detail in the seventh shot), of its varied terrain (the 103

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Pueblo itself, but also the surrounding desert), and most particularly its religious customs (The Green Corn Dance, which begins and ends the film; the kiva and the Sun Priest’s artifacts and costume; the “marriage blanket”; Pickford’s prayer feather and kachina; the turquoise stone itself). The Moving Picture World review seems to express some concern over this plethora of details when it indicates the films seems “to partake of the educational film”. Referring undoubtedly to “scenics” of the Lubin sort in which the display of customs and artifacts took center stage and no fictional narrative was attempted, the reviewer signals that Griffith’s direction, in which a story would be placed within an environment made up of these sorts of details, was still uncommon in motion pictures. As I have argued elsewhere, Griffith was following the lead of the Naturalistic stage (and perhaps the novel as well) and was specifically inspired by the example of David Belasco, famed for inserting such overwhelming details into his stage productions. Griffith’s Biograph films frequently show such careful detailing, but here one senses the desire to create something more than an environment – an ambition precisely to resurrect a vanished world. If the conflict between environment and narrative emerges more clearly in this film, it is undoubtedly partly due to the relative schematic quality of the narrative itself, as indicated by the Moving Picture World’s reviewer’s claim that the film, “will prove more interesting by reason of its spectacular features than its dramatic quality”. However, I believe the narrative provided for this film (which may well bear the marks of Griffith’s authorship) exhibits as many interesting features as it does evidence of failure, including its lack of balance between milieu and action which will surface again in Intolerance. That great film convinced a classical filmmaker such as Cecil B. DeMille (who will, of course, join Griffith in adapting the Belasco heritage for the screen, albeit in a somewhat different manner) that Griffith did not know how to tell a story (as DeMille wrote in his autobiography). But in Intolerance as here, Griffith was following a different tradition of narrative, one more allegorical than economical. One can immediately see that Griffith was concerned about giving A Pueblo Legend a different structure and pace than the average one-reeler. If all of Griffith’s most ambitious films begin by detailing an environment, A Pueblo Legend extends this pattern. The first ten shots of the film introduce the Pueblo world, its costumes and locale, as well as introducing the film’s main characters, before actually introducing (in the eleventh shot) the inciting incident and dramatic pivot of the film: the Sun Priest telling the Great Brother of the Sky Stone. The first five shots are dominated by the Green Corn Dance, one of the most important rituals of Pueblo life, a marking of hope for the spring rains and the fertility of the corn crop on which the Pueblos depended – as well as an often photographed and painted image of Indian life. Thus the film is not only immediately embedded in typical imagery of Pueblo culture but also within an invocation of the cycle of the seasons and the renewal of life. Rather than immersing us in narrative action, Griffith places us within a specific and exotic cultural environment. Further, the film develops several interwoven plot lines that make it feel very much like a proto-feature film. Griffith uses an essential double plotting in the conflict between the Great Brother’s quest and his marriage to the Little Stranger. But this sort of love-and-duty conflict frequently provided dramatic tension for one-reel Biograph films. Griffith’s interruption of the quest with the dramatic ambush and then spectacular battle with the Apaches allows him to provide two sorts of narrative development: one suspenseful, based in violent action staged in wide open spaces; the other, the quest, more intimate, more temporally extensive, and conveyed mainly through parallel editing between the faithful Little Stranger and the wandering Great Brother. To portray the two stages of the war with the Apaches, the initial ambush and the later 104

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battle, Griffith relies on the suspenseful editing and action within a desert landscape that had appeared in a number of his California Westerns (such as A Temporary Truce). The expansive vistas of California seemed to inspired Griffith to create shots with greater depth effects, which he referred to as “distant views”, often situating the camera at some distance from the action. (In his famous New York Dramatic Mirror advertisement of April 5, 1913 [p. 36], Griffith listed “distant views” as one of the innovations he introduced to the art of motion picture direction.) Thus the sequence of the Apaches cornering the Pueblos in the cave or rock formation is shot from two distances: one in which figures in the foreground fill about three-quarters of the frame; the second from considerably further back, leaving the foreground empty so that the figures appear quite small. Certain shots within the Isleta Pueblo (such as the Little Stranger’s return to summon a rescue party) are taken from the roofs of the buildings, showing action below from a distant high angle with figures on the roof closer to the camera, thus setting up a strong compositional tension between foreground and background planes. But the scenes of the great battle between the Apaches and the Pueblos make use of the greatest camera distance (albeit never achieving the panoramic vistas found in the battle scene in The Massacre), staging hand-to-hand combat between scores of warriors portrayed as minuscule figures against a vast desert, with a great distance left between the camera and even the closest figure. The shot of the peace treaty between Pueblo and Apache works this effect of depth in a different manner by having the chiefs of the Apache and Pueblo tribes stand in the foreground in medium shot, while lines of warriors stretch far into the distance. The cut from the extreme long shot of the battle to the Little Stranger praying before her home altar (a medium shot which frames her kneeling figure) sets up a startling contrast in scale. Griffith uses parallel editing within the conventional suspense situations here, as in the editing between the besieged Pueblos and the Little Stranger’s return to summon their rescuers. Perhaps the most dramatic and innovative editing of action, however, comes when she evades an Apache pursuer, and Griffith breaks this dramatic action into three separate shots framed at different distances from the action. In long shot we see the Little Stranger running along the edge of a desert gully with the Apaches in close pursuit. Deftly, Pickford kneels and causes the hapless warrior to tumble over her into the gully. Griffith then cuts to a medium shot of the fallen warrior at the bottom of the gully trying to get up. Then he cuts to Pickford at the top of the gully at a much closer camera distance than before (a sort of medium long shot) as she pauses to gesture her defiance to the warrior below, then runs on. If the action plot is mainly portrayed through use of expansive depth, the quest plot works by extending a sense of time. This is, of course, more difficult in a short film, although, as I have indicated in my book (Gunning 1991, pp. 236–40), even in one-reel films Griffith frequently sought to endow his plots with an extensive timeline. Here Griffith tries to give his film an epic dimension through a use of narrative delays, a new use of fades, and a technique he frequently used in earlier one-reelers to portray the passage of time, a recurring image and location. The delays are the most obvious and perhaps even the least successful technique. The quest delays the marriage, while the conflict with the Apaches delays the quest. One of the film’s most schematic (and on some level, least convincing) moments comes after the Little Stranger has saved the Great Brother from the Apache. Outside the Little Stranger’s home, Pickford and Wilfred Lucas stand as he is about to wrap the marriage blanket about them. Suddenly, Lucas stares off, blinks his eyes and pulls a long face. He points off, pantomimes his friend’s fate among the Apaches (his throat slit), and takes off the blanket and hands it to Pickford. The scene falls flat partly due to its compression. In a feature-length film Griffith might have had time to develop the character’s conflict and 105

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decision, although its failure is also partly due to Lucas’s limited range as an actor. In contrast to his conventional mugging and gestures, Pickford makes small gestures, and her patient resignation seems laced with more than a little annoyance. But it is Griffith’s use of a recurring image that most successfully gives this film a sense of long duration, as well as a poetic structure, as the image of the Little Stranger praying before her home-made altar holds much of the film together. This string of images begins in the twenty-second shot of the film (the film’s two reels contain a total of 129 shots) with a full shot of her preparing her altar after the Great Brother has left on his quest. We return to the same location in shot 89 after the interrupted marriage, with the same framing as the Sun Priest gives her a kachina for the altar. This motivates one of Griffith’s rather infrequent close-ups of a significant object (shot 90) as we see the kachina and the Little Stranger’s hands as she prepares an offering of honey and corn meal in a corn husk. Griffith cuts back, carefully matching action, to a medium shot (shot 91) of the Little Stranger whose kneeling figure fills the frame (thus a much closer shot than the medium-long shot framing of shot 89). This action of prayer and offering is emphasized by breaking it into three separate shots from different camera positions. From this point on, Griffith constantly frames the Little Stranger from this closer position, returning to it first in shot 103, which interrupts the battle between the Apaches and the Pueblos (and causes the contrast in scale mentioned before), as she prays for the safety of her beloved. This cut to a woman in prayer from her loved one in battle is a device that Griffith had used earlier (e.g., in the 1910 Civil War film The Fugitive) and will use again in The Birth of A Nation (1915), but in no other film is the praying woman used as a recurring image as well. The same framing of the praying Little Stranger recurs in shot 108, after another long shot of the battle which had ended in a fade. Here Pickford smiles, as if satisfied or relieved. The following shot shows the peace treaty between the Apaches and the Pueblos and the editing pattern (especially the fade which occurs as the battle is still in full swing) seems to indicate her prayers have brought about the Pueblo victory. However, in the next appearance of this image (shot 111), Pickford looks concerned as she kneels before the altar. Three shots later we see the Little Stranger reacting with delight to the sound of the returning Pueblo warriors and, after a cut to the warriors entering the pueblo, we return to the same framing as Pickford beams with joy and moves off to greet them. But we next return to this framing (shot 118) after she has learned the Great Brother did not return. She slumps against the wall, seems to beseech her altar, and finally lowers her head in grief. Compression somewhat lessens the effect of the long duration of the second quest (after the battle with the Apache), which is given a very schematic portrayal consisting of a couple of symbolic shots of the Great Brother to represent a journey lasting many years. But the climax of the recurring image of the Little Stranger before her altar in the same framing endows the drama of separated lovers with an imagistic and emotional power. Toward the end of the film (shot 120), the Little Stranger kneels once more before her altar. A blanket wrapped around her shoulders, a streak of gray appearing in her hair, makeup showing lines in her face and Pickford’s rather tremulous gestures all convey that old age has come to her. Griffith next shows the Great Brother on his quest in an extreme long shot as he wanders down a hillside, the distant framing expressing his lonely isolation and perhaps conveying a sense of a long time having passed as well. The cut back to the recurring image of the Little Stranger and her altar shows the moment when, digging with her hands in the dirt, she finds the stone. But after initial delight, her face seems to crumble and she rocks back and forth in despair. Griffith cuts to the Great Brother, ragged, weary and aged, approaching the outskirts of the Isleta Pueblo. He then cuts back to the recurring image of the Little Stranger as she reacts as if hearing something. A cut back to the Great Brother is followed 106

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by a final cut to the Little Stranger kneeling in the closer camera position, as she once again delights in hearing his voice and crawls out of the frame, ending this long string of recurring images. The penultimate shot returns to this location, but from the slightly further back position which framing their standing figures, as the Little Stranger shows him the Sky Stone she has discovered. The same more distant framing in this same location appeared earlier when the Great Brother previously interrupted their wedding ceremony. Now the Little Stranger brings out the marriage blanket once more. Bashful as children, this pair of belated lovers can hardly look each other in the face, as the Great Brother enfolds the Little Stranger in the blanket. In contrast to the earlier interrupted wedding, the pair now face away from the camera, the encircling blanket entirely concealing the Little Stranger as the shot fades. If the recurring image of the Little Stranger at her altar (appearing in some thirteen shots) has held the film together, especially the second half, Griffith also has used the device of numerous fades to further indicate the passage of time, giving the film a slowed down, epic pace quite different from the often breathless unfolding of action in the one-reelers. The fade was primarily used by Griffith to end and occasionally begin films, a practice which began in 1909 and became very common by 1912. Occasionally, but still somewhat rarely, fades also occur inside a film, generally signifying a temporal ellipsis. But including the fadein which opens the film and the fade-out which closes it, A Pueblo Legend contains at least nine fades! (Since these fades rarely go to complete black, it is hard to decide if at least two other shots that seem to darken, were intended as fades or not.) Most of these accompany temporal ellipses: the fade during the battle which bridges the cut to the Little Stranger praying and the peace treaty which follows it; the fade-out (like many of these fades, this is not a fade to complete black, but a general obscuring of the image) after the Great Brother’s friend abandons the quest and he proceeds alone; or the fade-out on the extreme long shot of the Great Brother climbing down the hillside. But in these and the other cases, the fades also seem to serve as a sort of visual punctuation, an exclamation point placed after a significant image, such as the fade-out that follows the shot in which the Great Brother first vows to the Sun Priest to go on his quest. Further, the fades that open and close the film, almost a convention at Biograph in 1912, are doubled here by fades that echo them in the second and the penultimate shots. The film begins with a fade-in on the Green Corn Dance. But the second shot, introducing the Little Stranger as she comes toward the camera, also fades in. In true mirror fashion, both the penultimate shot and the final shot, the shot of the long delayed wedding and the final shot of the Green Corn Dance, fade out. The final shot of the dance both fades in, like its compliment at the film’s opening, and fades out. The repetition of the same dance in the opening and closing shots marks A Pueblo Legend as one of Griffith’s circular films, while the subject of these shots, the renewal of the cycles of nature in the rebirth of the young corn, carries a bittersweet resonance, especially following the image of the lovers finally marrying in old age. However, the locale for the two shots of the dance differs. In the first shot the dance takes places within the walls of the pueblo. Beautifully, the closing shot stages the dance at a riverside location that also has a significant recurrence in the film: initially, as the site where we first see the Little Stranger and the Great Brother as lovers; then, as the site where he takes on his quest; next, where she slumps in despair when he first leaves; and finally, where she first greets him on his homecoming. Thus A Pueblo Legend not only appears as one of Griffith’s most elaborate films in terms of spectacle and length, but as one of his most imagistic and poetic, held together by recurring images and punctuated by fades that seem to mark certain moments as enduringly significant endowed with an allegorical power. If the moral of this allegory seems rather con107

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ventional (as Langdon phrased in his short-story retelling [cited above, p. 94], having the Little Stranger say to the Great Brother, “I found it where we should have looked for it in the first place... where happiness should always be found – at our own doorstep!”), we might claim that the wealth of imagery that Griffith derives from this banal sentiment justifies it. However, one need not accept this simplistic reading as the film’s deepest interpretation. The irony and even bitterness which marks all of Griffith’s tales of delayed love affairs (and in a way this film anticipates the greatest of these – True Heart Susie [1919]) does not lend itself to platitudes or reassurance. As in the ending of A Corner in Wheat (1909), the recurring cycles of nature have sources of renewal not granted to man. Further, Griffith here unfolds a strange preoccupation with masculine impotence or foolishness contrasted with female ingenuity and faithfulness, a gender contrast that runs through many of his films, including True Heart Susie. Pickford appears here at her most athletic and spunky, saving the band of Pueblos with her courage and agility, and one can’t help but feel that her patient vigil at the altar consists of a life largely wasted, even if in the most moving and loving way. Tom Gunning

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422 BIOGRAPH

THE NARROW ROAD Filming date: finished June 1912 Location: East Coast Release date: 1 August 1912 Release length: 999 feet Copyright date: 5 August 1912 Director: D.W. Griffith Author: George Hennessy Source: none known Camera: G.W. Bitzer Cast: Elmer Booth (Jim Holcomb); Mary Pickford (His wife); Charles Hill Mailes (Counterfeiter); Alfred Paget, Charles Gorman (Dectectives); J. Jiquel Lanoe (Prisoner); W. Christy Cabanne, Max Davidson (Tramps); Frank Evans, W.C. Robinson (Prison Guards); Adolph Lestina (Bartender); J. Jiquel Lanoe (Foreman) Archival Sources: Library of Congress, two 35mm nitrate positives; 35mm nitrate negative (all AFI/Mary Pickford Collection); 35mm paper print; National Film and Television Archive, 35mm nitrate positive IT MAY SEEM HARD TRAVELING, BUT IT IS THE SAFEST Jim Holcomb was a good fellow at heart, but having been thrown into evil associations he became perverted. He and a pal were arrested as counterfeiters and sent to the penitentiary. The story opens as their time of sentence is drawing to an end. Jim’s faithful wife toils and patiently waits for his release, feeling that a brighter future is in store for them. The day of release arrives and when Jim meets his little wife he tells his erstwhile pal that it is the straight road for him in the future. The pal goes back to his old life, as he reasons it is easier to make counterfeit money than to earn real money. He is soon recognized and chased from his shack, where he is molding the “spurious.” In his flight he runs into the apartment in which Jim and his wife live and persuades them to hide his kit of tools. This rash act nearly costs them dear, for the detectives enter almost immediately. The cause of their escape and the guilty man’s apprehension is too unique to describe here. Biograph Bulletin, August 1, 1912

Jim Holcomb has just been released from prison and is met by his loving wife who is determined that he will “go straight”. He gets a job at a lumberyard, which he finds exhausting. The couple’s domestic bliss becomes threatened by forces both of law and disorder. A suspicious detective, who recognizes Holcomb as an ex-con, watches him with a baleful eye. At the same time, a crony from prison tries to get Holcomb involved in his counterfeiting scheme. When detectives raid the counterfeiter’s den, he runs to Holcomb’s apartment. With the detectives in hot pursuit, the counterfeiter begs Holcomb to hide his satchel of tools for him. Over his wife’s protests, Holcomb helps his old pal out of the tight spot and hides the satchel in the bedroom, while the counterfeiter makes his getaway through the window, disturbing in the process a couple of tramps outside the bedroom window. The detectives force their way into Holcomb’s apartment and begin to search the place. How109

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ever, the tramps, their attention drawn by the open window, look in and seeing the intriguing satchel, snatch it. Therefore, when the cops search the bedroom, they find nothing, much to the surprise – and relief – of Holcomb and his wife. Given a second chance, Holcomb vows to play it straight from now on. Meanwhile, the counterfeiter encounters the tramps bearing off his satchel. As they struggle over it, the cops catch them and arrest them all. Holcomb returns to his job and, when his foreman drops his wallet, he quickly returns it to him. Therefore, when one of the detectives tells the boss about Holcomb’s criminal past, the foreman indicates his trust in his worker’s honesty.

This action-packed one-reeler shows Griffith fully engaged with his material, carefully crafting hyper-edited, suspenseful scenes with a complete mastery of his craft. This onereel film has over a hundred shots, which caused the reviewer for The Moving Picture World to note approvingly, “It is a stirring picture, an unusual number of scenes and consequently rapid action” (August 17, 1912, p. 669), in contrast to other comments from this trade journal in 1912 that took Griffith to task for his increasingly large number of shots. However, while building suspense with a rapid pace, Griffith still inserts character-building and environmental details, plus a sense of humor carefully blended into the suspense sequence. (The Moving Picture World particularly noted, “There are one or two fine bits of comedy at most unexpected moments – when the tension is high”.) While the same reviewer lauded the film as “a story with a moral, and it is clearly brought out”, what strikes a contemporary viewer, I think, is Griffith’s social realism – in the details of the story, if not in its avowed cautionary tale that crime does not pay. Further, the film is put over by two of the most talented and charming of Griffith’s late Biograph performers, Mary Pickford and Elmer Booth. Pickford in 1912 returned to Biograph and Griffith’s direction after the year she spent at IMP and briefly at Majestic. Pickford was willing to take a salary cut and accept the anonymity in which all Biograph players still toiled in 1912, foregoing the publicity given her name by the previous companies, just to have the chance to work under Griffith’s direction again. Therefore, although the Biograph films still had no acting credits, she was well known, and the Moving Picture World reviewer for this film refers to her as “Little Mary”. However, according to Pickford’s memoirs, her observation of the success of Mae Marsh, an untrained actress, in The Sands of Dee led Pickford to think she should begin looking for stage roles as soon as she returned to New York. But Pickford would appear in a dozen more Biograph films before she left to star in David Belasco’s Broadway play A Good Little Devil at the end of 1912. Pickford’s unique quality as a film actress lay, in my opinion, in the immediate intimacy she establishes with a viewer, and it is precisely through this quality that makes the theme of domestic space and family palpable in this film. Elmer Booth had appeared as little more than a featured extra in a number of Biograph films in 1910. Then in 1911 he is listed as the author of a number of minor Biograph comedies. Then, rather unexpectedly, in June of 1912 he returns to Biograph, immediately after the company returns to the East Coast from their extended shooting in California, and takes the leading role in this film. He subsequently plays in a number of Biograph films until October of 1912, ranging from bit parts to small but vivid roles (such as his portrayal of Bill Sikes in the theatrical production of Oliver Twist that appears in Brutality), climaxing in one of the most vivid and lively performances in a Biograph film: his sassy and energetic portrayal of the “Snapper Kid” in The Musketeers of Pig Alley. Although the Snapper Kid is a more morally (or at least legally) ambiguous character than the reformed convict Jim Holcomb whom Booth portrays in this film, we could see both roles as phases of the same character110

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ization. Street-smart, flashy, with the sort of wiry grace one associates with a boxer or a hoofer, Booth brings to the screen, as no other Biograph actor could, a new sort of urban masculinity: a tough with a dash of chivalry, an obvious sense of good humor, and lightning reflexes. As the archetypal image of the New York Gangster, Booth remarkably anticipates James Cagney – smart-alecky, hands thrust in his pockets as he walks with a jaunty stride, his hat cocked to one side, swaggering with an Irish physiognomy that urban nickelodeon audiences were bound to embrace as one of their own. The pairing of Pickford and Booth here (like the pairing of Booth and Gish in The Musketeers of Pig Alley) shows Griffith’s inspired casting, mixing the sweet with the acerbic, calm and patient grace with tightly coiled city nerves. If this plot serves up a moral, Griffith gives it a fresh originality by placing it within a carefully observed proletarian domesticity, laced with a sense of humor that approaches cynicism. Griffith sketches, as he does in all his urban films, the atmosphere of the tenement, creating an almost a paradigmatic contrast between its public spaces and the interior space of daily life. The corridor, with its clearly visible waste cans, litter boxes and frequent passersby, contrasts with the cozy privacy of the young couple’s apartment, while the streetfront stoop marks a threshold opening onto the larger world. The street itself holds dangerous encounters. Thus Griffith through a series of contrasts constructs a parable not simply of moral behavior, but of the joys of simple family life, of the desire to create an interior, sheltered space filled with affection and companionship in the midst of a world filled with hostility. This cinematic creation of interiority (and the threats that surround and occasionally invade it) stands at the center of Griffith’s ideology and dramaturgy, an essential aspect of melodrama that Griffith transmutes into a filmic legacy for American cinema. Although domestic interiority and the pleasures of the family hearth define the middle-class ideal, part of the working-class and union movement of this era would claim this as an ideal that workers could aspire to as well. In this film Griffith captures that ideal and the precarious balance of hard work, faith, devotion and – especially – good luck on which it rested. Introducing Griffith’s careful laying out of both spatial geography and symbolic values, the first three shots of this film move from the apartment interior as Pickford puts on her hat to go out, the corridor she passes through, and the streetside stoop as she exits. Griffith’s typically rich detailing of environment stands out in this third shot, as a middle-aged man and woman force a drunk old man into the building as Pickford exits. The interior space of the apartment is associated immediately with Pickford’s devotion and faithful awaiting of her husband’s return from jail. After the title “ONE MORE DAY”, Pickford stands on the right of the frame, tearing from the calendar the page marking the last day of her husband’s sentence; she then looks toward the camera smiling. Griffith cuts to Booth, also on the right of the frame, as he folds clothes in a prison workroom crowded with other convicts and guards. Then, as if in response to some private cue, he too looks toward the camera and smiles. Griffith’s editing unites the characters’ thoughts of each other across their spatial separation, with the camera (or viewer) as the point of relay between their glances. Mary’s softly lit apartment, filled with both her presence and the large empty chair in the center of the frame waiting for the head of the house’s return, visually opposes the crowded, harshly lit jail interior, and seems to beckon Holcomb back into a restful place, lovingly prepared for him. Mary is shown literally creating this haven for the couple, as she arranges a vase of flowers (like Mae Marsh’s “hopeful geranium” in Intolerance) near Holcomb’s empty chair. Following a dialogue title, “AND YOU DID ALL THIS FOR AN UGLY THUG LIKE ME”, Booth basically pantomimes out this sentence: examining her callused fingers and drawing our attention to the bundle of clothes Mary sewed for a living, his arms outstretched as he moves 111

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around the apartment as if embracing its space, then staring in a mirror, pointing at his face, shaking his head and dismissing his reflection with a wave of his arms. When Holcomb leaves, Mary frequently lingers at the right of the frame by threshold, as if concerned about his safe return, like a magnet pulling him back into their private space. But Griffith also establishes this sense of home and domesticity through his editing which contrasts it with a variety of “anti-homes”. When Holcomb first returns, Griffith cuts from the couple’s embrace to a shot of his jail-yard crony entering the hovel which serves as his den. This bare space, bereft of any feminine or domestic comforts, serves more as a place for criminal activity than a home. But this moral contrast is not the only opposition to domestic bliss Griffith offers. In the street Holcomb is recognized by a pair of detectives (note the carefully rehearsed newsboy whom Griffith provides as the realistic urban detail for this scene). The cops follow him into a saloon (another “anti-home” and all-male environment) where he is poised between two threats to his continued happiness: the cops watching him on one side and the crony who tries to convince him to go in on his counterfeiting scheme of the other. Rather than figuring as forces of security and protection, the cops constitute a menace to Holcomb’s domesticity, reinforcing the working-class perspective of this tale. Griffith underscores this visually by associating them with the spaces outside the apartment interior, as they lurk in the corridor. (Notice how perfectly Booth opening the door to the apartment in the foreground first hides and then frames the detective in the background as he observes from the stairwell.) Griffith cuts directly from the couple about to kiss as Mary serves dinner to the detective moving through the corridor outside. Not only is the threat clear, but the next cut, to the counterfeiter walking through the alleyway to his den, seems to equate the representatives of law and crime in their common threat to the film’s hopeful couple. Some twenty shots later (given to briskly detailing the cops’ raid on the counterfeiter’s den) Griffith repeats this contrast, cutting from Holcomb and wife still at dinner in their apartment to the corridor outside, as the counterfeiter enters with the incriminating satchel. Here Griffith moves from a contrast between opposed spaces to a drama expressed through a significant object. The counterfeiter does not belong in this world of marriage and home. But this sense of intrusion becomes embodied (on a symbolic as well as a plot level) by his satchel. Masterfully, to express the new focus of the drama, Griffith introduces a space we have presumed existed before but have never seen – the couple’s bedroom. Even after the intruder himself leaves (bounding out a window for a second time in the film), the satchel remains, a foreign object especially in this room, the most intimate space of the apartment. It seems an outright violation, therefore, when, as the cops rush into the corridor and knock on the apartment door, Holcomb hides the satchel in the marriage bed itself. With the police forcing their way into the apartment, the couple’s haven has been invaded twice by hostile intruders. With a dramatic and spatial logic Griffith frequently uses, the interior space of the apartment has now been divided in two, with an even more inner space now opened up through the introduction of the bedroom. In Griffith’s melodramas this subdivision of domestic space frequently provides a space into which threatened characters withdraw as intruders enter (a pattern first used in The Guerrilla from 1908 and most memorable in The Lonely Villa from 1909). Here, however, Holcomb simply tries to prevent the police from searching the bedroom, and when he realizes he cannot stop them, resigns himself to his fate. However, the plot avoids the seemingly inevitable through a comic twist, as the cops find nothing incriminating in the bedroom. Although this baffles – even as it delights – the young couple, Griffith has carefully let the audience in on the trick that conjures up this happy ending. Earlier, when the counterfeiter bounded out of the window, Griffith seemed to inter112

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rupt the suspenseful flow of action. After the counterfeiter leaps onto a cellar door and flees, the camera lingers as the door then opens and a tramp emerges holding his head in pain. (Incidentally, I am sure that the Graham et al. filmography which tentatively identifies this actor as Max Davidson is right. This certainly is the Jewish comedian who later starred particularly in Hal Roach comedies, most unforgettably in the sublime Pass the Gravy (1928), and who, according to Linda Arvidson, first advised D.W. Griffith to get a job in the movies). This seems at first simply another Griffithian urban detail and comic bit (and is undoubtedly one of the “bits of comedy at most unexpected moments” that the Moving Picture World reviewer enjoyed in this film). However, Griffith soon reveals it as the deus ex machina (or tramp ex cellar) that saves the happy home. That the tramps steal the satchel through the window, removing the inculpating object from the home, gives the film a comic twist that has some interesting implications. In spite of Holcomb’s rectitude and Mary’s devotion, it is pure chance that preserves their happiness when it is threatened by the law. Griffith hints at this overwhelming role of luck – good and bad – when the counterfeiter enters the doorway of the couple’s apartment building, frightening a black cat on threshold – a realistic detail carefully arranged by Griffith for its symbolic meaning. Thus, the couple’s happiness is preserved by two of society’s outcasts (although they are hardly acting from pure motives), just as it was threatened by society’s official guardians. Griffith follows the resolution of this story with a tidy coda, one part pointing the film’s conventional metaphor that crime does not pay and that hard work triumphs, while the other part offers a more ambiguous social comment. Saved by forces beyond their ken, the couple rejoices, Holcomb crosses his heart and swears (presumably to have nothing more to do with his old cronies) and they embrace. We then see both the counterfeiter and the tramps arrested by the cops (malefactors and outcasts apparently getting their just desserts). Holcomb returns to his job and demonstrates his honesty by returning the lost wallet. But the arrest of the outlaws is now balanced by the lumberyard foreman’s rejection of the detective’s information that Holcomb is an ex-con. For a happy ending, both the law and the outlaws must be expelled from the couple’s lives. Griffith winds up the film with Holcomb at work in the lumberyard, and then cuts to the final shot of the film. Mary stands in the interior of the apartment, once again placed on the right side of the frame, but rather than standing in the parlor next to the doorway, she is now in the bedroom, the true heart of the house, the core of the marriage. The bad objects and intruders are gone and the shot fades as Mary adjust the sleeves of her blouse and smiles. Tom Gunning

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423

BIOGRAPH

A CHILD’S REMORSE Filming date: finished June 1912 Location: Greenwich, Connecticut Release date: 8 August 1912 Release length: 998 feet Copyright date: 17 August 1912 Director: D.W. Griffith Author: George Hennessy Source: none known Camera: G.W. Bitzer Cast: Gladys Egan? (The girl); Edwin August, Claire McDowell (Her parents); George Hennessy (Her brother); Charles Hill Mailes (Father’s friend); ? (His children); Kate Toncray (Nursemaid); Edith Haldeman, Jack Pickford (Among children); Grace Henderson (At tea); Robert Harron, W. Christy Cabanne (Boatmen); Kate Bruce (Governess); Alfred Paget (On deck) NOTE: Bitzer identifies Hennessy as the brother. Archival Sources: Library of Congress, 35mm paper print; The Museum of Modern Art, 35mm nitrate negative THE MOTHER’S PETTISH NATURE REFLECTED IN THE CHILD Through her ill temper the mother makes home life very unpleasant. She is always contrary and stubborn when her husband suggests anything that doesn’t exactly coincide with her views. As you may imagine, these little tiffs are not very healthful for their children, a girl and a boy, the little girl especially being influenced by the condition. During a little outing with other children, the girl shows her ill temper and a quarrel ensues between her and another little girl which results in the ostracism of the ill-tempered child from the festivities. A leaky motor boat has been drawn up to the dock by a couple of vacationists and, in the course of their play, a party of the children go out in it. The quarrelsome child knows of the danger, but in spite won’t warn them. Far out to sea the children go, and would have perished had not the girl’s conscience awakened, causing her to spread the news of their danger. The children are rescued after a terrifying experience. Biograph Bulletin, August 8, 1912

Observing the peevish, quarrelsome behavior of her society mother, a young girl at a summer beach resort imitates her and quarrels with another little girl. When the other girl’s cause is taken up by a larger group of children, the peevish little girl goes off and sulks. Playing at being pirates, this gang of kids begins terrorizing younger children and stealing their pocket money. Seeing an unattended motorboat, which had returned to dock because it is leaking, the pirate gang decides to head out to sea in it. The little girl had seen that the boat was leaking, but because she is still angry she decides not to warn the kids. However, after some time passes, the girl’s conscience is awakened. She rushes off and tells an adult about the danger. Out at sea, the motor of the children’s boat fails and the leaks are letting in water. They call for help, but no one is near enough to hear them. A man, informed by the girl of 114

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the situation, glimpses the children’s boat, which continues to drift out to sea. Two motorboats are sent to rescue the children, who are saved just in time. As the film ends, it is indicated the mother realizes her negative effect on her child, while the head of the gang of pirate kids returns his booty to his small victims.

One of the first films Griffith and Billy Bitzer shot (in June at the seashore near Greenwich, Connecticut) after their return from their long stay on the West Coast in 1912, A Child’s Remorse appears very much as a programmer, covering material Griffith had already explored and delivering a well-crafted, but unremarkable little film, albeit with some delightful touches. The attractions of the film for a nickelodeon audience are obvious: seaside scenes of beach and water which would look refreshing on the screen when the film was released in August; a fast moving plot carried almost entirely by child actors – the genre becoming known in this era as the “kid picture”, undoubtedly popular especially with the children who were often the movies’ most fervent fans, but also with their parents; and a plot that includes comedy and thrills and even teaches a moral lesson – all in one reel. In many ways the film seems like a remake of Griffith’s similar summertime, beach-resort kid-picture of the year before, The Ruling Passion (1911), a relation the reviewer for The Moving Picture World picked up on: “It also is a picture of children, played by children, and its climax is a rescue of a crew of youngsters who are in an open boat that is sinking far from the beach.” (August 24, 1912, p. 771) (Did George Hennessy, a frequent Biograph author, intentionally crib from Biograph actor Wilfred Lucas’s story for the earlier film – or does the similarity come from the treatment and adaptation Griffith gave to both stories?) Even the kid pirate gang that supplies most of the film’s comedy and vitality (especially Jack Pickford’s swaggering performance as a pint-sized Blackbeard), seems inspired by the pirate melodrama acted out in The Ruling Passion. The film’s climax is almost a carbon copy of the of the earlier film, cutting between a leaking boat filled with children drifting out to sea, the attempt of a child on shore to inform adults of the danger, and of the adults carrying out the rescue. However, if the later treatment of this sequence is somewhat more elaborate (the sequence from the girl’s warning to the children’s final safe return runs for almost forty shots, more than half the total number shots in the film), I have never found either sequence more than workman-like. If anything, the greater length of the rescue/danger sequence in A Child’s Remorse becomes a bit tiresome. But perhaps Griffith and the Biograph Company thought all those shots of water and boats would delight the audiences of a film theater on a hot evening or afternoon. And the Moving Picture World reviewer indicates they worked for the audience when he saw the film: “by the exclamations around us, we knew that it was getting across to the audience with power” (Ibid.). Certainly the climax is a classical illustration of Griffith’s complete command of the parallel-edited suspenseful rescue, almost as if he could now produce one in his sleep, as he repeatedly intercuts the ever-sinking boat and the motor launches speeding to the rescue. However, The Ruling Passion had an additional interest in its theme of the main character’s, Billy’s passion for theater and melodrama. This supplied a sort of self-reflexive dimension common to all films about theatrical productions. This, combined with Edna Foster’s strange performance as the little boy Billy, gave the earlier film a more unusual tone than A Child’s Remorse. Instead of focusing of the dangers of histrionics, A Child’s Remorse pivots around a female character and her eponymous remorse. I might add that, although the very reliable filmography of Griffith’s Biograph films by Cooper C. Graham et al. identifies the leading girl actor in this film as Gladys Eagan – as does Billy Bitzer in his notes on the Museum of Modern Art Biograph Bulletins collection – I don’t think this 115

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identification is right, unless a budding adolescence worked a major transformations on this long-time Biograph actress. The much more classically featured little girl who plays the lead in this film does appear, I think, in other Biograph films of this period, but I have not yet seen her identified. Rooting this simple kid picture comedy cum melodrama in the psychology and especially the change of heart of a character shows how much Griffith in 1912 can take for granted character-based narrative structures that had, at the beginning of his Biograph career, demanded ingenuity and innovation to even make legible. Just as the extensive parallel editing sequence of this film appears almost like a template Griffith has worked out before and can apply automatically, so the child’s remorse as the turning point of a drama here becomes a simple narrative function easily understood. Griffith methodically, if not especially richly, sets up the child’s character, or at least those aspects of it needed for the plot’s development. In the opening shot the mother’s quarrelsome nature is portrayed in an argument with her husband. Its effect on the daughter is indicated by an intertitle (“THE EXAMPLE TO THEIR CHILDREN”), which sets the audience up for an understanding of the girl’s subsequent quarrel with another child. Clearly this portrait could have been more innovative if Griffith had used visual means (such as a more detailed performance on the child’s part, or a point-ofview/reaction-shot structure) to convey the parent’s influence on the child, but this film simply does not seem to inspire Griffith to a more original psychological portrait. My point, though, is that psychological processes are now taken for granted as motive forces for film stories and don’t necessarily require special treatment. The girls’ quarrel, then, is seen as a reflection of the mother’s unwitting bad example, a point again mainly made by the intertitle (“THE PARENT’S NATURE REFLECTED IN THE CHILD”), although a cut from the mother to this title to the argument does seem to anchor it in Griffith’s editing (but the shot of the mother does not show her in a bad temper which might have made a stronger visual connection). The actual quarrel between the girls provokes a brief scenic breakdown, as intra-scene cutting begins to emerge from the dominant parallel-editing structure. The quarrel takes up five shots before the pirate band arrives, first moving into a closer framed two-shot, and then cutting between the antagonists. As she sulks after the argument, the protagonist’s psychology is mainly portrayed, as is usually true for Griffith at Biograph, through performance signs interacting with point-ofview (or at least sight-link) editing. But again our interpretation of the character is guaranteed and clearly defined by an intertitle, as titles plays an increasingly important role in developing and conveying character psychology. As the pirate band enters the leaky boat, Griffith cuts to the girl looking toward them off screen, and then rising up as if to warn them or go to them. Griffith cuts back to the kids piling into the boat. Then we return to the girl who seems to start to say something, but doesn’t. In the next shot the kids launch the boat. Intercutting, linked by off-screen glances, reveals the girl’s awareness of the situation; her acting indicates her concern and her decision not to do anything. In the next shot the boat sets off with the kids on board. At this point Griffith clarifies his visual portrayal with an intertitle: “THE ILL-TEMPERED CHILD KNEW OF THE DANGER BUT WON’T TELL.” Her knowledge visually conveyed by the sight-link editing is now spelled out, as well as her motive for taking no action (her “ill-temper”). The shot that follows both visualizes this point and shows its resolution. Cutting to the girl again, we see her smile and sit back down. The contrast between the first shot, which shows her seemingly about to do something, and the final shot, in which she decides not to speak, clearly articulates her decision – the central action of the film – her transgression of proper behavior which will bring her remorse. Four shots later, the girl suddenly stands up again, looking off, her face concerned. Griffith cuts to the kids in the boat, although the distance here makes it hard to read this as a 116

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true point-of-view shot, since it seems not to be from the girl’s actual point of view. Rather it functions as what I call a “reference shot”, a parallel edit which cuts to an actual event, but which also refers to what the character in the previous shot is thinking about. We understand from the editing that the girl suddenly is concerned about the kids she failed to warn. But Griffith nails the meaning down with an intertitle: “THE CHILD’S CONSCIENCE AWAKENED”. The shot that follows shows the girl gesturing, then rushing off. The psychology as the springboard of the action is quite clear, but also, I would add, rather mechanical. For instance, Griffith doesn’t give us an incident that might “awaken” the girl’s conscience. Once again, one doesn’t feel Griffith is engaged with this material beyond a pragmatic attempt at clarity in storytelling, which he can now achieve effortlessly. The moral lesson is equally perfunctory. A claim that films could teach moral lessons was put forward by the film industry a few years before as an indication of the motion picture’s progression from a side-show attraction to middle-class respectability, and Biograph took special pride in their “sermons in film”. Griffith’s ingenuity and allegorical imagination could be motivated by these moral demonstrations. However, the chiding of the peevish mother and the lesson that children take after their parents, seems basically a now fully recognized convention, and Griffith does not lavish any care or attention on its expression. Indeed in the film’s final shot, in which we see the mother now maintaining a better mood, Griffith soon ushers her out of the way for the much more enjoyable parody of moral “restitution”, as former pirate Jack gives back the coins he and his troop swiped from the seaside kids. Tom Gunning

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424 BIOGRAPH

THE INNER CIRCLE Filming date: finished June 1912 Location: East Coast Release date: 12 August 1912 Release length: 1000 feet Copyright date: 17 August 1912 Director: D.W. Griffith Author: George Hennessy Source: none known Camera: G.W. Bitzer Cast: Adolph Lestina (Widower); ? (Child); Jack Pickford (Messenger); J. Jiquel Lanoe (Rich Italian); Mary Pickford (His daughter, or his wife?); Charles Hill Mailes, ? (Gangsters); Alfred Paget, Joseph McDermott (Police agents); Frank Evans, W.C. Robinson (In police station); Kate Toncray, Robert Harron (In crowd); W. Christy Cabanne (In gang); Charles Gorman, Robert Harron (Accident witnesses) Archival Sources: Library of Congress, 35mm nitrate negative (no intertitles but with title markers, AFI/Mary Pickford Collection); 35mm nitrate positive (Kemp Niver Collection); 35mm paper print; The Museum of Modern Art, 35mm acetate fine grain master A REFLEX OF AN OMINOUS CONDITION EXISTING IN THIS AND OTHER COUNTRIES FOUNDED UPON FACT A lonely widower living in the Italian quarter of the city, whose only solace since the death of his wife is his little child, is reluctantly a member of a secret society existent among his countrymen. The active members of this society have observed with envy the success of another Italian and feel that they should share the proceeds of his industry without working for it, so to this end send the wealthy man a demand for $5,000, ostensibly to defray the expenses of their society. The rich man is defiant and consequently the society decides upon his annihilation, electing the widower to do the deed. He at first rebels against the move, but has little choice, for it is a case of the marked man or himself. Hence, off he goes on the terrible errand. In the meantime, the widower’s child wanders off and is thrown down by an automobile and, though not injured, is carried into the doomed house just as the father places and lights a bomb beneath it. You may imagine the man’s position when, as he is leaving the place, he sees his own child through the window of the room just above the terrible instrument of destruction. Biograph Bulletin, August 12, 1912

A poor widower warns his little daughter to be good as he leaves her alone in their flat when he must go out. A wealthy man similarly bids adieu to his little girl, leaving her ensconced in the family parlor. A young woman (identified as the rich man’s daughter in some sources but who seems to me to act more like a wife) prepares to go out shopping, and teases money out of him. What The New York Dramatic Mirror (August 21, 1912, p. 29) calls a “Black Hand band”, whose members are obviously Italian immigrants, send a letter to the wealthy man demanding $5,000. They see him informing the police and decide to bomb his home 118

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in revenge. The widower’s daughter comes to visit him in the street market where he works. Two members of the gang demand that the widower attend the meeting of the society to select someone to carry out the bombing. The widower reluctantly leaves his daughter in the care of a peddlar woman at the market and attends the meeting. The men draw lots and the widower is chosen to plant the bomb. Meanwhile, the little girl wanders away from the street market and is knocked down by a car. The young woman carries her home and comforts her in the family parlor. Plainclothes detectives accompany the rich man back to his house, but they run off in pursuit of a false lead, allowing the widower to plant the bomb under the house. As he is leaving the crime scene, he looks in the window and sees his own child in the rich man’s parlor. The police having returned, they seize the widower and knock him unconscious. Inside the parlor, the widower comes to consciousness and recognizes his little girl. Recalling the bomb, he runs outside and throws it away from the house just as it explodes. He tells the police the location of the gang’s secret hideout just before he dies. The police apprehend the members of the gang, and the rich man asks the young woman if she would like to adopt the widower’s little girl. She agrees.

Both the review in The New York Dramatic Mirror and the credits as listed in Graham et al. describe the part played by Mary Pickford as that of the rich man’s daughter. I have not seen a print with titles and she may have been so identified in the original titles. My sense that she is a wife largely derives from the scene in which she teases the rich man for money. The scene takes place in the entryway to the house. He is preparing to go out, holding up his money as he counts it. She enters with her bonnet on, ready for shopping and also with some paper money in her hand. She takes hold of one of his bills and, as he turns to her, signals with her other hand that she wants it. Without letting go of his bill, he shakes his other hand in negation. She kisses him and takes the money. He laughs, reproaches her and turns to the right, moving to the rear for his hat. She pulls on his coat sleeve and brings him back to front and center, grabbing another bill. The film cuts away to three shots showing a boy delivering the letter from the secret society. Returning to the setup in the entryway, the two are shown still having a tug of war over the bill. Again she kisses him and this time takes all of the money in his hand. A lovely comic turn, but so flirtatious that I have a hard time seeing Pickford’s role as that of the rich man’s daughter. At issue, aside from the question of how much incestuous by-play could have gone by unrecognized in Griffith’s day as opposed to our own, is the parallelism between the two families established in the opening shots and returned to at the film’s end. The first shot shows the little girl seated left, asleep and holding a little rag doll. A picture stands on a table, right. The picture was not visible on the viewer in the 16mm print that I saw, but the reactions of the characters indicate it is the little girl’s mother. The widower enters holding a rose and, after leaning over the girl, he places the rose beside the picture. After waking the girl, hugging her and warning her to be good, he contemplates the picture once again before he leaves. The little girl waves as he exits. The second shot shows the rich man’s parlor. He sits reading, and his little girl enters and shows him something in her book. In shot 11 we return to this space and the little girl now sits reading. Her father embraces her and exits, as the poor father did in the first shot and, as in the first shot, the child waves. The rich little girl is not important to the plot: she does reappear later in the film, when Mary Pickford brings the injured poor girl into the parlor, but nothing hinges on this entrance, and the threat posed by the bomb would be just as effective without her presence in the house. But, her presence makes possible the symmetries between shots 1 and 2, and the careful repetition of gestures between 1 and 11. This parallelism underscores the 119

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coincidence, and the irony, which intensifies the suspense generated by the bomb: in the place of the rich man’s threatened daughter, the poor widower finds his own. But, more interestingly, the film returns to the space of the opening, and the implied parallelism, in closing. After the death of her father, the poor girl reaches out to Mary Pickford, who lifts her up. The rich man asks if she wants the child and she nods in agreement. He pats the child’s back and, as he leads them off toward the house, a fade begins. The fade is continued in the next and final shot, which begins already somewhat dimmed and is reduced to black. It shows the poor family’s room framed as in shot 1, with, as Molly Brewster has pointed out to me, the little girl’s doll where she had left it on her chair. The effect is of a single fade over two shots. This is a powerful ending, perhaps because of its ambiguity. The final images would seem to evoke what the little girl has lost and refound: hence my impression that the Mary Pickford character is symbolically a mother, and in this sense also “wife” to the rich man who will fill the role of father, however she may have been identified in the original titles or Biograph casting lists. By this reading, the ending would be “happy”. However, the last shot also connotes loss by its emptiness, the photograph, the rose left in tribute, and the abandoned doll. It reminds me of the pan over an empty landscape found at the beginning and ending of The Country Doctor (DWG Project, #158). As Tom Gunning forcefully points out (1991, pp. 217–18), these pans provide closure after the failure of the last-minute rescue and the ensuing death of a child: they stand in place of the customary embrace of the reunited family and mark its absence. Unlike The Country Doctor, there is a family formed at the end of The Inner Circle, but this conventional ending is made more complex by reference to the other, parallel, family which has been utterly destroyed. The last-minute rescue involves an alternation between the police who have followed a false lead and must return to the crime scene, Mary and the little girl inside the parlor, and the widower planting the bomb and then realizing the consequences of his action, all interspersed with cutaways to the burning fuse once this has been lit. Interpolated within this pattern of crosscutting is a single powerful scene, which benefits from two innovations in editing employed extensively at Biograph from 1911: the exploitation of axial cut-ins for dramatic effect and the methods of cutting around windows as characters peer into an interior space. There are two axial cut-ins on Mary Pickford and the little girl. The first of these occurs just after we see the widower pull aside some wood latticework and crawl beneath the house. Inside the parlor, in the standard long-shot framing of this space in this film, Mary talks to the little girl who is seated on a chair. Cut in to a close medium shot, in which Mary asks for and receives a hug. Cut to the space beneath the house, where the widower begins to assemble the bomb. The second example is more complex. The little girl is now shown seated on the parlor table in the standard long-shot framing. Apparent since our first view of this space in shot 2, a window is just visible on the right wall of the set, behind the table. The child shows Mary a locket she wears, which presumably contains a picture of her mother. Cut outside, to the detectives finally arriving back at the house. In two shots, we see the fuse lit and the widower, unnoticed by the police, crawl out from under the house. Then, walking alongside the house to make his escape, he stops, looks in a window, and registers surprise. Cut inside, not to the standard long shot framing but to a second axial cut-in, again showing Mary and the child. The child looks off right, in the direction of the window behind her, and then back the other way. Cut to the widower recoiling from the window in horror. Following the lines of development I noted in 1911 (see the entries for His Mother’s Scarf [DWG Project, #332]; The Two Sides [DWG Project, #334]; and Enoch Arden – Part Two [DWG Project, #337]), there is a clear sense of the placement of the window in the interior (unlike His Mother’s Scarf). An additional refinement has also been added to the technique. While, as is typical of Griffith, we do not see the interior space from the wid120

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ower’s point of view, the cut-in emphasizes that the little girl turns her head in the direction of the window, making it plausible that he would see her face. Given the dramatic use of axial cut-ins, it is interesting that we do not find one at the second, and perhaps more climactic, moment of the recognition. The police seize and knock out the widower, allowing for a delay while he is brought into the house. The shot in which he returns to consciousness shows two policemen on the far left, then the widower who is held by one of the cops, then the rich man, then the most prominent of the detectives, and on the far right, directly opposite to the widower’s eyeline, Mary Pickford and the little girl seated on the table (the composition is featured in the Biograph Bulletin still from this film). Shaking himself, he looks and then holds out his arms to the little girl. Cut to the fuse burning away. Returning to the long-shot framing inside the parlor, the actors are shown in tableau, frozen, as it were, in the pre-hug moment. The widower then raises his arms and breaks away from the policemen who hold him, having remembered the bomb, and runs out the door. The interruption of the first shot by the cut away to the bomb and the employment of a tableau at the beginning of the third shot thus effectively prolong and intensify this phase of the recognition in a way that seems functionally equivalent to the look through the window and cut-in employed in the first phase of the recognition. The use of a cut to interrupt and augment the importance of a gesture for the narrative is discussed by Tom Gunning in relation to 1908’s After Many Years (1991, pp. 109–16) – it effectively pre-dates the dramatic use of cut-ins that become prominent after 1911. It is used here in tandem with the theatrical device of the tableau: all of the actors within the scene are gathered into a single epitomizing “picture” at the dramatic highpoint (Brewster and Jacobs, pp. 33–78). It is a device that seems to fit uneasily within the otherwise very fastly cut last-minute rescue. Finally, and especially given the context in which all of these Biographs have been so generously assembled for exhibition, it seems appropriate to consider the way this film exploits the Italian-American background. There are the stereotypes, of course: a preponderance of bristly mustaches, a swarthy villain introduced playing casually with a knife. At points, there are the stereotypes used ironically: when two members of the gang prepare to tail the rich man, they disguise themselves by adopting the signs of the lowly jobs associated with their ethnicity – one carries plaster of paris statuettes, and the other, an organ grinder’s instrument, which he grinds for his confederate with a laugh. But there is also one of Griffith’s best atmospheric shots, the street market, which in its use of extras and evocation of incidental activity seems to anticipate The Musketeers of Pig Alley, shot two months later. The widower sits front left. Behind him is a table filled with vegetables. Stretching diagonally from front left to midground is a line of incidental characters. A woman in distinctly peasant garb stands next to the widower and talks to a man adorned with a scarf. Behind him are two children: a boy, his back to camera, and a girl dressed all in white, who frequently stares at the camera or up at the principals. Many other extras are visible going to and fro behind the table and beyond the girl in white in the right background. When the widower’s daughter enters the shot and is taken onto her father’s lap, their affectionate play (he plays with her hand, takes the locket out of her pocket and shows it to her, kisses her) is counterposed with other sorts of action: someone in the foreground stops and examines a cabbage, a policeman rear right moves the dense crowd along. When the disguised gang members enter the shot, one front right and the other grinding his organ further back in the frame, they initially blend into the scene. The first tells the widower he is wanted and exits front left. The father reluctantly puts down the child and follows. The second gang member then moves to the foreground and finally exits in the same direction, still grinding the organ and apparently asking for money, looking more sinister through this effort to appear as an innocuous part of the scene. 121

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In his Gesture in Naples and Gesture in Classical Antiquity, published in Naples in 1832, Andrea de Jorio (p. 6) writes: “We remain very unhappy that our manner of expressing ourselves with gestures, so noble in its origin, so charming, joyful and pleasing in its performance, so useful and sometimes so necessary for its effects, should be unhonoured and neglected still.” Southern Italians famously talk with their hands, a happy accident for silent cinema, and the most important of the ways in which the rhetoric of The Inner Circle works to connote Italianicity. It is not simply a matter of the Biograph actors employing broader gestures than usual. There are also eccentric uses of gesture, some which I do not recognize. For example, after the street market scene, the two gang members meet with the widower at his flat and subtly threaten him to force him to attend the meeting of the society. Charles Hill Mailes holds out his left arm, palm turned outward, and makes a scratching gesture with his right hand on his upturned forearm; the gesture resolves as the right hand points in the direction of the door. In the context of the scene, this gesture seems to mean “Let’s go”, but I wonder if it is a spontaneous invention or if it actually derives from an Italian or Italian-American gestural lexicon. The same actor employs many more purely phatic gestures than are common among the Biograph actors. Phatic gestures refer to the communicative interaction, as when the gang members point at the widower, or nod significantly in his direction, or, as in the later scene in the hideout, bring forth the bomb with a sweep of the hand that seems to emphasize the act of display: “here it is.” Playing Italians also seems to motivate more prolonged and graceful gestures, as in the shot after the gang members have exited from the flat, leaving Adolph Lestina to consider whether or not he should attend the meeting. He looks at the photograph on the table. He looks up briefly, then turns his hands out and shrugs, an acknowledgement there is nothing he can do. He goes to exit right, then stops, bows his head and pushes his hands outward before bringing them up to his hat brim, then completes his exit. The interruption of the exit is unexpected and gives the gesture great emphasis, and he rests on it just long enough without becoming maudlin. Lea Jacobs

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425* BIOGRAPH

A CHANGE OF SPIRIT Filming date: finished ca. June 1912 Location: East Coast Release date: 22 August 1912; reissued by Biograph, 28 August 1916 Release length: one reel Copyright date: 11 October 1912 Director: D.W. Griffith Author: D.W. Griffith Source: none known Camera: G.W. Bitzer Cast: Blanche Sweet (Young woman); William J. Butler (Her father); Kate Toncray (Her chaperon); Henry B. Walthall, Charles Hill Mailes (Gentlemen thieves); Walter Miller (Robbery victim); Robert Harron (Young man on street); W.C. Robinson, Joseph McDermott, ? (Policemen) Archival Sources: Library of Congress, 35mm nitrate negative (no intertitles, AFI/The Museum of Modern Art Collection); 35mm paper print (fragment: 126 frames plus intertitles); The Museum of Modern Art, 35mm nitrate negative; National Archives of Canada, 16mm acetate positive (Canadian Film Institute Collection, generation undetermined); National Film and Television Archive, 35mm acetate negative THE INFLUENCE OF MORAL SUASION Denied by her narrow-minded father all associations except that of her chaperon, the girl, while strolling in the park, indulges in a little flirtation with a young man who is one of a couple of gentleman thieves. A self introduction comes when he gallantly picks up a book she has dropped. In restoring the book, he cunningly takes her hand-bag in order that he may have an excuse to call on her later and return it, giving her the impression that she had lost it. When he calls her father is away, and so, in the spirit of bravado, she invites him in. While there he surreptitiously secures the key to the house, intending to return later with his partner. However, upon accidentally meeting the girl the second time, he becomes deeply impressed and the thought of his promise to his chum to enter the house that night palls. As can be imagined, the work laid out is odious in the extreme, but it is the means of causing in him a change of spirit. Biograph Bulletin, August 12, 1912 The narrow-minded father, who denies his daughter all associations except her chaperon, leaves the house to keep a business engagement. Later the daughter and her chaperon leave to take a stroll through the park. During their walk they pass two gentleman thieves, the younger of whom attracts the girl. She drops her book and he gallantly picks it up. In restoring the book, he cunningly takes her hand-bag in order that he may have an excuse to call on her later and return it. He follows the girl and her chaperon to their home and at the door gives the girl the purse. She, in a spirit of bravado, invites him in. Shortly after, her father returns, and fearing him, she hides the young man. Later the young man leaves, having secured the key to the house during his visit. He hastens to rejoin his pal, to whom he shows the key, and they arrange to go to the house some night for the purpose of looting it. The girl and the young man meet again, and he becomes very deeply impressed, and regrets the promise which he has made to his pal. However, the elder

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thief persuades him to go with him to the house. In the meantime the girl’s father and her chaperon have gone out, and she is left alone in the house. The two thieves enter and make their way to the upper floor where the girl’s room is situated. The girl is ready for bed when she hears a noise, and looking through the curtains sees the two thieves in the adjoining room. She becomes terror-stricken, and turning out the light gets into bed, pretending to be asleep. They enter her room, and the elder thief, coming to the side of the bed, takes a necklace which she is wearing. In the meantime the father has returned, and finding the thieves in the house, hurries downstairs and telephones to the police. He then goes upstairs, and passing through the room where the thieves are hiding behind a curtain, they pounce upon him. About this time the daughter enters the room, and the younger thief covers the elder with a gun, forcing him to release the girl’s father. Both of the thieves get away before the arrival of the police, but the incident is the means of causing in the young man a change of spirit. Synopsis from Copyright Material submitted to the Library of Congress, October 11, 1912, LU24

A young lady’s father has an appointment and cannot accompany her on a walk. Rebellious, she departs with her chaperone running after her. Two thieves dressed as gentlemen take the wallet of a drunk in the park. Arriving in the park, the young lady asks to be allowed to run and romp with some younger girls, but is denied this liberty by her companion. As the men divide their loot, the two women pass them on their way to admire a scenic vista. The young lady flirts with one of the men. Later, at the urging of his confederate, he approaches her as she sits on a park bench with her companion. She drops her book as she stands to leave, and he graciously returns it, meanwhile lifting her purse. He then follows her to her doorstep to return the purse, and she mischieviously invites him in, much to the consternation of the companion. When the sounds of the father returning are heard, the women take the thief upstairs to the young lady’s sitting room and hide him there. While the women anxiously wait for a chance for him to exit unseen, the young man steals the key to the front door. Sometime later, the young man meets the lady, this time unaccompanied, on her bench in the park. He sits beside her and asks to be allowed to escort her home, but she firmly refuses him. One evening, after the father and the chaperone have gone out, the thieves enter the house, wearing scarves over their faces. Alone in her bedroom, she tries on a double strand of pearls and practices singing. Hearing the thieves in the adjoining sitting room, she pretends to sleep. The thieves enter her bedroom, and the older one takes the pearls off her; at the same time, her father arrives home and, realizing what is happening, calls the police. When the father attempts to prevent the thieves from making their escape, the older one begins to strangle him. Witnessing her distress, the young man pulls out a gun and orders his confederate to leave the house. He returns the pearls, reveals his identity, and then the men depart. When the police arrive, the father assures them that all is well. After breaking off with his partner, the young man stands despondent in the park. But, looking up, he sees the young lady standing at her bedroom window and is given hope for the future.

A Change of Spirit was copyrighted in June, The Painted Lady in August. The second plot is obviously an inversion of the first. In both films, the young man’s romantic overtures are a subterfuge to enable him to commit robbery – but the young man’s change of heart in the first film permits a happy end, in stark contrast to the later film. In The Painted Lady, Blanche Sweet plays a shy and retiring girl who follows her father’s dictates against wearing makeup and is therefore unpopular with men, in contrast with her more spunky younger sister. In A 124

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Change of Spirit, Blanche Sweet plays a character more like that lively younger sister: eager to enjoy the younger girls’ freedom to run and play, but also capable of bold manuevers such as flirting with handsome young men in the park and unexpectedly inviting them into her parlor. Of the two, The Painted Lady is the more original plot. The story of a character about to commit a wrong who experiences a change of heart at the last moment was a staple of Biograph film production (and of other film companies in the early 1910s). See, for example, A Wreath of Orange Blossoms (1911 [DWG Project, #308]), in which a married woman refrains from running away with her lover after finding her bridal wreath or, more pertinent to this example, A Baby’s Shoe (Edison, 1912) in which a man stops short in the midst of stealing from his boss when he finds his baby’s shoe in his pocket. What distinguishes A Change of Spirit from these and similar versions of this plot, in addition to the lack of a thematic object to motivate the moral conversion, is the lack of sententiousness. There is no punctual moment in which the young man is led to recognize the “error” of his ways; his decision to abort the theft is simply motivated by the fact that he likes the girl and this wins out over greed and loyalty to his mate. Moreover, the girl is not punished for her forward behavior; while her advances to the man make her household vulnerable to theft, the flirtation ultimately works to her advantage. Although I am convinced by Tom Gunning’s argument (1991, pp. 161–65, 291), that one of the developments in Griffith’s technique of narration during the early years at Biograph is the capacity to render moral judgments on characters and events, I wonder if we cannot posit a tendency in the other direction in 1912–1913. The films of these years seem less concerned to render explicit moral judgments, and sometimes seem to go out of their way to back away from them. The Musketeers of Pig Alley (1912), for example, concludes with a comic scene in which the pure heroine helps the morally ambiguous Snapper Kid out of a jam with the police; in The Lady and the Mouse (1913) the heroine and her father are “good” because unselfish and generous, but this is represented comically, through the girl’s inability to hurt the mouse that has been trapped in the kitchen. Even in The Painted Lady, which is far from comic in tone, the theft and ensuing killing are not the result of any wrongdoing on the heroine’s part – rather it is her obedience and lack of experience with men that make her vulnerable to the stranger’s attentions. And, while the male character is killed for his betrayal of her, there is no moral resolution – e.g., no sense that he recognizes his fault before he dies or that justice has been served by the killing. When the films are sententious in 1912–1913, judgments are much more likely to be directed against “do-gooders” or moral reformers, precisely the agents of moral authority, like the repressive father in The Painted Lady or the preachy and practical aunt in The Lady and the Mouse. Much of the film depends on room-to-room cutting, which is by now absolutely standard for Griffith. During the theft, this kind of editing is enlivened by several axial cut-ins to medium shots of Blanche Sweet: two after she first realizes that there are men in her sitting room, and three more after she has lain down and is pretending to be asleep. Note that there is also a lighting change prior to the first cut-in, when she turns a switch and the top lights are turned off, which is not matched in the closer shot. One of the scenes of flirtation in the park also makes extended use of cut-ins. The scene takes place on a rocky promontory overlooking a valley. (Robert M. Henderson [1970, pp. 138–9] says the film was shot in Central Park, but the valley seems to me too high to be found in Central Park and there are buildings at the bottom of it – could this shot have been taken on the Palisades?) The two thieves are front right. The women enter front left and walk toward the edge of the cliff in the midground. As they pass the men, Blanche Sweet turns and smiles at Henry Walthall. Once she has gone by, the men exchange a look and a smile. Cut in to a position behind the women at the edge of the promontory, the valley below visible on the right. Cut back to 125

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long shot, as the men look left in the direction of the women in the midground. A second cut-in follows, in which Sweet turns and looks off right. She smiles seductively, is reproached by her chaperone and laughingly manages another glance in Walthall’s direction before turning back to the view. Cut back to long shot, in which the older man suggests robbing the women and the younger man refuses. There is one more cut-in when the women turn to leave, now ignoring the men. They exit front left in the long shot, with the men now looking off front left after them. As has been noted, Griffith does not employ point-of-view shots, nor is he much concerned with eyeline matches, at least in exteriors. Here, he makes “correct” eyeline matches and exploits the cut-in much in the way a later, classical director would use shot–reverse-shot, to call attention to the exchange of looks. Acting and staging are nicely handled in this film, especially in the case of the two thefts. The fact that both of these thefts are noted in the Biograph Bulletin, which points out that “he cunningly takes her hand-bag”, and that “he surreptitiously secures the key”, suggests that the filmmakers were aware of the complexity of the staging and sought to insure that these events were not missed. In the first, Sweet is seated on a park bench, which faces right and runs parallel to the lens axis. Walthall enters from the right and stands in front of her. She stands up and drops a book from her lap. He picks it up, hands it to her, and takes his hat off. Kate Toncray rises and moves behind Sweet into the left foreground. She stares coldly at Walthall and tries to lead Sweet off. Sweet turns and talks to Walthall, as if thanking him. Still holding his hat in his hand, Walthall uses it to block our view (presumably the victim’s view) of her hands while he relieves her of her purse. Sweet smiles, clutches her book, and exits left. Walthall then reveals the purse beneath the hat, points to it, and indicates his intention to return it. The second theft, like the first, is managed in long-shot framing. After the young man returns the purse and is invited in, there is a cut to the entryway in the interior. As the actors enter this space, Toncray turns to face camera, the key to the front door just visible in her hand. The characters move upstairs to avoid discovery. We see the father enter the house. Cut upstairs to the characters already arrayed in the upstairs sitting room. Toncray stands behind a table, which is in the left foreground. Walthall stands center midground and Sweet by the door in the right midground. Toncray places the key on the table and, looking upset, moves to the midground, while Walthall moves into her former position beside the table. Two shots show the father approaching the sitting-room door. Back inside the sitting room, Toncray looks at Walthall and shakes her head disapprovingly. Walthall stands with his back to the table (and the camera) returning her look. Behind his back (but in the foreground of the shot) he picks up the key and pockets it. Although this action occurs in the foreground, it is quite easy to miss, at least on a viewing table, because it is distributed across two shots and because one is distracted by the father’s arrival, and by Sweet’s reaction to it, being played out at the door on the other edge of the frame. The staging certainly makes it plausible that Sweet’s character, and her companion, do not notice what happened to the key. In the subtlety of the action and the use of the edges of the frame, this scene bears comparison to the more famous one in The Musketeers of Pig Alley in which the gangster surreptiously puts a powder in Lillian Gish’s drink. While this film does not offer Blanche Sweet the scope for acting that The Painted Lady does, the interchanges between Sweet and Walthall are finely calibrated and a pleasure to watch. They are based upon a concerted repetition of action and gesture. When he first approaches her in the park, Walthall returns her book and doffs his straw hat, employing it as described above. When he returns the purse, he repeats the gesture with the hat. Meeting her in the park a second time, he again doffs his hat and then, having picked up her book to examine the title, he returns it to her when she gets up to leave. After his change 126

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of heart during the robbery, he returns her pearls (a genuine restoration this time, not a subterfuge) and politely removes the top hat he now wears. Sweet follows him outside the sitting room, and there is a final repetition of the gesture at the top of the stairs, in which he takes off the scarf that hides his face, then removes his hat and bows his head before asking forgiveness. The gestures are done lightly, in Walthall’s most relaxed manner, but the accumulation of them is telling. Lea Jacobs

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426* BIOGRAPH

AN UNSEEN ENEMY Filming date: finished July 1912 Location: East Coast Release date: 9 September 1912; reissued by Biograph, 24 September 1915 Release length: 999 feet Copyright date: 16 October 1912 Director: D.W. Griffith Author: Edward Acker Source: none known Camera: G.W. Bitzer Cast: Dorothy Gish, Lillian Gish (The sisters); Elmer Booth (Their brother); Grace Henderson (Maid); Harry Carey (Her accomplice); Robert Harron (A friend); Walter Miller (Car owner); Adolph Lestina (In boardinghouse); ? (Telegraph man); Antonio Moreno (On bridge) Archival Sources: Det Danske Filmmuseum, 35mm acetate negative; 16mm acetate positive (generation undetermined, no intertitles); Library of Congress, 35mm paper print (fragment: 64 frames plus intertitles); The Museum of Modern Art, 35mm diacetate positive; National Film and Television Archive, 35mm acetate negative; UCLA Film and Television Archive, 16mm acetate positive (generation undetermined) THE TERRIBLE EXPERIENCE OF TWO YOUNG GIRLS IN A LONESOME VILLA These two girls and their brother live at the little homestead left them by their late father. The brother having disposed of a portion of the small estate, comes home with the money to show it to his sisters, telling them that they may now enjoy a few of the luxuries of life. As it would be after banking hours before he could get to the village, he places the money in the safe and returns to his office some distance away. He has hardly departed when the maid, a slattern individual, who has seen him put the money in the safe, attempts to get it. Failing to work the combination, she calls up an erstwhile friend request him to come and help her. While these two work, the sisters are locked in the sitting-room terrorized in a most unique way. The brother, however, arrives after a series of tantalizing delays and apprehends the criminals just as their scheme seems to have succeeded [.] Biograph Bulletin, September 9, 1912 The two orphan girls are tearfully viewing their father’s empty chair when their brother enters the room. He has disposed of a portion of the small estate and, it being after banking hours, he places the money in the safe. The maid has seen him put the money away and makes up her mind to secure it. She telephones an old acquaintance, requesting him to come and help her, which he consents to do. About this time the younger sister meets her sweetheart in the garden, he having come to bid her good-bye as he is about to leave for college. Later they are joined by the elder sister. Shortly after the boy leaves, and [sic] the two girls return to the house where they are alone with the maid, the brother having left for his office some distance away. In the meantime the maid’s friend has arrived and they start to work trying to open the safe. The girls enter the sitting room, which adjoins the room where the maid and the man are at work. The

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maid has secured the key to the door and locks the girls in the room. After a short time the girls are disturbed by the noise [in t]he adjoining room and at once suspect that some one [sic] has gained entrance to the house. The elder sister goes to the telephone and calls up her brother’s office. He has just left and his partner goes outside to call him. In order to silence the children, the maid has broken the covering from the stove-pipe hole in the wall between the two rooms, and places a revolver through this opening. On turning around, the girl at the telephone sees the revolver and in fright rushes from the phone. When her brother returns to the office, he can get no answer on the wire. After some little time the girl returns to the phone and manages to inform her brother of their peril. He and his partner leave the office and, entering an automobile, drive as rapidly as possible toward the house. All this time the girls are in terror as the maid continues to point the revolver at them through the opening in the wall. Failing to work the combination, the maid and her accomplice decide to blow the safe open and set a fuse to accomplish this purpose. About this time the younger girl’s sweetheart passes the house, and looking in the window sees the state of affairs. He climbs through the window and rescues the girls. Shortly after the brother and his friends arrive, being just in time to apprehend the thieves and secure the money. Synopsis from Copyright Material submitted to the Library of Congress, October 16, 1912, LU38

Two girls recently orphaned by the death of their father, welcome home their brother who has sold a portion of their estate. He places the money he has received in the safe in his father’s study and departs for work. The younger sister’s boyfriend, about to leave for college, comes to say goodbye and requests a kiss, which the younger girl refuses him. The maid tries to open the safe, meanwhile, and failing, calls in a confederate. He arrives and climbs in a window while she locks the girls in the parlor next to the study. As the thief attempts to open the safe, the older girl telephones her brother’s office. Sticking a gloved hand in a stove port in the wall, the maid holds the girls at gun point, forcing them to break off the conversation. She turns from her work to take a drink, enabling the younger girl to sneak up to the phone and reiterate their plea for help to her brother, who has been summoned to the phone. Rebuked by her confederate, the maid reinserts the gun in the hole and begins to shoot it off, breaking off the phone conversation for a second time. The brother and his colleague commandeer a visitor’s car and all three men ride off, the last-minute rescue being delayed by a swinging bridge that opens out just as the car moves onto it. Just as the safe is about to be blown open, the younger girl’s boyfriend walks by the house, looks in a window and sees what is going on. He gets the girls out of the window. The men arrive just in time to catch the maid and her accomplice running away with the money. The boyfriend is rewarded with a kiss.

This film is well known because it is the first made by the Gish sisters. It seems important to note, therefore, that it is not, in fact, a film which gives much scope to the actors. At 129 shots it is rather fastly cut and depends upon alternation not only during the last-minute rescue, but from the beginning, when the maid’s telephone call – itself an alternation between the maid and her confederate – is interposed with the activities of the girls. Perhaps Griffith chose a subject and a treatment that would not overly tax his new recruits. The editing during the last-minute rescue is standard for Biograph in this period but does involve slightly more cutting around in the space of the parlor as Griffith cuts in to closer views of the girls and to show what is happening with the gun at the stove port. There seem 129

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to me to be a number of continuity glitches in this segment, deriving partly from the fact that Griffith is cutting around and partly from the fact that the characters are relatively immobile so that small disparities in continuity become apparent. After she has tried the door and realized it is locked, the older sister (Lillian Gish) calls her brother’s office. There is a close-up of the stove port as the cover is pushed away and the gun comes through. In the long-shot framing, the younger sister warns the older one who drops the phone. Cut away to the brother’s business associate, who reacts as the phone conversation is broken off. He goes off in search of the brother. Returning to the long-shot framing in the parlor, the girls are shown cowering behind the dresser in the rear left, the gun visible on the same wall in front of the dresser. Cut in to a closer view, which shows only the girls and the edge of the dresser (a lovely composition, but it is mismatched with the prior shot, with the positions of the sisters reversed). Cut to the other side of the wall, where the maid withdraws the gun and takes a drink. Cut to the office where the brother is summoned to the phone. Returning to the long-shot framing of the parlor, there seems to be a continuity error, or at least a confusion. The gun is back in the room and, as the sisters cower, it is withdrawn again. Given the cutaway, one could surmise that after withdrawing the gun to have a drink in shot 74, the maid resumed her post, so that the gun is in the port for the beginning of shot 77, when she withdraws it again. But one of the conventions of Griffith’s crosscutting is that we do not miss anything “important” during the cutaway to a parallel line of action. Indeed, a few shots later (shot 85), there is a cut to the other side of the wall in which the maid’s confederate tells her to get back to her post, motivating the gun’s reappearance in shot 88. Given this careful motivation, the lack of it in shot 77 seems quite awkward. A similar problem crops up later in the scene. By this point, the film has afforded some motivation for random appearances and disappearances of the gun. In shot 103, we see the maid stretching then pulling the gun away, only to put it back again. Then, after the car approaches the swing bridge, there is a cut to a new framing in the parlor (shot 108). An intermediary position between the close framing of the girls behind the dresser and the longshot framing of the room, this one shows the stove port on the left wall without the gun, the dresser, and the girls beyond. The car is shown stuck on the swing bridge. Returning to the parlor in the intermediary framing, we see Dorothy on her knees moving forward toward the stove port. The gun reappears and she faints. Cut to Bobby Harron, walking sadly beside the fence where he had previously said goodbye to his girlfriend. In the next shot, framed as 108, Lillian creeps up and leans over her unconscious sister, while the gun points in their direction. The film then cuts away to show Bobby Harron’s movement to the house and the car getting off the swing bridge. Bobby Harron looks in the window of the house in shot 118. In the subsequent long-shot framing of the interior (what he sees, but not from his point of view), the gun is not in evidence, Lillian is back behind the dresser, and Dorothy, now conscious, is sneaking under the stove port. It is not clear why Lillian has retreated given the disappearance of the gun. The disappearance of the gun itself is explained two shots later: the film cuts to the other side of the wall, and we see smoke from the fuse for the explosive that is meant to blow up the safe. The maid and her confederate are off frame, presumably because they have gotten safely out of the way of the impending explosion. This retrospectively motivates the withdrawal of the gun, although not without creating its own continuity problems, since we have not seen the lighting of the fuse, nor the exit of the criminals, a particularly unusual ellipsis for Griffith who likes to show every important entrance and exit of the characters during prolonged patterns of room-to-room cutting. The continuity problems may just be the result of carelessness, but the example also suggests how much Griffith’s room-to-room cutting usually depended on the movement of characters from one room to the next (movement always perfectly direction-matched in interiors) and 130

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the planning of entrances and exits. It may have been harder for Griffith to control continuity when the plot depended upon small-scale variations in position for two sets of characters confined within rooms. The trade press does not seem particularly impressed with the film. The New York Dramatic Mirror (September 18, 1912, p. 28) finds the plot implausible, especially the presence of such an unsavory character as the maid in the house and the attempted robbery in broad daylight. The Moving Picture World (September 21, 1912, p. 1176) complains of a lack of individuality to the players: “The little girls are charming; they are not yet actresses, but in a good place to learn acting.” Yet there is a hint of what is to come in shot 46, as Lillian stands in the foreground of the parlor, holding some books in one hand and crumpling a tablecloth with the other, as she comes to realize that something is amiss in the next room. Lea Jacobs

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427* BIOGRAPH

TWO DAUGHTERS OF EVE Filming date: finished July 1912 Location: East Coast Release date: 19 September 1912; reissued by Biograph, 26 November 1915 Release length: 1057 feet Copyright date: 21 October 1912 Director: D.W. Griffith Author: George Hennessy Source: none known Camera: G.W. Bitzer Cast: Claire McDowell (Mother); Henry B. Walthall (Father); ? (Daughter); Florence Geneva (Actress); Antonio Moreno, Robert Harron, D.W. Griffith (At stage door); Antonio Moreno, Elmer Booth, Gertrude Bambrick, Walter Miller, Kathleen Butler, W.C. Robinson (Backstage); W. Christy Cabanne (Driver); Harry Hyde, Harry Carey, Alfred Paget (In audience) NOTE: Partial cast identification taken from examination of paper print fragment on deposit at the Library of Congress; identification of Griffith at stage door taken from The Moving Picture World (October 12, 1912, p. 130). Archival Sources: Library of Congress, 35mm paper print (fragment: 78 frames plus intertitles); The Museum of Modern Art, 35mm nitrate negative CONDITIONS MAKE A GREAT DIFFERENCE IN THE MINDS OF SOME Calumny is one of the most despicable crimes against our neighbor, and while the wife in this story acted conventionally, she nevertheless maligned the other woman simply because of her profession – an actress. While out on a shopping tour, the wife and her husband enter a store, leaving their little child in the auto in the care of the chauffeur. This gentleman pays but scant attention to the child, so the little one wanders off and strolls into the stage door of a theatre during the matinee. The parents, upon their return to the auto, discover the child´s absence and trace him to the theatre stage, where they find him in the arms of one of the show girls. The mother snatches the child from the girl´s arms, scornfully exclaiming, “How dare you contaminate my child with your touch?” For this remark, together with the derisive laughter it occasions, the girl vows to be avenged. Biograph Bulletin, September 29, 1912 The one daughter is shown talking to her child. Later the husband enters the room and the three leave and enter their machine. Arriving at the shopping district, the husband and wife alight, leaving the baby in charge of the chauffeur. The child, seeing that the chauffeur is not watching her, leaves the machine and wanders down the street. Coming to the stage door o[f] a theatrer, she enters, it being matinee day. The actress sees her, and taking the child on her knees talks to it, the other members of the company showing the child much attention. By this time the father and mother have returned, and not finding the baby in the car go in search of her. They enter the theater where they find the baby on the actress´s knee. The mother is indignant and greets the actress with the following remark: “How dare you contaminate my child with your touch?”

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The husband tries to smooth things over, telling the actress he is very sorry for his wife´s actions. The show girl, however, vows vengeance. The husband and wife return home, and later he leaves the house to go to the theater. During the ballet of the “Dance of Death,” the show girl has her opportunity and flirts with the husband. He meets her after the show and escorts her to her home. Later he takes her out and the wife follows them. On his return home she tells him that she saw him and thereupon decides to leave him. Taking her child she goes from the house. The husband continues his visits to the actress and later presents her with a handsome necklace. After a time financial reverses come and the [actress will have] no more to do with him. During this time the wife is having a hard time getting along, and as a last resort she applies for a position in the chorus. Here she meets the actress whom she forbade touching her child. Later the actress repents and presents the wife with the jewels which the husband has given to her, telling her that they rightfully belong to her. She then goes with the wife to her home where she is allowed to kiss the baby. Leaving the house, the actress meets the husband on the street and tells him of the whereabouts of his wife and child. He goes to them, and his wife, after a little time, consents to take him back. Synopsis from Copyright Material submitted to the Library of Congress, October 21, 1912, LU50 Deep in the breasts of most women, underneath the painted exterior of many, lie the same natural spontaneous instincts of true womanhood. This is the truth brought out in this drama dealing with love and sacrifice of two women. One possesses a husband, a child, and money, and the other is doing a song and dance in the chorus of a cheap musical show. The child becomes lost one afternoon while the parents are visiting in the neighborhood of the theater, and is found in the arms of the chorus girl. The mother snatches the child away, fearful lest it should become contaminated with such company. By a peculiar twist of fortune, in the months that follow this incident, the husband becomes enamored with the charms of the pretty chorus girl and neglects his wife so that she is forced to leave him. Soon afterward, he loses his fortune, and when the chorus girl turns against him, he is left to realize his bitter condition. The mother, unable to find employment, as a last resort applies at the theater, where she met the other woman months before. At first the girl laughs at the mother, but is afterward touched by her sorrow and destitute condition. Following the mother into the dressing-room, she gives her jewels that rightfully belong to her; jewels that the husband has squandered his money upon. It proves the mother’s temporal salvation, and the chorus girl returning home with her, is now allowed to kiss the child. The husband is forgiven and the little family of three go out to start life over again, while the chorus girl retires into the background with sad and longing eyes. It is a story of vivid contrasts. The New York Dramatic Mirror, September 25, 1912, p. 32

A viewing print was not available at the time of this writing, but the review quoted above from The New York Dramatic Mirror indicates the nature of the chorus girl’s revenge, which is only hinted at in the Biograph Bulletin. The review in The Moving Picture World (October 15, 1912, p. 41) corroborates this account of the plot, mentioning that the costume on the chorus girl is “extremely décolleté” in the first scene. This review also suggests that there was an extended scene in the theater when the chorus girl entices the husband as part of her revenge: “The next night the father has a front seat at the show. There are effective scenes showing the theater and the audience, and flashes of the stage and the dance; the father and the actress exchange glances.” The Moving Picture World reviewer also adds that after she is allowed to kiss the baby, the chorus girl seeks the husband out and sends him to his wife, prior to the final reconcilation scene. 133

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The reference to the father and the chorus girl exchanging glances is, of course, reminiscent of the scene at the theater in A Drunkard’s Reformation (DWG Project, #118), in which Griffith cuts between the drunk father, watching a temperance melodrama in the company of his little daughter, and the stage spectacle, which awakens his desire for reform. In this case, the performance seems to have had rather the opposite effect on the spectator. Note, however, that the reviewer states that “the father and the actress exchange glances”, which does not happen in A Drunkard’s Reformation, since the actors onstage are not aware of the drunkard’s presence and do not acknowledge it. In this respect the film seems to have been similar to A Change of Spirit, in which cut-ins were used to represent an exchange of glances during a flirtation in a park. I suspect that cut-ins were employed in Two Daughters of Eve as well. The film seems to fit within a general tendency of the later Biographs to downplay sententiousness, as I discuss in relation to A Change of Spirit. Neither the husband, whose “fault” is apparently motivated by the décolleté and the exchange of looks, nor the chorus girl, whose virtue is finally established at the end, seems to come in for the kind of reproach addressed to the husband in A Drunkard’s Reformation. If anything, the weight of moral judgment seems to have been directed against the sanctimonious wife, whose superior attitude to the chorus girl brings the weight of misfortune down upon her family, and whose attitude is implicitly rebuked in the film’s title, which posits the two women as equals. Lea Jacobs

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428* BIOGRAPH

FRIENDS Filming date: finished ca. July 1912 Location: East Coast Release date: 23 September 1912; reissued by Biograph, 23 October 1916 Release length: one reel Copyright date: 21 October 1912 Director: D.W. Griffith Author: D.W. Griffith Source: none known Camera: G.W. Bitzer Cast: Mary Pickford (The Orphan); Henry B. Walthall (Dandy Jack); Lionel Barrymore (His friend); Charles Hill Mailes (Bartender); Harry Carey (Prospector); Robert Harron (Outside saloon); Elmer Booth, Walter Miller, Frank Evans, W.C. Robinson, Adolph Lestina (In saloon) Archival Sources: George Eastman House, 35mm nitrate positive; Library of Congress, 35mm nitrate negative; 35mm nitrate negative (miscellaneous shots plus intertitle roll); 35mm nitrate positive (all AFI/Mary Pickford Collection); 35mm paper print (fragment: 105 frames plus intertitles); The Museum of Modern Art, 35mm nitrate positive (from National Screen and Sound Archive of Australia); 35mm acetate fine grain master (incomplete); National Film and Television Archive, 35mm nitrate positive A TALE OF THE WEST, WHERE A GRASP OF THE HAND MEANS SOMETHING At the mining-camp of Golden Creek, the little orphan girl of the late proprietor of Golden Creek Inn is the pet of all the miners. Her father had long been their great friend and adviser, and hence his little daughter always commanded their greatest respect. She becomes greatly infatuated with Dandy Jack, who is considered by all as her sweetheart. Jack decides to leave the camp for other diggings, and the little one is almost heartbroken. As he is leaving, he meets Bob, his old chum, who has just arrived at the camp. Their greeting shows clearly the value of that little word “friends.” Later on, Bob comes to the Inn and falls deeply in love with the little orphan, who has realized by this time that her feeling for Jack was infatuation rather than love. Hence she and Bob are engaged to be married. Shortly before the day set for the wedding, Jack returns and is twitted by the boys about the apparently fickle girl, whereupon he wagers that he can win her back, not knowing, of course, who the successful suitor is. The outcome is a revelation to all. Biograph Bulletin, September 23, 1912 The little orphan of Golden Creek Inn is in love with Dandy Jack. He leaves for other diggings and on the way meets his old chum, Bill. A little later Bill arrives at the Inn and there meets the little girl. He falls in love with her and asks her to marry him. After a short time she consents, and Bill presents her with his photograph. He, happy that the girl will marry him, goes downstairs and greets the men with the exclamation, “Boys, I’m going to get married.” He prepares to leave camp for a few days, and has not gone far when he learns of Jack’s return and postpones his trip. In the mea[n]time Jack has arrived at the Inn and learns of the girl’s engagement to another man. Not knowing who the successful suitor is, he wagers he can win her back. Going

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upstairs, he enters her room, but when he sees the photograph of his chum, he leaves the girl and goes downstairs and pays the bet, making the men believe that the girl has repulsed him. Later Bill enters the saloon and receives Jack’s hearty congratulations. Synopsis from Copyright Material submitted to the Library of Congress, October 21, 1912, LU51

Before departing on business, Dandy Jack stops by the Golden Creek Inn to see the little orphan, who is in love with him. Their meeting is brief, yet filled with emotion. Not long after, Jack’s old friend Bill stops by the inn, catches sight of the little orphan, and declares his love for her. They strike up a friendship and soon she agrees to marry him. When Jack returns he discovers that he has been replaced in the girl’s affections and bets those at the inn that he can win her back. He is close to success, but spies Bill’s photo on the girl’s desk and comes to understand that his rival is, in fact, his friend. Jack gallantly steps out of the picture, going so far as to lead those at the inn to believe that he had been rebuffed by the little orphan. When Bill shows up at the bar, Jack is first among those to congratulate him on his betrothal.

Even though he personally directed hundreds of individual releases while head of production for the Biograph Company, D.W. Griffith can be credited with the authorship of barely two-dozen scenarios between the years 1908 and 1913. In part, this is attributable to the fact that no story register survives in the Biograph Collection at the Museum of Modern Art for the pre-1910 period, as it does for the years 1910–1916, thus leaving us with little to go on for those first two-and-one-half years. It is tempting to try and ascertain which subjects Griffith may have written in that early period, based upon internal evidence and stylistic tendencies, as well as on the prevalence of thematic elements toward which he showed a distinct empathy. In addition, the sheer volume of films he directed in 1909 alone would suggest that he must have written at least a few of them, if only for the sake of keeping the company supplied with a steady source of material. Yet even for the 1910–1916 period, for which we do have reliable documentation, he was noted as the author of only a handful of stories. That his name appears at all in the Story Register of purchased scenarios is a good indication that he considered those particular efforts to be of sufficient merit to warrant the extra compensation. The assumption that Griffith must have authored those post-1910 films for which no writer is credited in the Story Register is a logical (if ultimately unverifiable) conclusion at which any scholar might reasonably arrive. Still, the fact remains that Griffith claimed very few scenarios as his own. Released in late September of 1912, Friends is one of those rare films for which Biograph paid Griffith a writer’s fee. It is a simple story – two friends, unknown to each other, vie for the affections of a young woman – in which Griffith (the writer) provides Griffith (the director) with a premise that will allow his actors to explore their characters with a minimum of expositional baggage. Though set quite specifically in a mining camp in the American West during the mid-nineteenth century, the action of this film could have been set just about anywhere, at any time. The universality of its theme and the concision of its narrative allow the actors in Friends to convey emotion and psychology through gestures of the utmost simplicity; this, combined with Griffith’s canny blocking of the action, results in a film for which the intertitles are almost superfluous. The establishment of the relationship between the little orphan (Pickford) and Dandy Jack (Walthall) illustrates this point. We have already seen Pickford in her room above the 136

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bar, followed by a shot of Walthall as he jauntily enters the saloon and greets its patrons. Pickford leaves her room and comes halfway down the stairs to the bar, when she stops and calls to Walthall. Twice, Griffith inserts a close shot of Pickford on the stairs, emphasizing the fact that she is beckoning to him. She goes upstairs to her room and, seeing that he has not followed, she taps the floor sternly with her foot. Walthall, still at the bar, looks up toward the sound of the tapping. Pickford, in her room, looks toward the door and taps the floor again, this time a bit more gently. Walthall responds favorably to this second summons and ascends the stairs to bid her farewell as he leaves town. An intertitle has already introduced Jack as the girl’s “sweetheart”, about to leave the camp for his “diggings”, so this sequence of shots is unnecessary to the story’s forward movement; Griffith might just have easily had Walthall enter Pickford’s room directly and sent him off with a tearful embrace. But in creating this small exchange, Griffith establishes the playful nature of their relationship, as well as Jack’s need to appear in control of it (ignoring the first foot tap) while satisfying the girl’s desire to see him alone (answering the second foot tap). The good-natured reaction of the men in the saloon reinforces the impression that Jack, though prideful, is nonetheless a man who willingly answers love’s call. The next time Jack enters in the girl’s room, the circumstances are quite different. In the interim, she has met Bill (Barrymore), to whom she has become engaged; he is also Jack’s friend. Jack has heard of the girl’s betrothal to a “stranger” and bets the denizens of the saloon that he can win her back. When next he passes over her threshold, he does so in a manner that suggests authority and, to an unsettling degree, possession. This is the one and only time in the film that Griffith hints at the possibility of the little orphan being a “kept woman”. She motions for Jack to leave, but he approaches her and she falls into his arms. It is clear that he has some mysterious power over the girl. While embracing her, he looks down and sees his friend’s photograph on her table. Realizing that his rival is his friend Bill, Jack willingly steps out of the picture so that the two may be together. However, he still must save some small part of his reputation, so he pretends that the girl has rejected him and, when he returns to the bar, he pays off the wager without letting on that he has acted in any way nobly. At the film’s end, when Bill arrives at the bar, Jack greets him warmly, without revealing what has transpired. The ambiguity of this film’s title belies its complexity. We may assume, naturally enough, that the friends referred to are Jack and Bill. Still, the title is not Two Friends or The Rival Friends, but simply Friends. This allows for the consideration of a variety of relationships: Jack and Bill, Jack and the girl, Bill and the girl, and, ultimately, all three protagonists. The underlying reality that unites these three people is their shared friendship, although only Jack is aware of its full dimension. Friendship creates the bond that leads to love, as it must also, at times, lead to sacrifice. Jack experiences all of this, as well as the satisfaction of knowing that he has acted in such a way that those closest to him have found happiness. It is his selflessness that closes the circle of friendship and elevates it to something more than simple affection. Ultimately, this is what concerns Griffith, both as writer and director. The incidental realities of life in a mining camp, while carefully recreated, are secondary to the larger, timeless story of what binds us, one to another. Whether it be love’s desire signaled by the gentle tap of a shoe, or love’s sacrifice exhibited in the brave face of a rejected suitor, Griffith offers us in Friends a small, jewel-like parable concerning that most puzzling, yet rewarding of human relationships. Steven Higgins

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429* BIOGRAPH

SO NEAR, YET SO FAR Filming date: finished July 1912 Location: East Coast Release date: 30 September 1912 Release length: 999 feet Copyright date: 23 October 1912 Director: D.W. Griffith Script: George Hennessy [“Their First Meeting”] Camera: G.W. Bitzer Cast: Walter Miller (Howard); Mary Pickford (Young woman); L.M. Wells? (Her father); Robert Harron (The rival); ? (Brother); Charles Hill Mailes, Claire McDowell (Rich friends in other town); ? (Maid); Lionel Barrymore, Antonio Moreno, Courtenay Foote, Adolph Lestina, Robert Harron, W. Christy Cabanne, Gus Pixley, W.C. Robinson, J. Waltham (In club); Elmer Booth, Harry Carey (Thieves); Dorothy Gish, Lillian Gish (Friends); W. Christy Cabanne, Florence Geneva (On street) Archival Sources: Library of Congress, 35mm nitrate negative (AFI/Mary Pickford Collection); 35mm paper print (fragment: 91 frames plus intertitles); The Museum of Modern Art, 35mm acetate fine grain master; National Film and Television Archive, 35mm nitrate positive THE REWARD OF PERSISTENCE MAY BE DELAYED, BUT IT IS INEVITABLE The world may love the lover, but it often tantalizingly throws obstacles in his way. Howard saw the girl and was transfixed with admiration for her. Being of a backward nature, he misses the opportunity to be introduced. The girl is amused at his embarrassment, and when in his fluster he drops his fraternity pin, she picks it up, unobserved by him, and keeps it as a souvenir of their first near-meeting. On several other occasions he almost succeeds in being introduced to her, but always when he is nearest the goal of his desire he is hurled into the depths of despair. Still he persists, until finally his perseverance is rewarded through a most unique trick of fate. Biograph Bulletin, September 30, 1912 The girl who is very pretty and possesses the most beautiful golden curls finds the boy’s frat pin. The boy is very anxious to meet her, but each time he is about to receive an introduction something turns up which prevents it. The girl goes to visit friends in another town and tells about the nice boy whose frat pin she has found. The boy also visits the same place. The friend’s husband leaves the house to go to his club. On the way he meets the boy and insists upon his spending the evening with him. While at the club the boy continually raves about the girl with the beautiful curls. On leaving, the husband insists that the boy go home with him. It is very late when they arrive home and the man, in order to deceive his wife as to the hour of his returning, turns the clocks back two hours. The next morning he is late for business and forgets to tell his wife about the visitor whom he brought home with him the night before. In his haste, the husband drops his purse. Later the wife leaves to do a little shopping and the girl is the only one in the house except the visitor in the spare room. She sees the purse on the floor and noting the large amount of money which it contains, decides to hide it for safety. Two crooks, posing as delivery boys, determine to get the money and enter the house before she has had a chance to

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hide it. In the struggle which ensues, the girl screams. This awakens the boy and going to the door he finds it locked. Jumping through the window, he runs around to the other side of the house and enters the window through which the crooks have gained entrance. When he enters the room, the crooks become frightened and run, but the girl, thinking he is another burglar, thrusts the money into his hands and runs from the house. The boy hastens after her. In the meantime the husband has discovered the loss of his purse and returns to his home arriving there just as the girl comes out of the house. The much desired introduction then follows. Synopsis from Copyright Material submitted to the Library of Congress, October 23, 1912, LU54

A young man is constantly thwarted in his attempts to meet a beautiful young woman with golden curls. Even after she finds his fraternity pin, he is unable to make an introduction. She travels to a nearby town to visit a friend and her husband. The young man visits the same town and, by chance, meets the husband, who is his old friend. They go off to a club, where the young man rhapsodizes over the girl with the curls. Eventually, the two revelers return home drunk and, after turning back the clocks two hours to cover up their lateness, they go to bed, the young visitor sleeping in the spare room. In the morning the husband is a victim of his own trickery and rushes off late to work, followed by his wife. The young woman, left alone in the house, is unaware that someone is sleeping in the spare room. She picks up the husband’s wallet, which he left behind in his haste, and two crooks, lurking outside the house, observe her through a window with the wallet and its considerable contents. They break in and try to steal the wallet. The young man, hearing the scuffle and locked in his room, jumps out the window, runs around the house, and thwarts the robbery by entering through another window. The girl, not waiting to find out who has intervened, assumes he is another crook and hands him the wallet as she rushes out of the house. He follows her down the front steps, tries to hand the wallet to her, and they both encounter the husband returning home. He and his wife properly introduce the two young people and all ends happily.

Filmed from a scenario by George Hennessy entitled “Their First Meeting”, So Near, Yet So Far is an unassuming little farce masquerading as a one-reel comedy-drama. Hennessy contributed more than fifty scenarios to Biograph in the years 1911–1913 alone, making him its most prolific author of comedies, melodramas, and nearly every genre in between. Relying more on charming coincidence than logical plotting, his work proved a boon to the studio, allowing its directors to draw upon his backlog of loosely constructed scenarios for years to come. Filmmakers as unlike each other as D.W. Griffith, Mack Sennett and Anthony O’Sullivan regularly used Hennessy’s stories to produce serviceable, at times enduring films for Biograph. In So Near, Yet So Far, Griffith attempts to tame the scenario’s disjointed, incident-filled narrative by fragmenting the action into ever-smaller pieces of business, until, by film’s end, his editing pattern becomes noticeably accelerated. Such heightened rhythms may signal any number of things in a motion picture, from compressed or stretched time to psychological or emotional complexity; however, in this release Griffith quickens the pace because he must find a way to maintain audience interest in the slight, if pleasant story. This is not to suggest that the film feels in any way rushed or frantic; on the contrary, by 1912 D.W. Griffith was already a master of cinematic pacing. Soon after beginning his career as a director in 1908, Griffith understood its effectiveness and experimented with it constantly – first within the 139

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shot, by the skillful blocking of actors and the careful direction of their performances, and later through the additional complexity afforded by editing. The film’s opening scenes are somewhat perfunctory, doing little more than delineating the basic relationships among the principals and getting the young man and woman in the same house, where the heart of the story unfolds. Still, these establishing scenes contain a number of grace notes that, in typical Griffith fashion, make them more than simple exposition. The several shots of small-town (Fort Lee?) streets, on which the young man is frustrated in his attempts to meet the young woman, must have, even in 1912, evoked a sense of nostalgia in audiences, a longing for an America recently past. To those of us seeing these views in the 21st century, the pull of the pastoral is even stronger. Of course, as is to be expected in a film directed by Griffith, the actors lace their performances with small bits of business that make their characters true individuals. In particular, Claire McDowell’s small, unselfconscious gesture of removing her fall from her hair offers the audience a brief glimpse of the real woman, while also providing a nice counterpoint to Mary Pickford’s character, the young woman with the golden (and real) curls. Indeed, McDowell and Charles Hill Mailes, as the married friends, clearly bring their off-screen relationship as husband and wife to their roles, using it to give their several scenes together an ease and believability that is refreshing to watch. In the end, though, the point of So Near, Yet So Far is the final sequence in which the young woman is attacked by the burglars and is rescued by the young man. The many coincidences, credible and otherwise, that Hennessy’s scenario has laid out before us now come together in an effort to make the meeting happen. The burglars, of course, are the element that lend the film what little drama it possesses, but their appearance, as well as the offhanded manner in which they are disposed of, make it obvious that they too are merely a device to bring the two leads together. Elmer Booth and Harry Carey portray the thieves and, it must be admitted, Griffith does try to make them menacing. However, neither the manner in which they slink along the side of the house nor the close-up of Booth’s clenched hand about to reach out to silence Mary Pickford’s cry for help, convey any palpable sense of danger. The former scene, while handled only adequately here, does offer Griffith and his two actors a chance to rehearse for The Musketeers of Pig Alley (filmed within a month of this release), where a similar sequence is developed successfully into a truly memorable depiction of menace. The suggestion made above – that So Near, Yet So Far is a little film aspiring to something grander – is not intended as a derogatory comment; rather, it is an indication of how, given slender material, Griffith was willing and often able to apply his considerable gifts as a filmmaker to the creation of fully realized subjects. If the comprehensive, chronological screening of D.W. Griffith’s Biograph films demonstrates anything, it is that as his filmmaking skills developed, and as his cinematic repertoire expanded, his need to load films with narrative incident declined. He came to understand, by the daily exercise of his craft, that how a film told its story is just as – if not more – important than the story itself. Steven Higgins

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430* BIOGRAPH

A FEUD IN THE KENTUCKY HILLS Filming date: finished ca. July 1912 Location: Milford, Pennsylvania Release date: 3 October 1912 Release length: one reel Copyright date: 30 October 1912 Director: D.W. Griffith Author: D.W. Griffith Source: none known Camera: G.W. Bitzer Cast: Mary Pickford (Daughter); Charles Hill Mailes, Kate Bruce (Her parents); Walter Miller, Robert Harron, Jack Pickford (Her brothers); Henry B. Walthall (Psalm singer); William J. Butler, Harry Hyde (Clan members); Elmer Booth, Harry Carey, Frank Opperman, W.C. Robinson, Frank Evans, J. Jiquel Lanoe, Adolph Lestina (In second clan) Archival Sources: Library of Congress, 35mm nitrate negative (AFI/Enrique J. Bouchard Collection); 35mm nitrate negative (plus intertitle roll, AFI/Mary Pickford Collection); 35mm nitrate positive (1916 reissue, Richard Marshall Collection); The Museum of Modern Art, 35mm acetate fine grain master (Hirsh–Aywon reissue); National Film and Television Archive, 35mm nitrate positive (black and white); 35mm nitrate positive (tinted) HOW THE MOUNTAINEERS SETTLED AFFAIRS OF HONOR The two brothers and the little adopted daughter of the household grew up from childhood together. The girl and the younger brother were childhood sweethearts, he being so different in nature from his elder brother, who was considered the bad man and dead shot of the hills. The younger brother has been living in the valley for a long time and returns to his home at the time the story opens. He is quite a contrast to his elder brother, in fact to the whole family, – refined, educated and, of course, a revelation to the little girl, who, though betrothed to the elder brother, is strongly attracted by him. Hence there is a renewal of childhood’s affection. This the elder brother ferociously objects to, making it understood that the girl is engaged to him, so the younger boy, for the sake of peace, decides to leave the place. However, fate decrees it otherwise, for an old feud is reawakened and he joins his brother to fight the common enemy. This incident reverses conditions. Biograph Bulletin, October 3, 1912 The two brothers and the little adopted daughter of the household grew up from childhood together. The girl and the younger brother were childhood sweethearts, he being so different in nature from his elder brother, who was considered the bad man and dead shot of the hills. The younger brother has been living in the valley for a long time and returns to his home at the time the story opens. He is quite a contrast to his elder brother, in fact to the whole family, – refined, educated and, of course, a revelation to the little girl, who, though betrothed to the elder brother, is strongly attracted by him. Hence there is a renewal of childhood’s affection. This the elder brother ferociously objects to, making it understood that the girl is engaged to him, so the younger boy, for the sake of peace, decides to leave the place. However, the father is involved in a reawakened feud and the boy determines to stay. A fierce fight follows and after a time the two brothers

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are the only ones left excepting the girl and their mother and father. Seeing that unless they escape the entire family will be exterminated, the elder brother tells the young to go and save the women while he holds the enemy at bay. This the younger brother does and leads them to safety. But the father will not leave his home and returns to the cabin, his wife following him. They are killed at their doorway, leaving the girl and younger brother the only survivors of the feud. Synopsis from Copyright Material submitted to the Library of Congress, October 30, 1912, LU65

The elder son of a mountain family is a manly type, a singer of psalms and a dead shot with a rifle. He is attracted to the adopted daughter of the family and, reluctantly, she accepts his proposal of marriage. Soon the younger son, who has been away for a time in the valley, returns home. He and the girl had been sweethearts, and they renew their friendship. The elder son objects to his brother’s attentions toward his betrothed, fights him, and sends him away from the mountain. The younger son, who has been softened by his time away from the clan, cannot withstand his brother’s onslaught and departs. At the same time, a feud reerupts between the brothers’ clan and a neighboring family. The younger son determines to stay and help his family defend itself. Things go badly for their clan, and soon the brothers find themselves and their family in a desperate gunfight near their home. As one by one their relatives fall dead, the elder brother proposes that he stay and fight off the attackers while the younger one escapes to take the parents and girl to safety. He does this, but the old mother and father later return to their cabin and are killed. The elder son is also killed. In the end, all that remain of the clan are the young boy and girl, and they sadly make their way down the mountain to the valley below.

One of two subjects known to have been filmed in Milford, Pennsylvania, during the summer of 1912 – likely other subjects were filmed there at the same time, but Biograph Company records do not identify them – A Feud in the Kentucky Hills was both written and directed by D.W. Griffith. Yet to say that this film was “written” in any formal sense – i.e., broken down into a detailed shooting script, with each shot’s setting and action fully described – would probably be inaccurate, as it would be for many Griffith Biographs. For while he came to his films fully prepared, many of Griffith’s early works have a feeling of improvisation about them, in that they are light on plotting, yet carefully thought out in their exploration of character and their visual analysis of action. Both of these qualities are attainable by experimenting on the spot, without the use of a carefully structured shooting script. However, what they do require on the director’s part, aside from a well-articulated story, is a good working rapport with actors, an eye for camera placement based on a thorough evaluation of locations, and the ability to edit “in the camera”. So even though Biograph paid Griffith for writing A Feud in the Kentucky Hills – his name is clearly entered in the studio’s Story Register for the years 1910–1916 – perhaps it is best to say that he was its “author”, in the broadest sense of the word. This becomes clearer upon an attentive viewing of the film. The story is really two stories: a sibling rivalry for the love of a girl, and the recurrence of a long-simmering feud between two families. Griffith does very little to interweave these two narratives, introducing the feud as a mere device for bringing resolution to the rivalry. Still, and despite the fact that the film has only the barest of narrative structures, its two halves reveal Griffith at his most inventive. Henry B. Walthall plays the psalm-singing, dead-shot older brother with a rough charm that is absolutely necessary if the audience is to believe in the noble sacrifice he makes at 142

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the film’s end. The actor’s ability to appear roguish, while still suggesting an inner core of decency, is central to the success of his performance (as it is in Friends, finished just prior to this film), and Walthall’s devil-may-care attitude conveys both animal instinct and calculating intelligence. He is the heart of the film. The rest of the performers, as good as they are, portray essentially stock characters. Mary Pickford, as the adopted daughter, has little to do but seethe resentment at the older brother and his attentions, while she swoons at the younger brother and his renewed ardor for her. During the climactic gunfight, she is reduced to observing the battle from within the cabin, overheatedly reporting its progress to her elderly parents. Walter Miller brings a softness to the younger brother that is key to understanding his sibling’s disdain for him, as well as explaining why the girl is so attracted to him. As in so many other Biograph films of this period, Miller and Walthall are well matched as foils for each other’s performance. In an almost off-handed sequence of shots, Griffith bridges the two halves of his film and sets in motion the series of events that precipitate the outbreak of the feud. The film’s rhythm shifts quickly and noticeably to a heightened level, reflecting the movements and emotions of the combatants, and Griffith’s deft combination of long, medium and close shots keeps the audience perfectly situated throughout the battle. This entire sequence, while it must have been carefully considered in advance of filming, was almost certainly improvised on site, the better to take advantage of the distinctive landscape near the Delaware Water Gap in Pennsylvania. In such a situation, reliance on a detailed shooting script would have been more of a hindrance than a help to Griffith, lending support to the notion that A Feud in the Kentucky Hills was not “written” in any usual sense. With the exception of the two brothers, none of the fighting members of the two families assumes any truly individualizing characteristics, emphasizing the fact that this entire sequence is really but a prelude to the settlement of their rivalry. Despite the fact that the two clans seem evenly matched on screen, one must be decimated when the end comes. This is done so that, even though the older brother’s sacrifice is motivated by nothing more than an unexplained and sudden change of heart, his desire to “do right” by the young lovers takes on an even nobler aspect. As the film closes, the family’s lone surviving couple looks toward “the peaceful valleys” below. As a footnote to this film’s history, mention must be made of the fact that the print surviving in the archive of the Museum of Modern Art in New York is a re-issue print, released in the twenties by Nathan Hirsh, through Hirsh–Aywon. At that time, Hirsh had acquired the right to re-release certain short films produced by studios that had since folded, Biograph among them. In preparing them for market, his company re-titled the films. Original titles were discarded, new ones written and inserted randomly throughout the subject, often with artwork added for atmospheric effect. All of this was done to make the film more attractive to twenties audiences and, not incidentally, to stretch a one-reel original into a new two-reeler. A Feud in the Kentucky Hills was no exception. Unfortunately, the changes wrought by this process all but ruin the film. Dialogue titles filled with hillbilly jargon are inserted liberally throughout: “YOU LET MY GAL ALONE!”; “SHE AIN’T YOURN. SHE’S MINE.”; “YOU’RE MY WOMAN, D’YE HEAR? NOW GIT BACK TO THE HOUSE.” In addition, attempts to flesh out characters by giving them names – Liza Homan, Wate Tulliver, Bayliss Allen – and personality traits – “…DREAMING OF SOMETHING BETTER THAN THEIR IGNORANCE AND ISOLATION”; “SLAVES TO THE SULLEN HATRED THAT HAS DOMINATED THEIR LIVES” – weight the re-release with so much extraneous matter one spends more time reading than watching. The original release of A Feud in the Kentucky Hills required only ten spare, judiciously placed intertitles; the Hirsh–Aywon re-issue uses more than thirty. Steven Higgins 143

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431* BIOGRAPH

IN THE AISLES OF THE WILD Filming date: finished ca. July 1912 Location: East Coast Release date: 14 October 1912; reissued by Biograph, 10 January 1916 Release length: one reel Copyright date: 30 October 1912 Director: D.W. Griffith Author: Stanner E.V. Taylor Source: none known Camera: G.W. Bitzer Cast: Claire McDowell (Elder daughter); Lillian Gish (Younger daughter); William J. Butler (Widower); Henry B. Walthall (Jim Watson); Harry Carey (Bob Cole); Alfred Paget (Indian); Elmer Booth, Charles Hill Mailes (Woodsmen) NOTE: Information on casting taken from examination of paper print fragment on deposit at the Library of Congress. Archival Sources: Library of Congress, 35mm paper print (fragment: 99 frames plus intertitles); The Museum of Modern Art, 35mm nitrate negative THE TERRIBLE RESULT OF A WOMAN’S WHIM A widower and his two daughters live in the wilds o[f] the North woods. They form the acquaintance of two trappers, Bob Cole and Jim Watson, who hunt in the neighborhood. As fate will have it, both trappers love the same girl – the elder sister, but she loves Bob, while the younger girl is attracted by Jim. The elder girl, however, through a woman’s whim, pays marked attention to Jim simply to arouse jealousy in Bob. He, in temper, cannot reason her motive and leaves, so through pique she accepts and marries Jim. Later Bob revisits the place, feeling that the girl loves him best, and tries to induce her to go away with him. He finally succeeds and, as you may imagine, fate brings about justice. Biograph Bulletin, October 14, 1912 A widower and his two daughters live in the wilds of the North woods. They form the acquaintance of two trappers, Bob Cole and Jim Watson, who hunt in the neighborhood. As fate will have it, both trappers love the same girl – the elder sister, but she loves Bob, while the younger girl is attracted by Jim. The elder girl, however, through a woman’s whim, pays marked attention to Jim simply to arouse jealousy in Bob. He, in temper, cannot reason her motive and leaves, so through pique she accepts and marries Jim. Jim leaves on a hunting trip and soon after his departure Bob revisits the place, feeling that the girl loves him best and asks her to go away with him and right the mistake she has made. He leaves her cabin, arranging to meet her down the road. While the girl is gathering her belongings together her sister enters to borrow some flour. She suspects that something is wrong and following her, sees her meet Bob and go off with him. Hastening home, the sister tells her father. Jim, in the meantime, has lost his pack and returns home. Entering his cabin, he finds it empty. The sister advises him of her suspicions and he goes off in search of his wife and Bob. Their provisions low, Bob goes in search of game. After he has gone the husband comes to the place where the girl and Bob have camped and

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being weak from hunger, asks his wife for food. She drives him off, telling him there is food for one only. While Bob is in search of game he meets a band of wandering Indians and is killed by them. The girl weary of the long wait goes to find him. She at last comes upon his body. In the deserted woods famine delivers justice, the girl falling dead beside him. Later the husband is met by some lumbermen who give him food, enabling him to continue his journey in search of his wife and Bob. He comes upon their bodies, and leaving them lying on the ground, returns to the cabin of his wife’s father, where he is consoled by the old man and the young girl. Synopsis from Copyright Material submitted to the Library of Congress, October 30, 1912, LU68

Two trappers make the acquaintance of a widower and his two daughters. The elder daughter is attracted to Bob, but toys with his affections by flirting with his friend, Jim. Bob leaves in anger and the girl agrees to marry Jim. Later, returning from his hunting trip, Bob convinces the elder sister to run away with him once her husband has left the area. The younger sister becomes aware of the couple’s plans and, when Jim unexpectedly returns to the cabin, she tells him what has transpired. Jim goes off in search of the two. Meanwhile, their provisions running low, Bob leaves the elder sister in camp to go hunting for food. Jim, himself hungry and tired from his wanderings, comes upon his wife, but she cruelly sends him away at gunpoint, claiming only food enough for one. Deep in the woods, Bob is trailed by a band of Native Americans and is killed in a gun battle. The elder sister eventually goes looking for her lover and, finding him dead, collapses beside him. Jim is met by two woodsmen who help him in his search. They come upon the bodies of the lovers and Jim disgustedly leaves them to the wolves. Arriving back at the cabin, Jim is consoled by the younger sister.

Long after scenarist Stanner E.V. Taylor and his wife, actress Marion Leonard, left Biograph in early 1910, the company continued to draw upon his writing skills. Whether the scenarios Biograph used were written while he was still in their employ, or were later acquisitions by the company, Taylor’s ability to craft simple, tightly plotted stories, filled with melodramatic possibilities and light comic touches, found favor with most of the studio’s directors. Old scenarios were even recycled on occasion, as in the case of 1908’s The Ingrate, a Griffith production, which was remade in 1912 by Wilfred Lucas as In the North Woods. The plot of In the Aisles of the Wild, as seen in the above synopsis, could not be simpler; indeed, its themes of jealousy and betrayal are as old as storytelling itself. The two lead male characters, though given proper names in the Biograph Bulletin (Bob Cole and Jim Watson), are actually presented as archetypes, timeless figures whose emotions and actions are understandable across cultures and centuries – as are, in fact, all of the characters in the story. Locating the action in a primeval wilderness only enhances the film’s near-mythic qualities, but, regardless of setting, this morality tale and its protagonists are universally recognizable. The elder sister, the object of both men’s desire, is played by Claire McDowell; the younger sister by Lillian Gish. McDowell was an established actress with the Biograph Company, having appeared in dozens of films, in both featured and supporting roles, since her first film for Griffith in 1908 (The Planter’s Wife). She and her husband, Charles Hill Mailes, became fixtures in the studio’s stock company of actors by mid-1910, continuing to work for Biograph long after Griffith’s departure in 1913. Even by the evolving standards of the period, though, McDowell was a mature actor (she was thirty-five years old in 1912) and so the roles available to her were limited. Society wives, spinsters, mothers and comic supporting roles were her mainstays by 1912. The opportunity to assume a role charged with 145

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emotional, even erotic power must have been attractive to her, as she portrays her character with passion and conviction. In contrast, Lillian Gish makes a far different impression as the virginal younger sister. This was only her third film at Biograph, yet Griffith uses her in a manner that would become familiar over the course of their long screen collaboration. Asked to do little more than provide a stark visual and psychic contrast to McDowell’s highly charged character, Gish responds with a performance that is tightly controlled and self-effacing, almost to the point of disappearing into the background. Still, it is her hand that reaches out to Jim (Henry B. Walthall) at the end, providing him with a measure of comfort and the promise of a happy future. Stanner E.V. Taylor situates In the Aisles of the Wild in the American backwoods, but it is D.W. Griffith who creates a sense of both dark menace and lush possibility in his apt choice of locations. It is not possible to pinpoint exactly where this film was shot, as no location is noted in any of the Biograph Company’s surviving records. However, this production’s proximity to the shooting and release schedules of A Feud in the Kentucky Hills, which was photographed in Milford, Pennsylvania, would suggest the possibility that In the Aisles of the Wild was also filmed there, or perhaps nearby. Certainly, the landscapes in both films are very similar, and it would be logical for Biograph to have maximized its use of a location so far away from New York City by filming as many stories there as possible. In much the same way that he would use the streets and back alleys of New York to convey a world of both danger and hope in The Musketeers of Pig Alley (also released in September of 1912), Griffith uses the hills and forests of frontier America to suggest similar emotions in In the Aisles of the Wild. Dark glades provide cover for Native Americans stalking their human prey and, in a shot uncannily similar to one found in The Musketeers of Pig Alley later that month, a group of men emerges like phantoms from behind protective cover (in this case, trees), cautiously surveying the terrain of their impending battle. Even seemingly neutral locales, such as the side of a hill or a sandy beach by a river, offer no escape from the threat of violence. Only the cabin, overlooking a distant valley, provides a grace note in the looming wild. This humble structure is the film’s only hint at civilization and its mediating possibilities. Nature and its primal impulses offer little solace to the protagonists of this film, and virtually all of the tragedies that befall them emerge from their depths. It is the lonely cabin and its remaining inhabitants, standing alone against the surrounding wilderness, that offer the desolate trapper peace and redemption … of a kind. Steven Higgins

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432* BIOGRAPH

THE ONE SHE LOVED Filming date: finished August 1912 Location: Palisades coastline, New Jersey Release date: 21 October 1912 Release length: 999 feet Copyright date: 30 October 1912 Director: D.W. Griffith Author: George Hennessy Source: none known Camera: G.W. Bitzer Cast: Henry B. Walthall (Husband); Mary Pickford (Wife); Lionel Barrymore (Neighbor); Kate Bruce (His wife); Gertrude Bambrick (Stenographer); Madge Kirby (Nurse); ? (Friend); Harry Carey (Neighbor’s friend); Eldean Stewart (Baby) NOTE: Identification of Eldean Stewart as Baby taken from The New York Dramatic Mirror (October 15, 1913, p. 34). From Russell Merritt to Paolo Cherchi Usai (May 28, 2001): “The 16mm print of this film at the Library of Congress is titled and complete, but contains a small mystery. After the head title, we read, ‘A Mary Pickford Subject’. This means it can’t be a print from the original negative but suggests one of the Biograph reissues. The titles are identical to those in the original. They match the 1912 copyright sheets in every regard, lacking only the final shot – a reprise of a letter insert, the letter described in the photoplay as being in ‘torn condition’. The only problem: Biograph never reissued The One She Loved. Further, the so-so print is mis-framed, put through the aperture intended for a sound print so that the left margin is cropped. So what do we have? Emphatically not a retitled Aywon-Hirsh 1920 reissue. Most likely, a 16mm dupe from a 35mm nitrate print that Biograph originally intended for 1915–1916 reissue but never re-released.” Archival Sources: Library of Congress, 35mm nitrate negative (AFI/Mary Pickford Collection); 35mm nitrate positive (AFI/Mary Pickford Collection); 35mm paper print (fragment: 69 frames plus intertitles); 16mm acetate positive A STORY WHERE JEALOUSY ALMOST CAUSED FATAL RESULTS. Roy Norris, a young author, proposes to pretty little Mary Ford and is accepted. This is the golden dawn of their life, while the first year or more of their married life is the sweet noontime, made all the sweeter by the arrival of their first-born. The little trio – father, mother, baby – are bound together by the ties of that most holy love, until unreasonable jealousy possesses the young couple. While at work in his studio, the young author is visited by his wife just as he is complimenting his stenographer on her valuable aid, and from this the wife sees grounds for suspicion. On the other hand, the young husband, seeing his wife talking to a stranger, is a bit suspicious, although the stranger is simply returning a bottle of smelling-salts his wife had borrowed. Later on, the young wife thinks she has further grounds for her suspicion and so when the author returns home he finds the house deserted and a letter addressed to him from his wife.

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It simply reads: “I have left here forever with THE ONE I LOVE.” Both are innocent of any wrong, but a tragedy is narrowly averted. Biograph Bulletin, October 12, 1912 The opening scene, preceded by the sub-title “Dawn,” shows the betrothal of the author and the young girl. This blends into a scene entitled “Later, The Sweet Noontime,” which shows the couple married and lovingly gazing upon their first-born, which is now about eight months old. The young author starts for his studio workshop, which is located in a palisade overlooking the lake. Here he employs a stenographer whose already romantic disposition is emphasized by the work in which he engages her services, – the writing at his dictation of his novels. It is upon one of these occasions, when he is dictating, that the young wife appears and feels a tinge of jealousy. This, however, dissipates and she asks the young husband for some money with which to go shopping. During the ensuing conversation, she lays her purse upon the table, forgetting it when leaving. She has proceeded all the way home and as she enters her garden a neighbor and her husband pass. The neighbor is seized with a fainting spell and the young wife rushes to her aid with a bottle of smelling salts, telling her to carry it along with her in case of a recurrence of the weakness. The young author being desirous of incorporating a quotation in one of his novels, goes to his home to secure the work from which the quotation is taken, arriving there at the time that the husband of the neighbor calls to return the bottle of smelling-salts. This causes slight jealousy on his part, which the wife explains away. Later, the wife discovers the loss of her purse and remembering that she left it on the table returns to get it. In the meantime, the stenographer has in expression shown her desire to make the young author care for her, and, as a subterfuge, pretends to stumble and sprain her ankle, the young author catching her in his arms as she does, to prevent her falling to the floor. It is at this point that the young wife enters the door and one glance is enough to apparently assure her of the unfaithfulness of her husband. She returns home, and taking the baby with her, her feelings hurt beyond forgiveness, she determines to go away, and in the cradle she leaves a letter with the one line “ I leave here forever with the one I love.” In the meantime, the young author has discovered the weakness of his stenographer, and while mildly reprimanding her, dismisses her from his employment. On picking up her notebook, he discovers the purse and rushes out to return it to his wife, arriving home to find the place deserted and a letter lying upon the baby’s crib which he at first thinks some slight matter, possibly referring to the missing purse, but upon reading it, it shocks him to the extreme. The wife having left, meets the neighbor to whom she gave aid, and is offered shelter by them. The husband, armed with a pistol and bent on vengeance for the apparent wrong, traces her to this house and is only prevented committing murder by the baby being placed between him and the imagined wrecker of his home. Finally, rushing into the room, he charges his wife with perfidy, at the same time being countercharged by the wife. Satisfying his wife with his explanation of his innocence, he shows her the letter, demanding that she point out the one she loved that he may wreak vengeance. The wife smilingly turns to the child and says “there.” Synopsis from Copyright Material submitted to the Library of Congress, October 30, 1912, LU74

Jealousy threatens the happy marriage of a young writer and his wife. When the writer sees his wife with a neighbor who is merely returning smelling salts on behalf of his fragile wife, he becomes darkly suspicious. His wife in turn misinterprets her husband’s attentions to his stenographer as expressions of infatuation. Devastated by imagined infidelity, she takes her baby and walks out of their cottage. The husband misreads her ambiguous farewell note – “I leave here forever with the one I love” – believing it means she has run off with 148

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their neighbor. His suspicions are confirmed when he finds wife and baby inside the neighbors’ house. He takes out his gun and only his last-minute decision to confront his wife clears the air.

This is the quiet before the creative storms of October when Griffith directed two, perhaps three masterpieces in a row. The One She Loved shows no inkling of what is in store. Hennessy provides one of his sillier scripts, a succession of coincidences and misunderstandings that tries too hard for O. Henry-like irony and a twist ending. Griffith turns it into a movie strangely at odds with itself. We meet an idyllic small-town couple who dote upon each other and their new-born baby, and then reveal so little faith in each other that the wife runs off with her baby while husband hunts them down with a revolver, only to reconcile as if it were all a comic misunderstanding. The result is not so much Griffith Gothic as Griffith Inconsequential. Griffith effortlessly creates a charming young rural family, but he seems strangely indifferent to establishing any undercurrents to make the husband’s jealousy plausible or at least interesting. It is as if Griffith, despite the script, is determined to take a break from fleshing out the dark side of mismatched couples, dysfunctional families, and doomed love affairs that had been the hallmark of his most recent films – Two Daughters of Eve, A Feud in the Kentucky Hills, and In the Aisles of the Wild – in order to savor the small-town atmospherics and the innocent by-play of a winsome, clean-cut family. Rather than undercut the couple’s innocence, he simply trivializes their transgression. Two years earlier, the incongruities of the plot would have appeared less jarring when Griffith’s staging and severely compressed narrative actions lent themselves to metaphorical abstraction. But as Griffith gradually develops his more expansive and more detailed dramaturgical style in 1912, lingering over psychological nuance and extended expository sequences the better to develop character relationships, the fast-moving plot with its coincidences and forced parallels looks simply gimmicky and contrived. Perhaps it shouldn’t be surprising that comic elements overwhelm the dramatic. The story comes from the prolific George Hennessy, who had established himself as Biograph’s ace comedy writer, replacing Frank Woods as Sennett’s top comic scriptwriter and now Griffith’s favored dramatic writer. In the sixteen months between June 1911 and September 1912 that Hennessy wrote for Biograph, he delivered Griffith some forty scripts that included gems like A Girl and Her Trust, The Lesser Evil, and The Informer. He had cornered the market on child-centered comedies that specialized in charming interactions between mothers or spinsters and small children. We have already seen some of Hennessy’s best examples: The Baby and the Stork, A Woman Scorned, The Voice of the Child, Billy’s Stratagem, and the ineffable The Sunbeam – all with Claire McDowell, Edna Foster, and the beamish Inez Seabury. And here we can see the influence of the Hennessy child-mother pastoral, with the extended screen time given Pickford and the gurgling title character. The Seabury–McDowell films were likely a response to the success Woods and Griffith had earlier enjoyed with the Jones and Muggsy comedies. Having scored with adult and then teenage domestic comedies, Biograph was ready to work down the next logical rung to the moppet. But just as the earlier cycles had depended upon Florence Lawrence and Mary Pickford, this one appears to have been written with Inez Seabury and Claire McDowell in mind. When little Inez left Biograph in order to return to the stage, Hennessy and Griffith went off in new directions. The One She Loved is a late-blooming hybrid, a return to the original moppet–mother formula, but now combined with another Biograph staple, the couple torn apart by jealousy. 149

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What saves the film are Griffith’s reliable strengths: his direction of the actors, the assured tempo of the storytelling, and the pictorial charm of the exteriors (the Palisade cliffs, spliced together with an unidentified town that looks a lot like Westfield, New Jersey). The find is Gertrude Bambrick, Walthall’s love-struck stenographer, who after two or three walkons earlier in July was given her first featured role here. Griffith, evidently, didn’t think much of her. He tossed her back into the pool of pretty bit players for the rest of the year, and when she finally got her break in 1913, it came from Dell Henderson who featured her in his Biograph comedies. I think Griffith underestimated her, but then, he passed on Mabel Normand and Dorothy Gish, too. He may have thought the outrageous stares and hangdog expressions amateurish, or he may have thought he had more promising vivacious types in Madge Kirby and Vivian Prescott. In any case, though Bambrick remained no more than a Biograph extra in the other New York films, off-camera she became part of the Biograph in-crowd, a favorite of the Gish sisters, Mary Pickford, Blanche Sweet and, later, Anita Loos. As a supporting player in Henderson’s comedy unit, she specialized in comic flirts, rivals, and best friends, building on the kind of performance she gives here. But then Henderson cast her as a court entertainer in All Hail to the King (finished January 1913) and she revealed her real specialty: performing modern dance. Bambrick’s training had been in ballet, and as a teenager she had toured with one of modern dance’s great popularizers, Gertrude Hoffman. Bambrick was in Hoffman’s company when Hoffman introduced Americans to Maud Allan’s notorious Salome dance, and then she toured with popular versions of Loïe Fuller and Isadora Duncan dance numbers. And when Griffith finally did use Bambrick again, it was as a choreographer and specialty dancer. In a company marked by actresses who had been trained as dancers (including Lillian and Dorothy Gish, Blanche Sweet, and Mabel Normand) Bambrick was considered the leader. She can be seen dancing on stage in The Mothering Heart (1913) and performing her own dances in Judith of Bethulia (1913), a film she also choreographed. But her most famous role came with Intolerance (1916). She is the one who leads the dancers during Belshazzar’s Feast and is then singled out in a traveling medium close-up performing the strange pas-dedeux that looks like hieroglyphics in motion. The One She Loved was released 21 October 1912 and by then Biograph’s policy of keeping cast names secret had become something of a trade joke. Although the company was still stubbornly insisting on official anonymity, The Moving Picture World had been identifying Griffith by name since their 15 April 1911 interview with him in connection with Enoch Arden. When The Moving Picture World reviewed The One She Loved (November 9, 1912, p. 552), the reviewer reveled in name-dropping: “Once again the Biograph producer, whom everyone knows is Mr. Griffith, has succeeded in picturing something that seems to be finer and sweeter than words. The best scenes of it are also a great personal triumph for Little Mary. She plays the part of a young wife and mother with Henry Walthall in the part of the husband, and with a very good-natured, healthy baby as their child.” Russell Merritt

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433* BIOGRAPH

THE PAINTED LADY Filming date: finished ca. August 1912 Location: New Jersey Release date: 24 October 1912; reissued by Biograph, 10 December 1915 Release length: one reel Copyright date: 30 October 1912 Director: D.W. Griffith Author: D.W. Griffith Source: none known Camera: G.W. Bitzer Cast: Blanche Sweet (Older daughter); Joseph Graybill (Her suitor); Charles Hill Mailes (Her father); Kate Bruce (Her attendant); Madge Kirby (Her sister); ? (Suitor’s accomplice); William J. Butler (Minister); Harry Carey, Charles Gorman (In father’s household); Elmer Booth, Harry Carey, Lionel Barrymore, Walter Miller, W. Christy Cabanne, Henry B. Walthall, Robert Harron, Lillian Gish, Dorothy Gish, Jack Pickford, Walter P. Lewis (At ice cream festival); Gladys Egan and unidentified (Children at ice cream festival) Archival Sources: Library of Congress, 16mm negative, AFI/Nichol Collection (from 1915 reissue nitrate positive); 35mm paper print (fragment: 64 frames plus intertitles [fragments also have toning indicators]); The Museum of Modern Art, 35mm nitrate negative; see also Russell Merritt’s remarks at the end of this entry. BLIND AUSTERITY SOMETIMES BREEDS DISASTER The elder daughter has always been her father’s favorite because of her strict adherence to his rigid precepts. The younger daughter is rather gay and frivolous, though innocently so, and horrifies her elder sister when the latter catches her in the act of powdering and painting her face. To the mild reprimand of the elder daughter the younger exclaims, “Well, you have to do it if you want to be attractive.” The strength of the assertion is proven at the church lawn festival, the younger sister being surrounded by a host of friends while the elder passes the time in almost absolute ostracism. However, a stranger appears at the festival who pretends to be attracted by the elder daughter, she, in turn, being surprised and flattered. This is for a sinister purpose, however, for the stranger is a crook. Under the pretense of affection for the girl he gains her confidence regarding her father’s business affairs, and with the knowledge he has acquired, he attempts to rob the house. This attempt works disaster for himself and the girl. Biograph Bulletin, October 24, 1912 The elder daughter is the favorite of her father because of her strict adherence to his rigid unreasonable precepts and is with him at all times. At the opening of the scene she is in the room as he places an amount of money in a strong box. Departing from the room she ascends the stairs into the bedroom where she surprises her younger sister, an innocently gay and frivolous young girl, in the act of painting and powdering her face in preparation for her departure to attend the church lawn festival. The elder girl is horrified and mildly reprimands her sister for this, as she deems, sinful act, but the younger girl defiantly exclaims, “Oh, you must paint and powder if you want to be attractive.” The elder girl has this fact verified when she arrives at the lawn fete by seeing her sister surrounded by a host of admirers, while she is allowed to mope around.

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About this time, two strangers, in reality crooks, are seen lurking about the place, plotting some sinister design. They separate, one of them entering the fete grounds, and after gaining the good graces of the minister, he is introduced to the elder sister. She is surprised and flattered to find that the young man has taken notice of her and more so when her proceeds to be infatuated with her. Upon escorting her home, he designs to enter the house with her so as to learn [...] of t[h]e place, but this the father objects to, being a bit suspicious of the stranger. However, the girl consents to meet him later, which she does clandestinely. This is a second meeting and by this time the young man has gained her confidence to the extent of her divulging her father’s business secrets, informing him of the amount of money that the old gentleman generally keeps in the strong box. This is enough, and with this knowledge the young man enters the house by way of the window the same night. The girl, hearing the noise below, her father being away at the time, thinks it is he returning, and goes down to meet him. Imagine her surprise, when, upon opening the door, she sees the unknown intruder. She does not recognize the young man as he has changed his clothing and is now wearing a bandana handkerchief as a mask over his face. Stealthily reascending [sic] the stairs, she secures a revolver and returns in time to save her father’s wealth. Entering the room, the burglar makes for her, and in the struggle to secure the revolver, it accidentally explodes, killing him. Imagine her horror, when, upon removing the face mask, she finds it her first and only sweetheart. By the time her sister and father arrive on the scene, her reason has left her. Through the several scenes that follow, her shattered mind leads her to the place of their first meeting, where she indulges in an imaginary conversation with him. The last imaginary meeting occurs some time later on when her life goes out as a result of her weakened condition and shatter[e]d brain. Synopsis from Copyright Material submitted to the Library of Congress, October 30, 1912, LU72

A friendless country girl meets a stranger at an ice cream social and falls in love. But the stranger has taken up with her only to learn the whereabouts of her father’s money. After a series of clandestine rendezvous in an isolated bower, the stranger breaks into the young woman’s parlor to crack the safe. She investigates the disturbance, and not recognizing the masked burglar, shoots him dead. The effect is traumatic. When she discovers she has killed her sweetheart, the young woman’s mind disintegrates. As her father watches helplessly, she retreats into an imaginary world, re-enacting her assignations at the bower, and finally suffers a fatal collapse.

By October 1912, Griffith had produced several outstanding one-reelers about alienation, guilt, and loneliness. But thematically, several things make The Painted Lady exceptional. It is probably Griffith’s most intimate Biograph. The story, unrelieved by subplot, severely limited in time and space, centers on the most profoundly isolated character he ever created. Other Biographs had portrayed deranged protagonists – notably the stunned cuckold in The Reckoning and any number of women demented by jealousy (one of Marion Leonard’s several specialties). But the unique quality of the painted lady’s madness is that it is terminal – entirely self-enclosing, creating a cage that insulates her from everyone around her. After her breakdown, she operates entirely outside the orbit of society. There is no husband or close friend to bring the heroine back (as in The Mothering Heart [1913]), no counterplot to offset scenes of insanity with views of a happily united couple (as in Death’s Marathon [1913]). As Barbara Pace in a seminal essay was the first to notice, The Painted Lady is unique among Biographs, permitting neither release nor relief from the heroine’s catastrophe. 152

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Significantly, the movie opens in a home as all three occupants are making their separate plans to depart, and when father and two daughters actually leave, they travel not together, as a family, but individually. Further, whenever they encounter each other – whether at the ice cream festival or at a bower – they regard each other with looks of resentment, suspicion, apprehension, or guilt. Inside the confines of their house, they behave no differently. Expressions of tenderness and affection are systematically withheld. Only after it is too late and his daughter has gone mad does the stern father melt. The worldly daughter, indifferent to her sister in the first part of the film, simply vanishes when the crises come. So disintegrated are family ties, in fact, that the lines of demarcation which ordinarily distinguish family from outsiders grow hopelessly blurred. The older woman (Kate Bruce) who suddenly surfaces to tend to the heroine after her breakdown is perhaps the mother (the label the 1915 reissue credits give her), but more likely a resident nurse. The two young men who rush into the parlor with the younger sister after the killing may belong to the household, or just as plausibly may be neighbors or hired hands brought in from next door. In a house where family members are so separated from each other, the intimate gestures that customarily signal the differences between insider and outsider are virtually missing. But the most striking surprise in The Painted Lady comes with the mad scene. In both construction and performance, those final moments represent high points in the careers of both Griffith and Blanche Sweet. And they also represent a significant breakthrough in Griffith’s growth as a director. Before this, his climactic scenes were almost always built around dispersed activities of some kind – all those last-minute rescues, pitched battles, escapes, and pursuits. Even when the climactic moments took place within a single set, as in the equally large numbers of confrontations, reconciliations, conversions, and renunciations, Griffith sets up at least two simultaneous lines of action. Even in a film as severe as Sweet Revenge (1909), an extended soliloquy where Marion Leonard imagines the ruination of her false lover, Griffith crosscuts between Leonard and a messenger delivering a bundle of fateful love letters. It is true that films like Thou Shalt Not (1910) and Over Silent Paths (1910) end with poignant shots of isolated, solitary actors left to mourn, but these shots, too, are juxtaposed with images of couples and families reconciled. Endings like this are consistent with Griffith’s overall method of constructing dramatic scenes where he almost always worked with dispersed, highly animated compositions calculated to overwhelm the viewer with visual detail. The classic illustration in The Painted Lady can be found in the ice cream festival scene (shot 11) where, by my count, Griffith surrounds his heroine with seven separate simultaneous lines of action involving baskets, box lunches, and decorating a picnic field. By the same rule, Griffith seldom permitted players to enact extended scenes alone. On those rare occasions that they do play alone, characters express themselves by interacting with an assortment of props, articles of furniture or garments that serve to externalize their feelings and keep the viewer’s eye busy. Leonard’s soliloquy in Sweet Revenge is a model, carried by her interaction with letters, gloves, an umbrella, and a lamp set on a cigarette table. And in The Painted Lady, after Blanche Sweet has killed the intruder and returns to the parlor to discover his identity, she conveys her changing reactions principally by working with the pistol in her hand, the sleeve of her nightgown, a straight-backed chair and the corpse in front of her. Throughout the scene, the actress is continually brought into contact with objects, clothing, and furniture that draw attention away from her face and make concrete an idea or reaction. Waving the gun, brushing back her sleeve, touching the chair, pulling off the mask – all work to crystallize the heroine’s fears and changing state of mind. The result is a kind of cinematic shorthand that gives the scene terrific economy. The compression is at times so intense that the props occasionally take on roles of their own. 153

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The heroine’s diaphanous shawl is the classic example. It initially appears when the heroine prepares herself for her first secret meeting, ceremoniously outstretched in full view of the camera and then slowly draped over the heroine’s shoulder. Even in its introduction it serves as more than mere ornament. It represents the heroine’s compromise between her desire to appear attractive to her sweetheart and her fear of cheapening herself with makeup. As she flattens the shawl against her shoulder and preens before the mirror, she appears as proud of her costume as she is repelled by the powder puff. Her efforts do not go unnoticed. At the rendezvous the smooth-talking stranger compliments her by motioning admiringly at the shawl (and then the ribbon in her hair) before pointing to her face. We remember the scene best for its punchline: her emphatic denial that she uses makeup. But equally important for future events is her prior blush of delight when he notices her shawl and admiringly fingers it. From this point, the shawl is used to epitomize the young woman’s infatuation. And what happens next is brilliant, as Griffith quietly prepares for the next stage. It’s a matter of a shrug of the shoulders. Blanche Sweet has wrapped the shawl around her when she creeps downstairs to investigate a suspicious sound. Poised outside the parlor, gun in hand, she frees herself of the shawl, letting it drop to the floor, as she steels herself to confront the burglar. What this means is that the shawl is waiting for her, off-camera, when she returns, shattered and despondent. It is at this point that her father, as distraught as she, tries to comfort her by picking it up and putting it around her shoulders. It is a remarkable moment filled with delicate irony: the repressive father whose actions were designed to keep his daughter away from the stranger, here unwittingly helps his daughter into the garment that is by now intimately associated with the forbidden romance. The gesture, intended to comfort the girl, in fact propels her deeper into madness. When she sees the shawl back on her shoulders, a smile crosses her face. She is back at the bower, meeting her lover. Her eyes turn glassy and she extends her hand to greet him. From this point, the shawl becomes an integral part of her fantasy world, the souvenir with which she propels herself into her subsequent imaginary meetings. It now provides the principal visual link between her old life and new. The rest of her costume has been entirely altered (she now wears a black dress instead of the white cotton; the hair ribbon is gone); her room and roommate have changed. Only the shawl, the powder puff, and mirror remain. Charged with a meaning known only to her and to us, the shawl has become a fetish necessary to her fantasy. Scott Simmon has shown how mirrors in this mirror-obsessed film reverberate in equally suggestive ways. Simmon’s argument is that The Painted Lady reverses Biographs like The Fascinating Mrs. Francis (1909), where the mirror is a symbol of narcissism. Here, he convincingly argues, the mirror may start with those kinds of associations, epitomized by the sister’s primping and preening, but quickly becomes identified with a woman surveying her own identity, as the heroine contemplates the price of being gazed at (Simmon, pp. 84–90). In a film that culminates with a heroine seeming to die from the very sight of herself, the mirror functions like the painting in The Sands of Dee, made three months earlier, where the heroine drowns herself after discovering herself as the painting’s subject. Not until Broken Blossoms, with its supercharged dolls and flowers, would Griffith attain such compression and such complexity of meaning in his features. Griffith’s manipulation of space is no less sophisticated. Working with only a dozen setups, Griffith creates a world that isolates characters without giving them privacy. Because spaces are contiguous, characters use any given area as a vantage point from which to look in on characters in adjacent areas. Simmon writes, “Wherever one places the blame in the ambiguous fatal look into the mirror of The Painted Lady, it is a tragedy of being gazed at.” 154

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Gazing, in fact, is built into the fabric of the film from the opening shot. It starts innocently – and innocuously – enough. The heroine watches her father lock his strongbox; next she watches her younger sister make up her face, while her sister, in turn, looks out the window to watch the ice cream festival. At the festival itself, the stranger looks on from behind a tree at youngsters parading past the entranceway. And at the point the stranger decides to enter, he and his money are so intensely scrutinized by the fierce-looking ticket collector that Elmer Booth and his dog are able to sneak in – under the gaze of the Gish sisters laughing behind him. But, if innocent, such behavior is portentous. Gradually, this continual pattern of one character sighting another creates an aura of furtive scrutiny, making solitude impossible. The motif is central to the heroine’s dismal progress. As she retreats further into her selfenclosed world, she changes from the perpetual onlooker to equal partner in a clandestine love affair, and ends as the focal point of everyone’s attention. As the onlooker, she is poignant precisely because no one notices her in return. She looks, but no one looks back. The great appeal of the stranger is that he does notice her. The bower becomes the single private place where she is permitted to enjoy the company of another person on equal footing. And her happiness there lasts the duration of precisely three shots. After the betrayal, the bower is transformed into a public arena, invaded by a procession of keepers and onlookers. The heroine is kept under constant surveillance, the classic helpless case. For all her efforts to retreat into a world of her own, she has become the perennial patient, alternately protected, ridiculed, humored, pitied, and consoled. But the mad scene cannot be described simply as a culmination of the dramatic action. Its shock value comes at least in part from its radical departure from Griffith’s tested proporiented acting style. From first to last, the scene depends almost entirely on the remarkable expressiveness of Blanche Sweet’s face. In contrast to the distractive technique, in this scene Griffith works entirely within the framework of a single, highly concentrated focal point. The method rigorously directs the viewer’s attention to one spot, which the actress, virtually unassisted by props, must then animate. Sweet starts the scene wobbling slightly from prolonged confinement, her face wan and expressionless. Then her face transforms when she imagines she sees her lover. Her eyes meet his, she smiles bravely, and shakes his imaginary hand. But instantly her face expresses concern. No, she never uses make up. She then repeats a gesture that has become by now a leitmotif: putting hand to cheek and slowly shaking her head. Her eyes defocus. Her invisible lover vanishes as she turns her gaze inward. She looks absently at the mirror on the back of her purse. Then, instantly lifting her head, her mouth snaps open and her hand goes to her cheek again. She has used paint. She is overcome with shame. She puts an arm over her face and then turns her head away from the camera. She swoons, but as she starts to fall back, she is caught in the arms of her father who has just arrived, and is held in such a way that we can see the expression of her profile change from animated anguish to calm. It was a bold break from the past and one that showed Griffith’s growing confidence in his actresses, Blanche Sweet in particular. One of the pleasures in watching late Griffith Biographs is seeing Sweet’s growth as an actress, starting with Through Darkened Vales (1911), where, as J.B. Kaufman has noticed, we first see her talent for creating characters that grow and develop. Griffith used her sparingly in 1912 – The Painted Lady, in fact, was Sweet’s first Griffith Biograph in almost three months, and the first of the last five films she would make with Griffith on the East Coast. But Griffith plainly had confidence in her growing authority as an actress. Never before had a player been permitted such extended screen time by herself. Even Mary Pickford, Biograph’s most popular actress and the uncontested master of the prop-oriented style, was never given an assignment as concentrated as this. 155

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The uninterrupted focus on Sweet’s face and her graceful body movements permitted the sort of intimacy and nuance that created a brilliant alternative to the prop-oriented style. True, he had tried something like a dress rehearsal for the mad scene a year earlier with Dorothy West in The New Dress (1911), complete with a shawl draped over West’s shoulders and a fixation (in this case, a missing dress) that triggers the decline into madness. But similarities only highlight differences: West is limited to a single expression and a fixed pose – arms outstretched, palms up – as in two shots where she wanders around looking for her lost dress. She builds to the extent of balling her fists, but with that, she and Griffith are out of ideas, and she simply exits. As Lea Jacobs remarks in her note to The New Dress (DWG Project, #338), although Sweet uses repeated gestures too, especially when suggesting she doesn’t use makeup, she is given infinitely greater freedom of development thanks to the introduction of an imaginary companion (the dead lover) enabling her to create a virtual mini-drama building to a traumatic climax. The press was quick to take notice of the remarkable performance. The man at The New York Dramatic Mirror gave The Painted Lady not one, but two reviews, the first one centering on Sweet’s acting: It deserves a place among the most artistic accomplishments of any player before the camera, and is an answer to those who claim that subtle mental conditions cannot be expressed by means of pictures. This actress shows the value of restraint and the remarkable results to be attained by well-judged facial expressions. She expresses tragedy as it has seldom been expressed in a photoplay, and her method might be studied with profit by other actors in the same field. (The New York Dramatic Mirror, October 30, 1912, p. 31)

The second review, appearing a week later, was struck again by Sweet’s departure from ordinary acting techniques to create a role of unusual complexity: The Painted Lady – I don’t like the title, but never mind – is distinctly progressive in that it depends for success upon the ability of an actress to express complex emotions that lead to insanity, which in turn results in death. The customary modes of depicting love, anger, fear, and physical weakness would not have sufficed to make this story the impressive tragedy that it is. If proof is required, the picture shows that producers need not confine themselves to the stupidly obvious, also that fine shades of mental suffering may be communicated to an audience through the medium of a photoplay. Skilled acting is the chief requisite and the Biograph Company has at least one actress capable of delicately shaded work. (The New York Dramatic Mirror, November 6, 1912, p. 25)

In its rave, The Moving Picture World even singled out Sweet by name (The World had been naming Sweet since mid-August, although as J.B. Kaufman has pointed out to me, this is the first time they actually spelled her name right): Miss Blanche Sweet’s portrayal of a mad girl in this picture seems to reach a higher plane of art than any of her previous characterizations, and she has done good work in many diverse roles. The film presents a psychological study of character dramatically, and gives a fresh criticism of life. The subtlety of it makes it a hard picture to comment on; one hesitates as before jumping into a very deep pool. But very crudely we may say that it draws for us a not very well balanced girl… No mechanically working mind could possibly have conceived it and we commend it as a work of art. (The Moving Picture World, November 9, 1912, p. 552)

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Griffith was plainly satisfied with the result. Of course, he never abandoned the prop-oriented style. To name only two post-Biograph examples: the famous homecoming sequence in The Birth of a Nation (1915), like Walthall’s tour-de-force mad scene in The Avenging Conscience, is built entirely on actors interacting with inanimate objects. But, increasingly, Griffith built into his films scenes that required actresses to play soliloquies, unassisted, working almost entirely with facial expressions to register a sequence of varied, often contradictory reactions. One thinks of Lillian Gish reacting to the death of her baby in The Mothering Heart, Mae Marsh responding to Bobby Harron’s marriage proposal behind a closed door in Intolerance (1916), or Lillian Gish, again, responding to the voice of her longlost sister in Orphans of the Storm. As late as 1925 when he filmed The Sorrows of Satan for Paramount, Griffith was mindful of the technique. When he wanted to show Carol Dempster cracking under the strain of poverty and neglect, he patterned her mad scene directly after the one in The Painted Lady, down to the imaginary lover who in real life has proven false. Griffith famously grew to resent the limitations of time and space that gave his characters and stories such metaphoric power. As with other films of this period, including Female of the Species and The Battle of Elderbush Gulch, he had Bitzer overcrank so that, projected at 14 frames per second, The Painted Lady lasts approximately eighteen minutes. But he knew from the start he had an exceptional film that warranted all the screen time he could muster. Biograph appeared to know it, too. It was one of the first Biographs reissued, and in 1914, Griffith put the same title on a two-reeler he produced at Mutual, this time with dutiful daughter Sweet protecting flighty sister Dorothy Gish. Griffith’s masterpiece soon fell into oblivion, only to be rediscovered in 1969 when David Shepard and Tony Slide, working at the American Film Institute, located a 1915 reissue nitrate print in the state of Washington. Shepard and Slide had several copies made, one for the Museum of Modern Art, and another that wound up at the British Film Institute. Russell Merritt

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434* BIOGRAPH

THE MUSKETEERS OF PIG ALLEY Filming date: finished ca. September 1912 Location: Fort Lee, New Jersey Release date: 31 October 1912; reissued by Biograph, 5 November 1915 Release length: one reel Copyright date: 4 November 1912 Director: D.W. Griffith Author: Joseph Graybill Source: none known Camera: G.W. Bitzer Cast: Elmer Booth (Snapper Kid); Lillian Gish (The Little Lady); Walter Miller (Musician); Alfred Paget (Snapper’s rival); Madge Kirby (Little Lady’s friend); Harry Carey (Snapper’s lieutenant); John T. Dillon (Policeman); Clara T. Bracey (Little Lady’s mother); Adolph Lestina (Bartender); Jack Pickford (In Snapper’s gang); Robert Harron, W.C. Robinson (In rival gang); Dorothy Gish, Adolph Lestina, Kathleen Butler (On street); Madge Kirby, Robert Harron, Walter P. Lewis, J. Waltham (In alley); Jack Pickford, Antonio Moreno, Gertrude Bambrick, W. Christy Cabanne, Robert Harron, Kathleen Butler, Frank Evans, Walter P. Lewis, Marie Newton (At dance); ? (Musician’s friend) NOTE: Identification of Joseph Graybill as author is taken from George Blaisdell, “At the Sign of the Flaming Arcs”, The Moving Picture World (August 2, 1913). Archival Sources: Det Danske Filmmuseum, 16mm acetate positive (generation undetermined); Library of Congress, 35mm nitrate positive (possibly 1916 reissue, AFI/Dorothy Horton Collection); 35mm paper print (fragment: 73 frames plus intertitles); The Museum of Modern Art, 35mm nitrate negative; UCLA Film and Television Archive, 16mm acetate positive (generation undetermined) A DEPICTION OF THE GANGSTER EVIL Much is printed from time to time in the newspapers of the workings o[f] the gangsters, but the public gains but a vague idea of the actual facts. Hence this picture production, which does not run very strong as to plot, is simply intended to show vividly the doings of the gangster type of people. Much has been done, and is still being done, to wipe out this evil which has long been a menace to the respectable citizen and this picture shows the situation as i[t] is, and the extreme necessity for radical action on the part of the authorities. While the theme of the story is decidedly interesting, it also serves as a consistent vehicle to present the facts. Biograph Bulletin, October 31, 1912 This picture is intended to portray the evil of the gangster in New York. The first scene shows New York’s other side. The poor musician is engaged to be married to a young woman and leaves for another city to accept an engagement whereby to improve his condition monetarily. While he is away the little one is forced to work at sewing to support her invalid mother and herself. Later on, in going to deliver some of h[e]r work, she meets “Snapper Kid” who is the chief of one faction of the gangsters of Pig Alley in the slum quarters. There are two factions of these gangsters. Like the musketeers of old, they go about, each side alert that they will not be taken unawares by

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the other. About this time the little girl’s mother dies and she finds herself alone, but the musician returns with replenished purse to become the protector of the little orphan. He meets the musketeers in Pig Alley and “Snapper Kid” relieves him of his wallet. Going to the girl, he vows to her that he will recover his stolen money at all hazard, and consequently leaves to make the rounds through the slums in the hope of apprehending the thief. In this new sorrow, a friend stops in to see the little lady and induces her to go with her to the ball, hopinh [sic] thereby to cheer her a little. At the ball, the girl meets one of the gang, and he being a decent looking chap, she dances with him and accepts his invitation to drink a soft drink. This he drugs, and had it not been for “Snapper Kid” who sees this act from a distance, she would have drunk it, but the kid intervenes. This further riles the other faction of the gang, and fearing the “Big Boss” they go outside to settle the trouble. We show several scenes of their following each other [w]ith the hope of one taking the other by surprise. For a long time they are ever on the alert. Finally a gun fight ensues and in the struggle “Snapper Kid” rushes through one of the hallways in his endeavor to escape the police, and is met by the musician, who, before the kid realizes what he has done, recovers his wallet, making his way hurriedly back to the girl. The kid has no chance to recover his equilibrium, for the police are on his heels, and he rushes through the dark hallways until he finally comes to the apartment of the girl, just after the musician has reached there. The police trail him to this point, but as he had saved the girl from disaster the night of the ball, she, reasoning that one good turn deserves another, enables him to [g]ive an alibi to the officer which frees him. Synopsis from Copyright Material submitted to the Library of Congress, November 4, 1912, LU90

Snapper Kid mugs a musician in the hallway of his Lower East Side tenement, not knowing that his victim is the fiancé of the young seamstress Snapper has earlier discovered for himself. While the musician wanders off hoping to retrieve his wallet, the seamstress goes to a dance hall where Snapper sees her again. Before he can talk to her, he catches a rival gang leader doping her drink, and the confrontation triggers a gang war. In the battle that follows, the musician encounters Snapper and wrestles his wallet back, retrieving the money he needs to marry his sweetheart. When Snapper rushes to her apartment to claim her for himself, she rejects him, but she lies to protect him from the police.

[It] is one of the essential works of the city, as deserving of a permanent place on the shelf as Stephen Crane’s Maggie, Walt Whitman’s chapters on horse cars and theatres in Specimen Days, F. Scott Fitzgerald’s “My Lost City,” Rouben Mamoulian’s Applause, the New York photographs of Jacob Riis and William Klein and those of Louis Faurer, Chester Himes’ Blind Man with a Pistol, and Joseph Mitchell’s Up in the Old Hotel. It deserves this privileged placement because it owns a direct pipeline to the city’s unconscious. It is not so much an account of city life as it is an account of what city dwellers have most feared, in a city that has long taken a perverse pride in its own fund of dangers. The travelers, passing through dangerous and exotic territory, are stultified, disoriented by what they see. (The New York Review of Books, December 20, 2001, p. 85)

This is what Luc Sante claimed for Herbert Asbury’s recently reissued The Gangs of New York (New York: Thunder’s Mouth Press, 2001), but he might have been writing about The Musketeers of Pig Alley. Musketeers, along with A Corner in Wheat (1909) and The Painted Lady, is widely considered one of Griffith’s finest Biographs, a masterpiece of sustained atmospherics and dramatic tension. By now, Griffith had directed over 400 films, and in some ways this is a culminating work. Technically, there is nothing in it that he hadn’t tried 159

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before – nothing in the blocking patterns, the editing, or those remarkable compositions that doesn’t have ample precedent. In his final Biograph years Griffith was refining rather than experimenting with cinematic language, and by 1912 he had at his fingertips a vast repertoire of gambits and ploys that he could configure in fresh combinations. Meanwhile, as Griffith became more self-assured, his best narratives had become simpler and less moralistic, with undertones more intricate than ever. In its astonishing directness and somber tone, Musketeers takes on the aura of an urban folk tale. Musketeers has been called a prototypical gangster film, but it feels remote from the classic genre pieces of the ’30s and the crime formulas we know today. Most conspicuously missing is any idea of the gangster as a man of ambition or enterprise, an overreacher who tries to make it to the top. Snapper Kid is no Scarface, Little Caesar, or Godfather. What Griffith’s pattern of round trips and circling movement sets up is a self-contained, crowded world where no one is going anywhere. Griffith starts his film with two journeys: a musician leaving to hock his violin for the money he needs to marry his sweetheart, and the Little Lady, as she is called, going off to collect wages she needs to help her ailing mother. Within minutes, they are each back where they began: one minus a mother, the other robbed of the money he needs to get married. So they start off again – the musician to recover his stolen wallet; the woman towards a dance hall to find relief from her troubles. And as the film unfolds, the circles are merely redrawn, with added characters doing the circling. A petty crook named the Snapper Kid pursues the Little Lady, and with the eruption of a gang war, two gangs – Snapper’s and his rival’s – stalk each other through halls, a saloon and various alleyways. But movements all end where they start, in Pig Alley and in the Little Lady’s apartment. The musician recovers his wallet, but neither he, Snapper Kid nor Snapper’s gangland cronies gain anything they didn’t have when the movie began. Even the criminal payoff at the end is described in terms of cycles: the participants are “links in the system”, the protection money part of a recurring routine. The graceful, almost ethereal quality that hovers over the prowl is part of Musketeers’ unique atmosphere. As opposed to the gangster films of the ’20s and ’30s, with their stress on speeding cars and blazing machine guns, the tone here is eerily quiet. The flowing, controlled movements, seamlessly edited together, are of a piece with the scenes inside the dance hall where Griffith creates layers of contrasting rhythms to prepare for his heroine’s first encounter with the musketeers. Quick, sprightly movements are the province of uninitiated outsiders; those in the know are wary, unsmiling, and weighted down. Individual compositions are built around similar principles of balance and flow. The most famous example – probably the most famous image in the entire Biograph canon – appears when Lillian Gish walks out of her apartment into a crowded street (Fort Lee’s Catherine Street disguised to look like the Lower East Side) and brushes past the unsmiling young woman in a pin-striped dress (sister Dorothy as a frizzy blonde). The moment lasts for only three frames (who was the genius at Biograph who first noticed the still buried in this shot?) but it encapsulates the melancholy stillness Griffith finds concealed in crammed, hyperactive spaces. In at least a half-dozen earlier films, most notably the amazing opening shot of The Cord of Life (1909), filmed at the other end of the street, Griffith had created mirror images of strangers by getting them to pause while walking past each other. But it comes together perfectly here, as the mirrored sisters are set off against other echoing figures: two women in near-identical white dresses facing us, the reflections of the saloon window, and the self-absorbed serenity of a bearded reader at his small outdoor table. Everyone stares, either at the ground or at the back of someone else, creating a ricochet of glances and averted gazes. But no glance is ever reciprocated; no figures connect. Not since J.J. Tissot’s late secular paintings in the 1880s has an artist captured the contradictory tensions of stillness, isolation, and bustle in crowds. 160

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At the far end of the musician’s circuit lies Pig Alley, another thoroughfare that, like the Little Lady’s sidewalk, is given the feel of a self-contained island. Here everyone loiters – children mingling with gangsters, washerwomen, vagrants, day laborers, and molls. It too is an extremely stylized space, with people no less jammed together than in the stock market scene in A Corner in Wheat or the ice cream social in The Painted Lady. But, visually, it appears an outdoor variation of what we will see at the dance hall – a meeting place for the hoods who control the neighborhood that is segmented into rival factions and self-absorbed couples. I agree with Jean Mottet who finds striking similarities between the staging of the Pig Alley scene and the Jacob Riis photograph called Bandit’s Roost – one of the rare instances of Griffith quoting a photograph instead of a painting. But no less noteworthy is the way Griffith weaves the composition into the rest of the film. Commentators have frequently noticed the stark contrast between constricted interior and expansive exterior space in Griffith Biographs, but by 1912 Griffith was finding ways to play off and compare his indoors with outdoors. Not only does Pig Alley anticipate the Gangster’s Ball, it also rhymes with the tenement hallway – another narrowly confined, somewhat dangerous space with sharply defined entranceways where street people loiter and trash piles up both inside and out of garbage cans. Structurally similar, both alley and hallway are the perfect Griffith expressions of urban values and restraints. These streetwalkers find their leisure outside the protected family values of the apartment but seem incapable of leaving the vicinity of their homes. As he does so often, Griffith sets up these scenes with the most important activities played at the margins of the frame, so that the eye must travel back and forth between the principal players on opposite sides of a space while keeping track of the incidental action going on in the middle. The classic example comes in a scene where Griffith literally outsmarts himself – inside the private room next to the dance hall where Alfred Paget tries to distract Lillian while doping her drink. The odds are that if you are watching this film for the first time you never see the critical action because to do that it is necessary to focus on screen center, watching what Paget does with his hands. At the critical moment, Griffith distracts us by having Elmer Booth propel a puff of smoke into frame, forcing our eye to the upper left corner. The puff of smoke is a wonderful tour de force, a signature gesture for the jaunty Snapper Kid that will get developed further as the movie goes on. But Griffith for once miscalculates what our eyes can comprehend at a single glance. We catch the smoke, but miss what Snapper sees – and what precipitates the all-important gunfight. If later gangster films are dark inversions of Horatio Alger success stories, Musketeers takes as its improbable point of the departure the chivalric romance. Embedded in this film about a mugging and a brawl is the formula of rivals dueling over a lady’s honor ending with the Lady’s Knight competing with the modern Troubadour for her hand. The fight is called a “feudal war”, started at a “gangster’s ball” where crooks are called “Musketeers”. And this chivalric strain is at the heart of what makes Snapper such a poignant fellow. Film historian Vance Kepley was the first to point out what a multi-faceted character Snapper is. In the stalking scenes we see him vying for control of turf. Paget’s attempt to slip the Little Lady a Mickey Finn has simply triggered a long, pre-existing, and unexplained hatred between these two men. Snapper, though outnumbered, starts off as the confident leader of his small gang. But now, as Kepley points out, we’re granted glimpses behind his façade. Those puffs of cigarette smoke, part of Snapper’s calculated swagger in the dance hall and saloon, become signs of nerves once the hunt begins, as Snapper shows cat-like caution against a surprise attack. Griffith goes out of his way to show him insecure and jumpy. It is his arch rival, the imposing Alfred Paget, who shows real control – in more ways than one. He is the enemy who, as we first saw in the dance hall, has the social grace and surface 161

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slickness that Snapper lacks. One of the undertones that Griffith and Elmer Booth develop is Snapper’s barely suppressed envy of characters like Paget and the musician for their polished manners. Film historians invariably – and rightly – single out the haunting shot of Elmer Booth coming into extreme close-up as one of the high-water marks of Griffith’s career. Griffith and Bitzer had used the effect before – most notably in Money Mad (1908), Conscience (1911), The Primal Call (1911), and Bobby, the Coward (1911) – and they would recycle it often in their features. But in these films, the direct-to-camera extreme close-up is meant to express menace, frightfulness, or mental disturbance. What makes it so powerful in Musketeers are the surprising undertones. Snapper is fearsome (Elmer Booth, in fact, comes closer into the camera than had any of his predecessors), but he is also vulnerable as he heads into the trap; the close-up captures and italicizes his fear while it also reveals Snapper’s continued resolve. To keep Snapper in sharp focus, Bitzer racked the lens, blurring the other gang members and isolating Snapper as the focus follows him into the foreground. The shot is not only a tribute to Bitzer’s skill as an operator (as Tom Gunning reminds us in his commentary on this shot [Gunning 1991, 274], follow-focus was a difficult feat in this period), the visual isolation also underscores Snapper’s assailability. Conscience, shot a year earlier, illustrates how Griffith had already begun to connect the into-the-camera extreme close-up with dementia, suggesting similar tensions of brutishness and fear. There, Bitzer set up the shot so that when consciencestricken Joseph Graybill stumbles forward into full close-up, the camera picks up beams of sunlight cross-lighting his unkempt hair and eyes to dramatize his disorientation. In The House of Darkness (1913), Griffith has escaped lunatic Charles Hill Mailes lurch forward into another extreme close-up, but now, rather than follow focus as in Musketeers, Bitzer preset the lens so that the madman comes into focus as he approaches us, but the background trees and bushes stay consistently in soft focus, the better to render the inmate’s disorientation from his surroundings. This is the trail that leads to Mae Marsh in Intolerance (1916)edging into extreme close-up wobbly and traumatized, actress and background alike out of focus, as she reacts to a judge sentencing her husband to death. The shoot-out itself is brief but devastating. And suddenly Snapper, the resolute, poised hunter, panics. Losing control, he abandons his gang and retreats. He is so shaken he can’t even prevent the ineffectual musician from taking back his wallet, and when the cops come, he runs for his life. Then the final sequence, where we are set up for an inevitable romantic resolution. Here too, Snapper’s quicksilverish character generates surprise. The musician and the Little Lady are finally reunited, the recovered money a sign that they can now marry. But Snapper enters, smoking his inevitable cigarette, ready to claim the Little Lady as his own. He assumes, to paraphrase Kepley, that he has earned her hand by virtue of having rescued her from her rival. Only now does it occur to him to offer an explanation – and that’s what his hand mime is all about, referring us back to Paget’s effort to dope her drink. Gish turns him down, and in a wonderful comic display, Snapper’s basic chivalry emerges. Bewildered and disappointed, he suddenly takes control of the scene with his insouciant nonchalance. Fear and panic have given way to bravado, but now the comic swagger is linked to gracious acceptance of defeat. But we’re not done. Strange bonds have been created and Snapper’s gallant deed is rewarded when the Little Lady creates his false alibi. This charming sense of camaraderie takes a more ambiguous turn when we discover that it extends to the patrolman himself, who shows by a wink and a nudge that he understands the collusion. But why should the police be so eager to wink at murderous behavior? The chivalric romance formula suddenly dissolves into another bond – an unholy alliance between a corrupt cop, a petty crook, and 162

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an anonymous saloon owner. In a final dramatic coup, Griffith expands upon Lincoln Steffens’s famous description of New York’s criminal “system” to include the lovers themselves, oblivious yet enmeshed, within this dark dead-end world. When Musketeers first appeared, Biograph marketed it as a social exposé, claiming that though the picture “does not run very strong as to plot”, it was “intended to show vividly the doings of the gangster type of people”, and to expose “the situation as it is and the extreme necessity for radical action on the part of the authorities”. It was made to capitalize on the on-going headlines about the recent gangland slaying of Herman Rosenthal at the Hotel Metropole. This was a landmark case: Rosenthal’s murder on 16 July 1912 is sometimes described as America’s first gangland slaying, and the trials that started the month before Musketeers went into production had made household names out of underworld figures like Gyp the Blood, Bald Jack Rose, Beansy Rosenfeld, and Dago Frank. When The Moving Picture World (November 16, 1912, p. 658) called Musketeers “an underworld story which will remind many who see it of some recent happenings in New York City”, the Rosenthal case featuring “gangs and feuds” is what the trade had in mind. Andy Logan documents the role that movies played in all this in her absorbing account of the case, Against the Evidence: The Becker-Rosenthal Affair. Having turned states evidence that sent the killers he recruited to the electric chair, gambler and man-about-town Bald Jack Rose stepped out of jail to become the darling of the church lecture circuit and the founder of the Humanology Motion Picture Company, which specialized in uplift drama. Meanwhile, Sam Schepps, Bald Jack’s paymaster for the murder, invested in a movie called The Wages of Sin and then toured vaudeville houses as a reformed sinner. Film companies knew gold when they saw it. Although almost all the films that emerged from the Rosenthal case are lost, the advertisements point to a feeding frenzy. A few months after Musketeers, an independent company called Ruby Feature Film made a three-reeler called The Gunmen of New York, with appearances by a few indicted gangsters, their prosecutor, the presiding judge, and New York City mayor Gaynor. The outrageous judicial improprieties were not what the promoter had in mind when he called this film “the picture they all said was ‘impossible’ before it was made” (The Moving Picture World, advertisement, May 3, 1913, p. 509). “If You Can’t Make Money With This Feature”, distributors were advised, “You’re Playing Hookey from the Graveyard” (Ibid.). As an expression of his own outrage, Charles Ives wrote an orchestral piece about Gyp the Blood and the ravenous Hearst press, while Charles Whitman’s prosecution of the case helped sweep him into the governor’s office. Griffith did his part by producing a 1916 campaign film for Whitman. In terms of narrative and characterization, Musketeers owes very little to the Rosenthal case. The story, such as it is, likely came from one of the numerous deadly gang feuds, like Big Jack Zelig’s shooting war with Chick Tricker’s gang over Zelig’s mistress, reported in loving detail by tabloids like The Police Gazette. But the connection between the dance hall, the gangsters, and their fear of the “big boss” who runs it, is drawn directly from Rosenthal. Griffith is referring to the newly notorious social clubs like the Hesper Club and the Sam Paul Association, owned by Tim Sullivan and other political bosses but run by East Side gamblers and their gangster pals as places to mount dances, parties, and general hell-raising. It was at one of these dance hall/social clubs – Sam Paul’s – that the plan to murder Rosenthal was hatched. And, according to Asbury in The Gangs of New York (p. 338), for the balance of 1912 raids against gangster social clubs, even more than raids against the gambling dens, became the principal form that police retaliation against organized crime took. Which makes all the more curious Griffith’s pointed liberality toward the Little Lady’s going to the dance. She is taken to the dance where she can dress up, meet young men, and, as a young woman engaged to be married, go unchaperoned into a back room to enjoy a 163

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drink with a stranger. It is not just, as Mottet noticed (p. 149), that this is an afternoon dance free from the scrutiny of parents and sweethearts, available to any woman on a shopping break. It is an anathematized gangster’s ball treated as an unremarkable if daring part of a young working-class woman’s social world. Finally, a short glossary for the strange vocabulary in the title and a note on the film’s location. “Pig Alley” was by the turn of the century a generic term for slum, America’s corruption of famous Parisian brothel district, Pigalle. It is also related to “the blind pig”, nineteenth-century American slang for an illegal dive with an innocuous front. “Musketeer” is more obscure. Though Griffith uses it as a term for gangster in several films, most importantly in Intolerance (1916), I am not sure where he found this usage. As a gun packer, Snapper may be descended from the 16th-century soldier armed with a musket (as I argued a few paragraphs ago, Griffith works hard to link Snapper to chivalric guards). But just as likely, Griffith is using it as a variant of “muskrateer”. According to the Oxford English Dictionary (1971), “muskrat” was a contemptuous nickname given to an inhabitant of a low-lying, vermin-infested district. This is what musician Kid Ory had in mind in “The Muskrat Ramble”. But the OED found an earlier example in Century Magazine, July 1890: “Her grandmother … having a profound contempt for the ... ‘muskrateers,’ as the Flats people are generally called.” It is also possible that Griffith made up the usage himself. Can anyone find other contemporary usage of “musketeer” for crook? It is not included in George Matsell’s 1859 glossary of gangster slang, reprinted in Asbury; nor is it in the glossary Alfred Henry Lewis included in The Apaches of New York (1912). We can be more certain about the film’s location. Since Musketeers is a gangster film set in a big city, film historians have naturally assumed the striking exteriors were shot on the streets of New York. From the start, Graybill’s story was taken as the pretext for a display of New York street life. “As a drama of slum life on the lower East Side of New York,” wrote the new film critic for The New York Dramatic Mirror (November 13, 1912, p. 30), “this picture is remarkably impressive. The street scenes and those laid in the ominous-looking Pig Alley carry the touch of reality”. Lillian Gish was even more specific. In 1968 she told me that Griffith found his locations on E. 12th Street. I think, however, that in this instance memory, not to mention Griffith and Bitzer’s camera artistry, has played tricks on us all. Astonishingly enough, Griffith had not shot any outdoor footage in New York City since mid-1910 when he finished A Child of the Ghetto and Little Angels of Luck. Since then, in films like Bobby, the Coward, The Miser’s Heart, and The Narrow Road, he used the extraordinarily versatile and rapidly expanding township of Fort Lee to represent the Lower East Side, and had been relying exclusively on Fort Lee, Bayonne, and Paterson for all his other large East Coast metropolitan settings. Exactly why Biograph abandoned New York exteriors is still unclear, especially given trade complaints about New Jersey’s overuse as a locale (Paul Spehr in The Movies Begin cites a report in The Moving Picture World that claims as many as seven or eight production companies filming on a single day in the Fort Lee–Coytesville area in September 1912 “and that on one occasion the Biograph and Reliance crews were working on either side of the same fence” [The Moving Picture World, September 14, 1912, p. 1061, quoted in Spehr, 48]). But as best we can tell, Griffith wouldn’t return to New York streets until after the First World War. Fort Lee was far and away his most common location (in 1911, the last year that specific locales were recorded in the Biograph Camera Register, more than half the East Coast exteriors [eighteen of thirty-four Biographs] were shot in Fort Lee), and the wide range of graphic similarities between Musketeers and the known Fort Lee Biographs are what bring Musketeers into the fold. The candy store striped awning behind the liquor store, the apartment entranceway, and the alley itself can all be found in the streets of A Woman Scorned, 164

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The Long Road, The Old Bookkeeper, The Miser’s Heart, and especially Bobby, the Coward, identified as Fort Lee exteriors in the Camera Register. Griffith, in fact, was reusing the same street and back alley in Musketeers that he had used four months earlier in The Narrow Road, where we see the other side of the striped awning on the city street and a longer view of the gangsters’ alley. In the scene where The Narrow Road detectives finally catch up with Charles Hill Mailes, Pig Alley is revealed as a large empty lot with a wooden building off to the right (it is also, I think, the back alley where the tramp played by Eddie Dillon huddles up in The Miser’s Heart). A brick wall conceals the wooden building in Musketeers’s classic alley shot, but we can see the telltale front corner of the building peering out in the distance behind the striped awning in the Musketeers street scene. And as for the words on that striped awning… They are offered piecemeal in a manner worthy of Ozu, or at least Alan Moore and Hugo Pratt (contemporary illustrators), as, bit by bit, we reconstruct the sign and the spaces around it in Griffith’s New York fable. The awning fragment in The Narrow Road gives us, on the extreme left corner, “CIGARS”; the fragment in A Woman Scorned adds “AND TOBACCO” and then reveals the word on the front of the awning – “CONFECTIONS”. This shot, taken from across the street, locates our shop across from the bank that two robbers are casing – in reality, a Fort Lee bank on Ann Street that doubles as W. Christie Miller’s office in The Old Bookkeeper. Musketeers gives us “CANDIES” on the awning’s right side, and puts our tobacco store next to the clothes window with the outdoor suit racks that we saw in Bobby, the Coward and The Miser’s Heart. The tension between what Tom Gunning described in his Bobby, the Coward note (DWG Project, #351) as “the amazing degree of nearly documentary details” of Griffith’s city shots and the artistic contrivance created through staging and composition grew only more complex as Griffith matured. By 1912 he not only camouflaged actors as extras in his street scenes, directing even the most casual bits of extemporaneous business, he also commandeered the streets and buildings themselves to assume invented personalities. In Jean Mottet’s words, “The truth of Griffith’s images resides less in their capacity to refer to a documentary reality than to give an effective reality to a subjective vision.” (p. 121; my translation). The illusion of jam-packed urban hustle and bustle may have been a simple extension of the activity Griffith found on the streets around him, but what remains astonishing is the degree to which he could calibrate the urban dynamics of his cityscapes. The same block, made to epitomize the Lower East Side in Bobby, the Coward and Musketeers, is reinvented as a tough neighborhood in a small town in The Miser’s Heart and The Long Road, and at the end of 1912, made part of a village in The New York Hat. Simply by reversing the camera’s direction so that we face out from the storefront windows to catch Pickford and Barrymore admiring the eponymous hat, Griffith lets us see what is kept invisible in Musketeers: the unpaved road, the tall leafy trees, and picket fence on the other side of the street. From city slum to American pastoral with a single repositioning of the camera! The Miser’s Heart and The Old Bookkeeper, if anything, are even more nuanced: urban neighborhoods that reveal their rural aspects only by degrees. Trees and picket fences first show up in the reflections of downtown shop windows, then in the distance from rooftops, and only fully blend into the action when used as dramatic backdrops for last-minute rescues. Biographs will never reveal all their secrets of pre-filmic space and mise-en-scène; by 1911 and 1912, Griffith and Bitzer had become far too expert in hiding their tracks. But we can take quiet pleasure in penetrating some of the more blatant teasers and optical sleights of hand. As more Biographs shot in Fort Lee become available, more of Griffith’s imaginary New York will unveil itself, and – we may count on it – more puzzles and riddles will emerge. Russell Merritt 165

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435* BIOGRAPH

HEREDITY Filming date: finished September 1912 (shot some time between 4–30 September 1912, most likely in the second week) Location: Coytesville, New Jersey Release date: 4 November 1912; reissued by Biograph, 27 December 1915 Release length: 1015 feet Copyright date: 4 November 1912 Director: D.W. Griffith Author: George Hennessy Source: none known Camera: G.W. Bitzer Cast: Harry Carey (White renegade father); Madge Kirby (Indian mother); Jack Pickford (Their son); Walter P. Lewis (Indian chief); Kate Bruce (Indian woman); W. Christy Cabanne, Alfred Paget, Robert Harron, W.C. Robinson, Hector V. Sarno (Indians); Alfred Paget, Lionel Barrymore (Woodsmen) NOTE: Information on casting taken from examination of paper print fragment on deposit at the Library of Congress. Archival Sources: Library of Congress, 35mm paper print (fragment: 74 frames plus intertitles) THE CALL OF THE BLOOD IS ANSWERED At the edge of the Indian village, where the renegade white man is occupied with trading, he meets the Indian maid, who later becomes his purchased bride. A son is born. Playing with his kind the child, who inherits his mother’s Indian character, passes on to boyhood. Then the racial difference between the father and son is felt. At length the father, angered at the reluctance of the youth to leave his people and accompany him on a trading trip, compels the boy to do so by threats and violence, but later during the journey he becomes ashamed of his Indian wife and child. Broken guns and bad whisky, sold to the Indians by the trader, inflame their desire for vengeance. In the coming attack the war-cry of his ancestors stirs the young Indian’s blood. The father’s crimes prove his own destruction, while the boy and his mother are claimed by their own. Biograph Bulletin, November 4, 1912 In this story one is shown how the young Indian in spite of the fact of his white father, felt the Indian blood in his veins, causing in his love for his own people a certain feeling against his father, while the dishonesty and brutality of the father virtually resulted in his own death through the vengeance of the Indians he had wronged. Thus [h]is son and Indian wife are able to return to their own. The renegade white man, who is also a trader, lives on the outskirts of an Indian village. He attracts the attention of the young Indian maids and wins the good graces of the chief’s daughter. He purchases her for a bride and carries her off to his cabin. Later a baby is born. When the child, who has inherited its mother’s Indian character, reaches boyhood, he is fond of being with his people in the Indian village. Thus the father and son feel their racial difference. At length the father receives a letter summonin[g] him forth on a trading trip. He seeks the boy in the village, and when the young Indian shows reluctance to accompany him on the

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trip, the father compels him to do so by threats and violence. At a nearby post the father is ashamed of his wife and child, and after showing his true character by making a trade for whisky and guns with counterfeit money, he proceeds on his way with a friend. The broken guns and bad whiskey are sold to the Indians, after which the trader proceeds on his way with his friend, forcing his Indian wife and son to walk. The Indians seek vengeance for the deceit played upon them. In the attack, where the party seek [sic] safety behind a box and under the wagon, the young Indian is stirred by the sound of the war-cry of his ancestors and answers. The friend is first killed and then the father himself succumbs. The o[ld] chief of the tribe appears [at this moment...] [h]e prevents the blow of the other infuriate[d] chie[f]tain [by declaring] the boy is of their blood. The mother and [s]on thus return to their tribe and their own. Synopsis from Copyright Material submitted to the Library of Congress, November 4, 1912, LU89

At the time of this writing, this is still another tantalizer considered to be lost. Based on the detailed copyright summary and shot breakdown, Heredity belongs on the lengthening list of frontier Biographs that pit savage whites against wronged but violent Native Americans. Here, as in The Last Drop of Water (1911), Indians function as God’s hammer – a force that, stirred to revenge, punishes a brutal husband and inadvertently saves an oppressed wife and son. But what gives the film its special interest is the surprising take on miscegenation (i.e., the “heredity” of the film’s title). Griffith was no stranger to the theme – it is, of course, the mainspring to the racist logic in The Birth of a Nation (1915), where the mulatto Silas Lynch is used to display the folly of racial integration. Closer to home, the point of the 1908 Biograph The Call of the Wild is to reveal the savage lurking beneath the veneer of the college-educated native. But Heredity, the last Biograph written by the prolific George Hennessy, comes from other lines. Here, the son of a white father and tribal mother inherits his mother’s genes, creating a push-pull tension between two irreconcilable forces: the native’s innate predilection toward violence and instinctual behavior, versus the woman’s heroic passivity. An intertitle from Heredity’s copyright shot description indicates the same kind of struggle we saw in The Call of the Wild when the protagonist wants revenge: “THE BOY FEELS THE CALL OF THE BLOOD IN THE WAR-CRY.” But here “the call of the blood” is evidently double-edged. The boy, “who has inherited its [sic] mother’s Indian character”, prefers music to sports. Like the other mama’s boys in Griffith films, he is sensitive, gentle, and poignant – a lonely outcast who appears a variation of the isolated Griffith heroine. What Griffith appears to have set up is a soul struggle of sorts between a father, white and brutal, and a mother, non-white and long-suffering – a struggle resolved by the intervention of violent non-white males. The New York Dramatic Mirror’s reviewer gives some idea how convoluted this twist of Social Darwinism appeared even in 1912 by inadvertently turning the Biograph genetic code into gobbledygook: The influence of heredity as commonly understood has been clearly set forth in the boy … At the time when the father’s outfit is being attacked, the boy hears the call of the blood through the war cries of the Indians, and apparently he is almost ready to desert his father and join the other side. As it is, in the end the father is killed and the mother and son are claimed by their own, and one feels that, after all, it is as it should be, for the son’s associations have evidently kept alive the hereditary instincts within, and happiness would have been his only by submission to these instincts. (November 13, 1912, p. 28)

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The Moving Picture World reviewer cut through the nuances from another perspective: “Its subject is not so pertinent and therefore not so interesting” (November 16, 1912, p. 659). Biograph thought enough of it, however, to reissue Heredity in late December 1915. Thanks to the kindness of Madeline Matz at the Library of Congress, I’ve had a chance to examine the frame clippings Biograph sent to the copyright office in 1912, currently the only available visual record of the film. The frames reveal a film consisting of eleven titles and seventy-four shots taken from eighteen set-ups. But they also show actors and, more intriguingly, sets and locations. As best I can tell, Griffith shot the exteriors to the trader’s cabin and trading village scenes in Coytesville, New Jersey (today, northern Fort Lee), where a year earlier Biograph had built a cabin and stockade for two frontier pictures – A Tale of the Wilderness and Billy’s Stratagem. My assumption is that Griffith and Biograph were gradually turning a clearing in Coytesville into a backlot for selected frontier pictures – including Friends, An Adventure in the Autumn Woods, Wilfred Lucas’s In the North Woods and The Chief’s Blanket – building it up throughout the summer and fall of 1912. We won’t know until we’ve seen these films, but what’s striking in comparing the cabin in Billy’s Stratagem and the frontier village used a year later in Heredity is how much the lot has grown. The edges and corners of a halfdozen cabin structures are partially or fully visible. The company is plainly trying to create an East Coast lot along the lines of the ersatz Western town constructed in 1911 in Eaton Canyon for films like The Chief’s Daughter and In the Days of ’49. Sadly, Coytesville was no competition for California’s wide open spaces. While Biograph’s West Coast lots grew exponentially, culminating in the sprawling custom-made townscapes used in The Battle of Elderbush Gulch and Judith of Bethulia (both 1913), the Coytesville set never grew (at least during Griffith’s years at Biograph) beyond what the registration frames show in Heredity. The cabin interior poses another mildly interesting puzzle. Harry Carey’s room with the fireplace is the same one Edna Foster shares with Inez Seabury in Billy’s Stratagem. I had assumed that Billy’s Stratagem’s set was a rare (and so far, unique) example of an East Coast Biograph interior built on location rather than at the E. 14th St. studio. The dirt floor, the fire ablaze in an open fireplace, the realistic-looking logs, the actual flames burning up a fuse of wood shavings, and the unusual overhead lighting all suggested an open-air set built on site, rather than one constructed inside an apartment building. But, as you may remember, the cabin in Billy’s Stratagem was blown up and burned down (see DWG Project, #388). What its reappearance in Heredity suggests is that either Biograph was criminally foolish enough to endanger the lives of two children by constructing this extreme fire hazard inside a studio where it was reused the following year, or that the cabin was built twice for Billy’s Stratagem at Coytesville – once as an interior, then as an exterior to be destroyed without affecting the insides. We anxiously await further clues. Russell Merritt

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436* BIOGRAPH

GOLD AND GLITTER Filming date: finished October 1912 Location: East Coast Release date: 11 November 1912; reissued by Biograph, 31 July 1916 Release length: 999 feet Copyright date: 13 November 1912 Director: D.W. Griffith Script: George Hennessy [“True Gold That Glitters”] Camera: G.W. Bitzer Cast: Elmer Booth (Husband); Grace Lewis (Wife); Lionel Barrymore (Lover); Lillian Gish (Young woman); William J. Butler, Walter P. Lewis (Her older brothers); John T. Dillon, Harry Carey, Joseph Graybill, W.C. Robinson (Lumbermen); Dorothy Gish (On street); Alfred Paget (In canoe); ? (Young mother) NOTE: Information on casting taken from examination of paper print fragment on deposit at the Library of Congress. Archival Sources: Library of Congress, 35mm paper print (fragment: 81 frames plus intertitles); National Film Center/National Museum of Art, Tokyo, 35mm nitrate positive As the husband leaves for the lumber regions, his wife gives him a memory message to be opened after his arrival. Attracted by a maid, cherished by the love of two old brothers, he forgets it until sometime later. The message serves its purpose, however, for through it, after a thrilling experience, the maid learns the true value of the man’s love, while he in his turn, goes back to his waiting wife and finds there, along with his shame and regeneration, his heart’s desire. The Moving Picture World, November 23, 1912, p. 808 Called away to the lumber regions, the husband receives a memory message from the wife to be opened after his arrival. It reads, “Remember, dear, that all I have in the world is your love and trust. Your wife.” He passes several girls on the way with whom he has flirtations. In the lumber country two old brothers have adopted a girl, who is reaching womanhood. At their first appearance in the picture daylight is dawning. One is evidently reading a prayer, over which they have fallen asleep. He points to a woodsman in the nearby forest trail passing with his wife and baby, indicating that motherhood and its joys await the girl in the future. They depart to the forest with the young lover of the girl who also joins them, where they begin work felling the trees. When they have gone, the husband arrives in a canoe with a guide. He meets the girl in front of the cabin, and is at once infatuated with her. The next day the old men depart for the camp and begin work. The husband finds his wife’s message in his pocket, while walking through the forest, but tears it in several pieces, and goes back to the girl. The latter part of the note, reading: “Remember dear, that all I have in the world is your love and trust. Your wife,” is picked up by a lumberman and kept, and later shown to the elder of the brothers. The husband is seen in the forest, caressing the girl, by the lover, who threatens death to the man with his axe, but the husband quickly overcomes him by covering him with a revolver. The young lumberman hastens back to the camp, informing the brothers and the other lumberman of what he has seen. The note is shown in evidence that he is a mar-

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ried man. Realizing that he must flee, the husband in a moment of weakness, takes the girl with him. A mad chase down the [r]iver in a canoe follows, with the elder brother and the lumberman who found the note in pursuit. The rest of the men make a cut overland to intercept them. Thus the pursuing party is forced to land. A fight of guns follows as the husband and the girl hide behind a small barricade of old timber. The men make an advance from the front, while the lover in the rear attempts to kill the husband. Witnessing his intention, the girl throws herself in front of him. The last shot is soon gone, however, and he is obliged to surrender. Confronted with the note in the hands of the elder brother, he confesses to his marriage. The girl goes off with her lover, while the elder brother, preventing bloodshed, sees the man to the river, where he orders him into the canoe and sends it off down the river. Some time after the husband returns home, but on the way he fails to greet the various lady friends he had charmed on his departure. He had learned his lesson. At the house he meets the nurse at the doorway, who ushers him into the house. There he finds a baby. A father’s joy is his, until he remembers his experience in the lumber regions. He covers his face in shame, while out in the forest the two old men rejoice in the escape of the girl and her reunion with her lover. Thus both man and girl learned to distinguish the superficial from the real. Synopsis from Copyright Material submitted to the Library of Congress, November 13, 1912, LU109

An inconstant husband leaves his wife to pursue a business venture in a lumber camp. There he is attracted by the innocent affections of a young country girl. Despite the overprotection of her older brothers and the ardent attentions of her burly suitor, the maiden is caught up in the city man’s charms and vows to run away with him. They are pursued by canoe, and the city slicker is nearly shot by the pursuing lumbermen. Only the chance discovery of the wife’s “memory message”, wantonly dropped by the husband, allows the suitor to expose the blackguard’s lies to the young woman. She is left a little wiser in the ways of the world. The errant husband, repentant, is brought to consciousness of his misdeeds and returns home to a forgiving wife and newly born child where he renews his marital commitment.

No matter what troubling modern problems lurk beneath its surface, Gold and Glitter seems deliberately winning and sunny. Its principles are attractive, especially Lillian Gish, as the sun-kissed, dreamy-eyed “maid[en]”. Exteriors include large urban yards and airy woodlands, wide lakes and thrilling hilly prospects that seem to belie the dangerous notion the film toys with – the justification of the mutual interest between willful virgin and her potential seducer. Whatever one thinks of the errant husband, by the film’s end, there is a brief and, yes, troubling, indication that the young lady in question is a little too ready for the romance … a hint of sexual complicity that certainly would turn the world of standard moral verities upside down. Many of the films of 1912 seem to be more “realistic” in this sense – contexts better established, characters more motivated, histories more completely unfolded. Less story must be taken for granted; more detail is set before the viewer. So it is with Gold and Glitter, the tale of a country lass seduced by a city slicker. This material is not new. Griffith had treated the essential city/country, sophistication/innocence, faithless/faithful oppositions of this plotline as far back as The Message (1909), in which a vagrant wife is seduced by a travelling salesman. Over the Biograph years, the material had been twisted and turned through the possible variations with tragic results (The Mountaineer’s Honor [1909]) and comedic ones (Sunshine Sue [1910]). By a reversal of the conventions a country boy is even subjected 170

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in The Broken Cross (1911) to the temptations of a sophisticated city woman. Sorrow or joy might come of the meeting between country and city, but the values of constancy and truthfulness were always upheld. But the reviewers of 1912 in both The Moving Picture World and The New York Dramatic Mirror seem confused by the effect “the Biograph producer” is trying to create in Gold and Glitter. Was Griffith trying to be funny or serious about this story of marital infidelity set among traditionally “comic” hicks in a lumber camp? Is it clear that the Maid is disabused of her romantic illusions in time? Though the Moving Picture World reviewer assures that “[the film] pleased an East Side audience very much”, the New York Dramatic Mirror critic worries about the “moral” effect of this mixture of comedy and tragedy. Is the “light-headed” husband’s shamefaced return to fidelity believable? This uncertainty recognizes the strain visible in the later Biographs as the usual conventions are stretched into fuller narratives with consequences that were always implied in previous films but never fully explored. At the heart of tales like Gold and Glitter is an assault on the fundamental status of the family as social unit and the corollary sanctity of marriage vows. The reassertion of the stability of the family always constituted its moral “lesson”: the failure to observe nuptial promises, its potential for tragedy. But divorce and the happy reconstitution of an alternative happy family was always a possible outcome of the clash between experience and innocence – and therefore the genre also contained an explosive potential for “immorality” that had strictly been governed by the conventions of realization, repentance and reassertion of the status quo. The combination of the old straightforward black-and-white melodramatic configurations with a fresh appreciation for the “real” emotions that might emerge in such a situation – and the “real” sympathies they might elicit – creates a sort of schadenfreude in Gold and Glitter that seems a shade too close to dangerous social attitudes. Still, the old anchoring structural devices assure that the world of the film is established on firm ground. Iconic formulations of family stability frame the action. These comparative “portraits”, especially when they are condensed statements of domesticity, had served Griffith well in many previous Biographs to contextualize the drama, for good or ill, to prepare for the tragic irony or comedic reconciliation. Besides appearing at the initiation and culmination of the drama, family portraits are usually recapitulated at some time in the course of the film’s flow. Sometimes they appear in narrative “nodes” of two or three comparative images when crucial decisions are being made. Thus it will be in Gold and Glitter. The domestic interior in which the film begins indicates the state of the man’s relationship with his wife and her uncertainty of his trustworthiness. It will be repeated later when he cavalierly throws away her “memory message”. But theirs is not the only family asserted in the film. The primacy of familial relationships is twice reiterated at the beginning of the film’s second sequence. “The Maid” (Lillian Gish) and her bearish protectors are introduced as a domestic grouping outside their cabin. Their collective image is another realization of the guardian/ward relationship that correlates country to city manners and habits in this subgenre. Finally, this particularized portrait of shelter and nurture is followed by yet another if more generalized scene of familial devotion, in which a wife and children greet a husband returning from his labors in the forest. For all the hanky-panky that will ensue in Gold and Glitter, family values are strongly reinforced from the film’s beginning and hint that its resolution will not be a disturbing one even if the fanciful Maid temporarily is dazzled by the attentions of the city slicker. As a set of action-structures, the film is comprised of a framing walk (away from and then back to initial home icon); an internal chase by canoe, a picturesque but time-consuming line of action that harks back to the Biographs of 1908 (e.g. The Red Girl, The Ingrate); and a gun battle. 171

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Besides providing a pretext for action, the walk illustrates the husband’s character. His roving eye is cast on every pretty girl he passes. There is even an indication of a more serious liaison with a young neighbor who runs out in her front yard to bid him a tearful farewell. The walk has a conventional and utilitarian function. Structurally, it organizes egress and transitional re-entry into the husband’s domestic milieu. Dramatically, the exact repetition of the suite of images at the film’s end illustrates and rationalizes the sincerity of the change of heart that will occur over the cradle in the last shot. The somewhat less economical chase, however, is twisted against convention and depicts the double point of view that proved so confusing to contemporary critics. For what might have been a race to the rescue, from the point of view of the chasers, is certainly an unwanted a pursuit from the point of view of the lovers, especially the deluded Maid who vigorously defends her choice of suitor against her family and against her erstwhile country sweetheart. This ill-choice will require that the young woman be reintegrated into the “family” icon in which she was introduced, as well as the husband must be reintegrated into the portrait that his infidelities nearly shattered. This reintegration of the erring female is a standard strategy of films in this subgenre, but nowhere is it so strongly put forward as in Gold and Glitter, where two uncles and the suitor all firmly reassert their ”authority” over the willful maiden/ward. Also worth mentioning is the film’s gun battle, a favorite idea now, and in ensuing films (e.g. The Informer) a study for the soon-to-be-expanded magnificent action sequence in The Battle at Elderbush Gulch (1913). At the resolution of the canoe chase/rescue in Gold and Glitter, the Maid and the faithless husband wind up, backs to audience, “defending” a sort of impromptu fort of fallen logs against the onslaught of the “rescuers”, who urgently try to dissuade the Maid from her folly. This sequence benefits from an almost experimental analysis of mass and distance that results in framings from long shot to a kind of medium shot of the embattled lovers. The resolution, however, is not the headlong rush of rescuers into a shot that usually finishes sieges, but rather a “surreptitious” attack from “behind” (actually the left foreground) in which the suitor, gun in hand, confronts the perfidious husband and the protesting sweetheart. Thus is the altercation pivoted to face the audience again and is deployed by pairing a reverse of the battle’s direction (in the next medium shot the suitor faces the camera) with a reverse of the lovers’ attention (from back of frame to foreground). The fresh tension between these paired spaces is resolved in stages through a series of eight shots. First the Maid throws herself into the potential path of the suitor’s bullet, thereby preserving the husband’s life. Then the husband’s duplicity is revealed to the Maid’s distress. Finally, the miscreant escapes the shot altogether. But even after the city slicker has left, the suitor must be restrained in shot 76, prevented by his fellow lumbermen from continuing the pursuit and killing the betrayer as his treachery deserves. And yet there is that flirtation. Continually in Gold and Glitter there is a respectful retreat from shots, a sort of rearing back out of one space and into another. This arrangement facilitates observation – as with the uncles who keep a constant eye on their ward. But it also prepares for the looks over cuts that increase the breathless tension of the newly developing romance between the errant husband and the captivated Maid. Intercutting between these characters reinforces the audience’s experience of the physical attraction between them and dramatizes the Maid’s susceptibility to the husband’s urban charms. The fact that her dreamy eyes stray off screen even as her guardians attempt her moral education, portends her eventual escape from the protective embrace of her stout-armed suitor – right in the direction (screen left in this case) of the city slicker who was all too ready to forget the “memory message” entrusted to him by his wife. These mutual tendencies to “forget” instructions send the Maid and the city slicker into a literal romantic whirl as they caper around and around a tree before they finally “catch” each other, and embrace in the next 172

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shot, only to be observed from a succeeding allied space by the affronted and furious suitor. Of all the variations on conventions and strategies in this film, the cavalier attitude toward remembrance is the most interesting. Beginning in After Many Years (1908) and continuing throughout Griffith’s oeuvre, memory tokens had been a potent source of drama, as well as indicators of a character’s gravity and a gauge of his or her seriousness and moral worth. Every locket that was ever given in a Griffith film had been a touchstone; every wife’s faithful memory, the very lifeline that seemed to bring imperiled husbands out of danger. More specifically, the “memory message” had been a standard device of the subgenre of which Gold and Glitter is an example. The Message (1909) turns on the discovery of the erring wife’s note of farewell to her husband; A Summer Idyl (1910), on the smell of a cigarette that spurs the city man to a recollection of all the charms of his sophisticated city lover. Gold and Glitter employs the memory device very straightforwardly. The faithful wife gives her husband a note to remind him of her love for him; or in this case, to remind him that he is a married man, for as soon as he’s walked off the family porch, he’s flirting with every skirt that passes and perhaps has engaged in a more serious truancy with a young lady who cries as he leaves – to about as much effect as the wife’s farewell. But unlike the other films in this subgenre, the “memory message” in Gold and Glitter is thrown away. This action seems shocking; its dismissal of the wife’s loving trust, callous. In a weaker, but related gesture, the Maid also “throws away” the instructions of her guardians when she ignores their warnings and accepts the slicker’s advances. The impulse purposely to forget is perhaps the last variation that could be worked on this theme of tokens, emblems and redeeming messages, but in the context of the convention, such a wanton gesture should lead to tragedy not reconciliation (compare with Lines of White on a Sullen Sea, 1909, where madness results from love unrequited and forgotten across the miles). It is no surprise that the gesture suggested an unredeemable worthlessness to the reviewer of The New York Dramatic Mirror. The “light” treatment of these signal calls to recollection and recall introduces a set of ambiguities that the genre could hardly support. In general then, the spatial expanses of Gold and Glitter are much larger, and so there is an interesting interplay between the old narrative of suggestion and implication and the new narrative of explication and statement. Emblematic of this trend is the treatment of the “memory message” which does resolve the dramatic conflict, but is moved emotionally offcenter in the film. In short, fewer ghosts seem to haunt people’s minds in Gold and Glitter – a fizzy light-heartedness from which the husband and the Maid recover only in the knick of time. Joyce Jesionowski

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437* BIOGRAPH

MY BABY Filming date: finished ca. October 1912 Location: East Coast Release date: 14 November 1912; reissued by Biograph, 4 December 1916 Release length: one reel Copyright date: 16 November 1912 Director: D.W. Griffith Author: D.W. Griffith Source: none known Camera: G.W. Bitzer Cast: Mary Pickford (The wife); Henry B. Walthall (Her husband); Eldean Stewart (Their baby); W. Chrystie Miller (Grandfather); ? (Married sister); Alfred Paget (Her husband); Madge Kirby (Wife’s friend); John T. Dillon, Walter Miller, Jack Pickford, Dorothy Gish, Walter P. Lewis (Wedding guests); W.C. Robinson, John T. Dillon, Adolph Lestina, Clara T. Bracey, Elmer Booth, Lionel Barrymore (At table) Archival Sources: George Eastman House, 16mm acetate positive; Library of Congress, 35mm nitrate negative (no intertitles, AFI/Mary Pickford Collection); 35mm nitrate positive (AFI/Mary Pickford Collection); 35mm paper print (fragment: 78 frames plus intertitles); The Museum of Modern Art, 35mm acetate fine grain master When the double wedding takes two daughters away from the old man at once, the youngest, now the only one left, in outraged spirit promises never to leave her father, but soon she too is departing for a new home. Then comes a cold hard fact of life. The son in law claims his right to make a home alone for his wife. In his bitterness and anger, the father, the father denies them both the house. Several years later the lonely old man meets at the gate a babe in arms. When he learns whose baby it is, heart hunger craves another sight, and sought, brings with it the only natural result. The Moving Picture World, November 23, 1912, p. 808 After a double wedding of two daughters, the old man is left alone with the youngest. The wedding party departs and passes through the old worn gate, where they are given a royal send-off with rice and the like by their enthusiastic friends. The youngest daughter returns to the house and cheers her father with the assertion that she will never leave him. Later there appears another intruder, who whistles at the gate. She and her father are looking at her picture as a baby at the time. She joins the youth, who proposes. The girl reminds him of her father, but yields, and entering the house with him, the daughter tells her father of her intention to marry. The father at first mildly protests, but at length gives his consent. Afterwards the young couple are married. The old man prepares to go with them and appears with his packed belongings. The son-in-law calls the wife out to the gate with him, and there tells her that he does not want the father to live with them. They return to the house where they inform the old man of the decision. Imbittered and angered at their refusal to take him with them, he refuses them the house. Two years later a lonely old man sits alone in his home. His daughter’s baby is taken for an airing, followed by the young parents. There is evidently a plot on foot to entrap the old man for as he comes out of the gate, the neighbor’s wife, carrying the baby, stops in front. The old man inquires whose

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baby it is, and is told that it is his grandchild. The parents come up, but he waves them away in protest and goes into the house. That night, heart hungry, he longs for another sight of the baby. He goes out into the night and to the house of his daughter. The husband is a young farmer and the entire household is at supper while the baby is asleep in the adjoining room. The grandfather looks in at the window and sees the young parents leaning over the cradle of the child. They go into the dining-room and the father is at length tempted to steal in through the window for a look at the child. The household is aroused, believing there are burglars in the house. The old man makes good his escape, however, and the excited family, including the farmhands, is unable to find any indication of his whereabouts. The next night the old man looks at the photograph of his daughter as a baby and begins to wonder how much the daughter’s baby looks like herself when she was that age. He goes as he did the night previous and as he is leaning over the crib comparing the baby with the picture of its mother at the same age, the family at dinner again hears the same sound as on the night before. The old man hides at the side of the cradle, covering himself with the baby’s quilt. There is a general search. He is found by the daughter and just as he emerges from the quilt the husband rushes into the room confronting him with a revolver. They enjoy the joke at the old man’s expense and after a reconciliation leave him rocking the baby’s cradle. Synopsis from Copyright Material submitted to the Library of Congress, November 16, 1912, LU119

After the wedding of her two elder sisters, the youngest daughter of an elderly father promises that she will stay with him and never marry. But soon her suitor calls, and soon the father is reluctantly agreeing to the third marriage. When the new husband insists on setting up a separate home in which the father will have no place, the father retaliates by banishing the daughter from his home. Some years later, the young couple contrives a reconciliation through their baby. The child is brought to the father’s gate by a nursemaid and initially he responds, until he finds out whose child it is. Still bitter, he rejects the overture. But later he sneaks to the young couple’s residence for another look at the infant who reminds him so much of his beloved child. His intrusion is nearly fatal; he’s nearly taken for a burglar. But when he’s found in the nursery, hiding beneath the infant’s coverlet, the confusion is resolved and all generations of the family are happily reunited.

Billed in a Biograph ad as “The story of a thoughtless promise…”, My Baby has the vague flavor of Shakespeare’s King Lear – if things had gone better for Cordelia and Lear had liked babies more. As they were for Shakespeare, the disagreements between children and parents, especially over marriage, are serious matters in Griffith’s Biograph oeuvre. And as in King Lear, disruptions between fathers and daughters contain an unusually high potential for disaster. This subject was treated lightly once in the droll The Road to the Heart (1909), where wife and daughter both move out of the home of the crotchety patriarch who will not accept his new son-in-law. Otherwise, mothers, with their generic capacities for forgiveness and reconciliation, usually are missing from these pictures. Relationships deteriorate; estrangement between demanding fathers and ostensibly disloyal daughters quickly follows. As in Her Father’s Pride (1910) and As It Is In Life (1910), Griffith has to work to bring My Baby to comic reconciliation out of the potential tragedy toward which this subgenre of family narratives tends. What might seem a somewhat silly resolution – the alienated father invades the nursery, is mistaken for a burglar, and is nearly shot to death – functions in My Baby as a dramatization of the gravity of the rift between father and youngest daughter. 175

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Which is to say that in this film Griffith glances at the cosmic Shakespearean disorders of blood and generational in/fidelities even though he necessarily concludes at the more intimate level of family romance. Unlike Lear’s royal family, this ordinary father and daughter eventually elude tragedy and renew familial continuities across the generations. But the threat to welfare and happiness is considered no less serious. My Baby shares with other Biographs of this period a bifurcation of sentiment, and alternation between the comically tender and the tragi-ironic that is somewhat disorienting. This wavering emotional tone seems related to the new narrative space Griffith has made for himself. The impulses toward “classical” construction seem much stronger. The formal gestures are economical, the range of expressive compositions expanded, the energies focussed, the acting well-tuned. Conventional narrative paradigms and universal character types are being exchanged for particular stories of individual people. What is lost in grand allusions must be supplied by exposition and representation; which is to say that these late films seem to be a gauge of a growing narrative and visual sophistication. Like Gold and Glitter, My Baby has a mixed effect. Its clearest precedent in previous Biographs is As It Is in Life (1910), a film that focuses on a father who sacrifices remarriage for the sake of his daughter but does not receive the same consideration when the young woman is courted in turn. As It Is in Life adopts a deliberately cyclical structure – the courting sequence is played twice, once with the father as the center of the tale and later with his daughter in that position. As is typical in Griffith’s films, the spatial configuration echoes the narrative arc. When daughter is wooed in images that repeat those of the father’s sequence, memory, anticipation and then irony arise by virtue of the direct comparison between their different decisions. What the father has sacrificed, the daughter accepts. Marriage will take her from her father’s house. She will leave him alone. For all the pictorial invention in this earlier film (some of the scenes take place on a pigeon farm and benefit from startlingly beautiful flocks of birds wheeling up into the image), its cyclical structure creates an allegorical effect. The father and daughter seem to stand for an eternal rather than a personal problem. The sequence of repeated shots seems connected to the cycles of birth and regeneration in nature itself. The sorrow that accumulates there relates to that sense of loss that always permeates family stories as children develop into parents with their new obligations to “strangers” – as suitors and new husbands inevitably are portrayed. The story provides a unique twist on the theme of the embattled family that so dominates the melodramatic tradition. The danger, however, is here posed by time – the inevitable transition from dependency that children must make; the inevitable confrontation with dependency faced by parents who often feel entitled to receive consideration as they have given care. The threat, harking back to King Lear’s domestic situation, is posed not by an external villain, but rather by the inclinations of the human heart. The effect inevitably is a bittersweet one. The autumnal mood and the audience’s sympathies in this subgenre are somewhat mitigated by the selfishness and pigheadedness of the patriarch, who at least disowns the “disloyal” daughter for marrying. Usually, he also forbids her and her new family entry into his house, even if the result is a wretched and lonely state of unhappiness (or even penury, as in Her Father’s Pride [1910]). In As It Is in Life, this potentially tragic outcome is reversed in the last four shots where the grandfather is introduced to the grandchild by the proud new mother. This resolution seems almost an afterthought to the film, which is centered on a comparison between a father at the “end” of his life and a daughter at the “beginning” of her own. My Baby dramatizes this heretofore abbreviated reconciliation and thus shifts the narrative center from the original domestic disagreement to the post-marital feud. The father’s 176

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self-interest is, therefore, brought more prominently forward (like Lear, he fully expects to be the centerpiece of his daughter’s new home). Despite her seeming betrayal of her promise to care for him, the narrative shift increases the sympathy for the daughter who is now playing peacemaker between husband and father who put her in the impossible middle of their struggle for her loyalties. The circumstances may be shared by other daughters and other fathers, but the story of My Baby is much more personalized than it had been in As It Is in Life. The baby of the title is unquestionably the daughter, a narrative fact established through a photo over which her father obsesses. That this photo is the objective correlative for the daughter is established in a title: “HER PICTURE AS A BABY”, and a subsequent shot in which “Mary” specifically asks her father to identify the image. “Me?” she gestures. And when he confirms her supposition, they embrace. The focus of the film, however, is clearly the father’s, not the daughter’s, transformation. And here, the photo functions as a token of exchange. When Mary leaves him for her new husband, the father smashes his baby’s photo to the floor. Structurally, the narrative objective will be to move the father from his unhealthy fixation on the image of a childhood past (Mary’s baby photo is insistently referenced in the film) to the cradle of a real infant alive in the present. Father repossesses his daughter, not by admitting that he was wrong, but by accepting his new role as grandfather. The ultimate renewal of family life is effected by the father’s ability to see his daughter and ultimately himself in the face of the new baby – a variation on the cradleside reconciliation that will conclude three of the four films in the group I analyze in this volume. To establish the old man’s situation, the opening sequence of My Baby first dramatizes his increasing isolation in his house. The first two shots are jammed with people and depict the double wedding of the two elder daughters. When the interior of the home is emptied of its guests (the elder daughters “abandon” the father), it is momentarily filled by Mary and her father regrouping in a family portrait which affirms her fidelity to him. But it is not long before the garden gate introduced in shot 2 becomes the locus of a new conflict – a suitor appears there to take Mary, the third daughter, away. The use of the gate itself is interesting. Griffith had employed the highly charged implications of the image before (The Open Gate [1910]) to explore the consequences of chances taken and opportunities passed up. But the figure is especially interesting in comparison to the upcoming Brutality. In the later film, the flirtatious push and pull over the barrier between garden and outside world underlines dramatic with graphic tension forecasting the violence to come when a young woman leaves the protection of her parents’ home (though they are implied only). In My Baby, the gate controls the narrative flow from paternal to marital domicile. It first “yields” Mary to her lover and leads her beyond the barrier of her father’s “estate” where she is transformed from daughter to wife and gains a domestic space of her own. Then the gate becomes the token of the “iron barrier” of misunderstanding between the estranged father and his seemingly disloyal daughter. The infant, brought to this gate, is refused entry once the old man understands that the visiting nursemaid holds his grandchild. Only gradually will the barrier “yield” again as the father is translated from his “own” space (roughly the leftward pole of the film) to the newly constructed familial space: the young couple’s room and the infant’s nursery in the boarding house (roughly the rightward pole of the film). It is the insistent formality of Griffith’s structures that creates these implications. To effect the narrative exchange in My Baby, he tailors two of his staple forms, the chase and the direction of attention through windows, to explore new possibilities. Looking through windows had evolved in the Biographs as an expression of the world beyond the immediate image. Because space between shots is more properly described as contiguous rather than continuous in these condensed films, windows rarely expressed functional point of view and more exactly directed attention out of interiors and into the 177

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generalized “world of the film”. Thus were worried women stationed at windows when husbands were drinking in saloons or sweethearts were away at war. (Fathers also could assume this station, as in The Honor of His Family [1909].) Structurally, looks through windows were directional indicators in the otherwise hypothetical geography of the film. They connected contiguous spaces in a film-wide whole as securely as actions cemented spaces in the logical construction of the film’s locales. But since these interiors were connected to other interiors, or to exteriors that could not realistically be proximate to their locations, these “viewers” were “seeing” the perils of their loved ones only with the powers of the heart or the strength of the imagination. The mental potency of such “sightedness” was strongly suggestive, almost an idealized dramatization of concern and emotional connection (an effect Griffith finally imports back into the shot in the strikingly imagined phantom lover of The Painted Lady [1912]). Although they carry the same suggestive overtones, looks through windows in My Baby at first seem to be much more firmly attached to proximate objects of attention, i.e., they seem much more “realistic”, though mismatched angles still confound sightlines that would equate looks to exact points of view. The window in the father’s house, for instance, is situated in its usual frame-line position. Mary’s look right is motivated by the fact that her suitor whistles to draw her attention to the garden gate, though the exact connection between the window and the garden gate is not fully explicated. More exactly functional is the frame-left window to the nursery through which the father looks, directly sees, and then scrambles in to get a better view of and to later cuddle the infant grandchild as he has “cuddled” the picture of its mother. But even here, though ostensibly connected more realistically to the object of attention, the father’s look (left) through the window retains an imaginative dimension. As seen by the audience, the ensuing medium close-up of the daughter and sonin-law gathered at the infant’s cradle could hardly represent what the father sees in fact. In relation to his sightline, the angle is “unreal”. Though the whole structure seems predictive of “classic” conventions to come, this newly actualized moment oddly harks back to narrative consequences of earlier graphic strategies. In My Baby the juncture of look with family grouping becomes a sort of a mental “super-shot”, a magnification of the solidity of the relationship of mother, son-in-law and baby from which the father has become alienated. The ensuing close-ups of the father at the window foreshadow his complementary close-up with the baby in the nursery. The comparative configurations present a graphic harmonization of masses as the father’s reintegration into the family is accomplished. The active translation of father from old home interior to new home interior takes place in the context of two “faux” chases – sequences in which the father’s home-intrusion is mistaken by the young parents and the boarders as an assault on the nursery. Too proud to openly reconcile with his daughter, the old man first approaches the nursery in secret. The first “break-in” is initiated from the father’s home base and establishes the spaces (gate and back of boarding house) that lie between the father’s home and the new home where the young couple reside. The sequence includes the father’s first entry into the nursery and the first suspicion of robbery/kidnapping with attendant “chasing” in the environs of the boarding house after the father who already has left the scene of the “crime”. The sequence concludes with two comparative images: a reiteration of the father’s attachment to Mary’s baby photo when he returns to his own house; the young couple hovering over the cradle of their actual child, who seems to be safe. The second and resolving “chase” sequence begins in the father’s home and restates his connection with Mary’s baby image, which he will now carry back to the nursery with him. The interior/exterior alternations of the first “chase” are exchanged for interior/interior alternations in the second, and allude to that classic Biograph situation in which dramatic tension 178

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builds and finally is relieved by the breach of the closed door separating two interiors. The structural variation in My Baby is that both structures (siege and chase) are emptied of their usual payoffs. Neither the breach of the doorway, nor the abortive chase (through the two exteriors around the boarding house) resolves the drama, for the “villain” has been hiding “in plain sight” under the baby blanket all along. And, of course, he turns out not to be a villain. This anti-structural impulse, the replacement of the grand redemptive gesture for the rueful grin, almost guarantees that the story will end pleasantly rather than tragically for this father and his baby after all. For all his talents as a director of epic scope, My Baby illustrates Griffith’s complementary gifts for intimacy. As a poet of family life, he examines the joys and all of the threats, external and especially internal, that can tear people from each other and isolate them in lonely misery. As do the other films of this subgenre, My Baby grieves over the separations, natural and unnatural, that occur between children and parents. It also tries to suggest that the path to reconciliation is fraught with peril and is not a foregone conclusion – though it opts for reconciliation after all. Unlike the previous films of its kind, however, My Baby relies less on universal types and implications and substitutes full-blooded, rounded characterizations and “realistic” spatial exposition that invite rather than compel attention. Old structural paradigms are truncated or turned inside-out to respond to more elaborate narrative schemes. In the end, particular people rather than cosmic classes emerge with the charm and even good humor that is nowise assured in this ancient story of the misunderstandings between fathers and their daughters. Joyce Jesionowski

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438* BIOGRAPH

THE INFORMER Filming date: finished October 1912 Location: Milford, Pennsylvania Release date: 21 November 1912; reissued by Biograph, 17 July 1916 Release length: 1080 feet Copyright date: 23 November 1912 Director: D.W. Griffith Author: George Hennessy Source: none known Camera: G.W. Bitzer Cast: Walter Miller (Confederate captain); Mary Pickford (His sweetheart); Henry B. Walthall (False brother); Kate Bruce (Mother); Harry Carey (Union corporal); Lionel Barrymore, John T. Dillon, Elmer Booth, Joseph Graybill, W.C. Robinson (Union soldiers); Alfred Paget (Confederate general); Edward Dillon (Confederate soldier); Clara T. Bracey [blackface] (Servant); Jack Pickford [blackface] (Boy); W. Christy Cabanne, Robert Harron, Dorothy Gish, Lillian Gish (Other couples) Archival Sources: Filmoteca Española (format and generation undetermined); Library of Congress, 35mm nitrate positive (AFI/Dorothy Horton Collection); two 35mm nitrate positives (AFI/Mary Pickford Collection); 35mm nitrate positive (Republic/Blackhawk Collection); 35mm nitrate negative (AFI/Mary Pickford Collection); 35mm nitrate negative (Nathan Hirsh 1920s reissue, AFI/Mary Pickford Collection); 35mm paper print (fragment: 113 frames plus intertitles) The young lover leaving home at the opening of the war to join the Confederate Army, tells his brother to take care of his fatherless sweetheart during the perilous times which are to follow. But the brother weakens and fails to be true to his trust. He permits her to believe that her lover is dead. Caught in the neighborhood, however, between the lines of the enemy, the brother appears before them at the crucial moment. In retaliation the false brother turns informer. Both forces are aroused to arms and during the attack upon the girl defending her wounded lover and family alone in the negro’s cabin, retribution comes in the form of a stray bullet. The Moving Picture World, November 23, 1912, p. 808 In a Southern village the youths and men are all ready for the summons to war and when it comes Harvey Dixon goes to his sweetheart Mary, to tell her of his departure. He places her in the care of his brother, Stephen, feeling that she needs the protection of a man in these perilous times, as she has only her mother to shield her. Leaving the brother behind, they pass on down through the village and off to the trysting-places on the hill overlooking the river, which winds down through the valley. Here all the youths and maids of the village are wont to congregate. After lingering good-byes they leave for the war. The brother left behind, however, rather exults in being alone with the girl and later takes an unfair advantage by allowing her to think that her lover is dead from a letter which he does not permit her to fully read and which he has received from his bother. Yet at that moment the brother is caught between the enemy’s lines in that neighborhood. He is seen on the edge of the hill by the Union sentinels and killing one of their number, he breaks through the line only to be pursued by a squad of Union soldiers, who have quarters in a nearby

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inn. He seeks refuge in a cornfield and thus eludes them. While all this is going on, the brother at the home of his sweetheart has almost won the girl’s consent, when the wounded brother stumbles in through the front door. Both hear his entrance and presently he falls into the room to the consternation of both. Seeing the false bother out of the house, the girl demands that he never attempt to see her again, and returns to her lover. The conversation, however, is witnessed by the old negro mammy and her youthful son, Dave, who sets out to watch the actions of the false bother. Meanwhile, the girl and her mother seek safety with the wounded lover in the mammy’s cabin. The informer tells the Unionists at the inn of his bother’s whereabouts and the squad sets out to capture him. They are seen, however, by the girl returning to the house. She returns to the cabin which is situated in the center of an open field, and there attempts to protect her lover by putting up a fight inside the cabin. She sends forth volleys from the window while the old mammy loads the revolver. In the meantime, Dave, who has determined to tell “ma massa capt’n ‘bout dis,” has reached the Confederate quarters in the village and informed the captain of the family’s difficulty. They arrive just as the Union squad has entered the cabin and dragged out their prisoner. In the skirmish, the informer is killed by a stray shot just before the Unionists retreat before the Confederates. He falls concealed in a broken snow-plow, while his brother is rescued and borne off by is comrades. When the war is over he returns with his broken scabbard and is claimed by his waiting sweetheart, while at the village trysting-place, one lover alone returns, creating heartaches in other maids who witness the greeting. Synopsis from Copyright Material submitted to the Library of Congress, November 23, 1912, LU131

Harvey, off to fight for the Confederate cause, entrusts his sweetheart Mary to his brother Stephen. But no sooner has he gone than Stephen is plotting to claim Mary for his own by convincing her that her fiancée has been killed in the war. Harvey, wounded and pursued by Union troops, turns up at the moment Mary acquiesces to Stephen’s suit. His lie exposed, the faithless brother is expelled from Mary’s home. Vengefully, Stephen informs the local Union troops of his brother’s whereabouts. Mary and Harvey flee to a slave cabin to hold off the Union attack until the Confederate troops ride to the rescue. A stray bullet kills the perfidious informer during the battle in which Harvey and Mary are saved.

For Griffith, the Civil War is always a family matter. Whether a stable family unit is being torn asunder, or a family in the making is threatened, the issues are always deeply and personally localized. The tragic disposition of family loyalties had been dramatized in In Old Kentucky (1909), where brothers fight on opposite sides, and universalized in The Fugitive (1910), where a Confederate mother’s compassion is called forth by both Yankee and Rebel “Johnnies”. The sorrows of sweethearts left at home to worry and grieve had been transformed from the early rescue scenario of The Guerilla (1908) to the brave and bold heroines’ adventures in the gothic House with Closed Shutters (1910) and the more typically romantic Swords and Hearts (1911). The Informer joins the structures of chase, siege, and race to the rescue to interweave plotlines that had been treated separately in former films. In the context of the great civil conflict, two brothers struggle for the affections of one woman who must not only defend her honor but also must become a warrior in defense of the man she chooses. Though The Informer’s narrative is framed in terms of an epic battle, the struggle is also a matter of one heart’s choice. As such, the film depicts the theater of war at its most personal. Though the film’s structures have good formal precedent in earlier Griffith Biographs, it is far less con181

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densed, conveying a more linear sense of a narrative unfolding in dramatic time. Its complexity looks forward to films yet to be made. PART I – THE HERO’S ADVENTURE Sequence 1 – Lovers Leaving The Informer begins with three portraits in separate images: a pair of sweethearts, the rival whose twisted hand externalizes his twisted psyche, and a community of sweethearts whose presence suggests the many alternative stories the film could have pursued. (The print screened at the Library of Congress diverged somewhat from the opening provided in Biograph’s copyrighted script. Shot numbering is therefore approximate though the narrative intentions remain clear.) The triptych of concentrated introductory images was a typical construction by 1912. But it is newly contextualized in The Informer. The common visual trope for Civil War subjects had been the colorful send-off parade with flags and ladies’ handkerchiefs bravely waving the heroes to glory. As in Swords and Hearts, no parade as such occurs in this film, which seems imbued with a sense of loss from its very beginning. After they leave their portrait space, Harvey and Mary, a Confederate soldier and his fiancée, take a sort of serpentine path of right and left exits and entrances through images that integrate them into the rest of the little community of lovers soon to be parted by the war. Whereas a son’s valor in The Honor of His Family (1909) was placed before a community of witnesses, in The Informer the community of lovers seems remarkably oblivious to neighboring townsfolk. Picked up in the course of the hero and heroine’s walk to the panoramic “trysting place”, each couple seems lost in its own private ruminations on leave-taking. This introductory sequence convinced the reviewer of The New York Dramatic Mirror that there was life in a genre that already seemed in danger of becoming “stagnant.” “The atmospherical setting of a beautiful Southern town in war-times”, he observes of the Pennsylvania location, “the young women in crinolines bidding their soldier lovers good-by, the bustle of troops preparing to march and countless other little sympathetic touches are there to supplement the bare narration of the story.” Indeed this alternation between the vast and the intimate is the keynote of the film. Unlike the upcoming Brutality, which seems charged with centripetal energies (the husband and wife left grimly and weightily alone as soon as all the extras are expelled from scenes where they have fulfilled their duties as “crowd”), The Informer is subjected to centrifugal forces that will pull the lovers apart and leave vulnerable the very center of the home – the heart – to an assault, ironically from within. As its title suggests, exposure is The Informer’s theme. The issue of betrayal is uppermost. It is no wonder that the character of the faithful and benevolent suitor of After Many Years (1908) and Enoch Arden (1911) is here demonized in the character of the brother who deceives. In fact, the one person who is insistently isolated in this initial sequence of parting is the jealous brother, Stephen. Though he enters the village square, he accompanies no sweetheart to the trysting place – one of those picturesque panoramas where time seems suspended in the large canvas of nature. While the lovers are saying their final good-byes, while the townsfolk are readying a send-off for their “boys”, Stephen, sidelined from the battle, “retreats” to his own constricted portrait space from which he resentfully witnesses the departure of the warrior-sweethearts. The desire of the second suitor to “ascend” to the place of the chosen one has always been treated as a matter of locale in Griffith’s films. From the alternative portrait of wife and suitor formed on the flower-bordered path in After Many Years to The Informer, Griffith made use of “incorrect configurations”, often repeated in familiar images, to indicate 182

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health of the emotional order of the world of the film. In The Informer, the brother cannot find his place in the first sequence of shots; worse, he cannot take the place that he desires – that occupied by his brother. He is forced into the structural position of the lurker-watcher, the one who resentfully occupies the fringes of the action. This sense of dislocation establishes Stephen’s sense of alienation spatially and substitutes blinding jealousy for simple blackhearted evil as his character’s motivation. One suspects him on account of this exclusion, as well as on the matter of his withered hand, which, in another version of the tale, might just as well have foretold bravery and pathetic self-sacrifice. The first sequence of the film ends as it began: with enclosure. The soldiers leave; the brother watches from “his” shot in embittered isolation; Mary, back turned to viewer, stands in the trysting shot with the rest of the abandoned ladies before she finally exits and the image fades to black. It is not a coincidence that from the direction of his entry into shot 3 (going right to left) Stephen’s presumed view of the departure (indicated by his reaction to it) could extend right by implication to meet Mary’s position in the trysting spot. Their spatial orientation is the bridge to the next sequence of the film. Sequence 2 – Chase and “Siege” In the next sequence, the elegiac mood of the film’s beginning escalates to action. Both lovers are pursued: Mary by Stephen; Harvey by Union soldiers. Typically, Griffith initiates the sequence with comparative shots: as Harvey is hiding “in his own neighborhood”, so Mary is wooed by the enemy “hiding” (in plain sight) at her own doorstep. (The presence of an audience surrogate, Dave the slave lad, stationed on the porch, implies an alternative view of Stephen’s intentions.) Thus, Harvey’s pursuit, beautifully articulated in shots of varying architectures, is introduced, punctuated and resolved within the context of images of Stephen’s bad-faith courtship of his brother’s fiancée. Four shots effectively constitute this revisionist “siege”. Stephen, after all, first appears at the outside door and then works his way into Mary’s house much like robbers of previous films worked their way in to menace the women of previous films. Of note here, however, are the small details that pungently delineate the characters and dramatize Stephen’s efforts to supplant his brother. When Stephen destroys Harvey’s putative letter to Mary, the actor Henry Walthall tears it with his teeth. The disability of the withered hand motivates this bit of business, but there is something not only perverse but perverted about biting one’s brother’s words to bits. Griffith seems to have encouraged these deliberate theatricalisms; yet the over-heated gesture remains a delicious emblem of the character’s very nature, a reminder of the range of expressiveness available at the juncture of what Roberta E. Pearson has termed the “histrionic” and “verisimilar” modes of acting in the Biographs. Also of interest is the fact that Stephen deliberately turns Mary away from her contemplation of the window, that paranormal view of the “world of the film” that so involves Blanche Sweet in The Battle (1911) that her lover seems to spring back to her house along its directional tug. Harvey’s return to Mary is not directionally connected on this sort of emotional tether in The Informer, where the hero’s active role will be soon very deliberately be transferred to the heroine. Though the sequence depicts Stephen’s assault on her house and heart and presents Mary at her greatest moment of emotional vulnerability, the focus, indeed, is the chase – Harvey’s pursuit by Union soldiers. Harvey’s strategy is heroic but covert from the beginning, and underlines graphically the theme of concealment. His initial location on the brow of a panoramically visualized hill is articulated between long shots and medium close-ups. He shoots a Union soldier from this position. The subsequent chase continues to play with the notion of concealment and revelation in a tempo harmonized with the visual theme. 183

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Instead of deploying a line of action that will be alternatively extended by pursuers and pursued across the diagonal expanse of the image, the chase in The Informer is governed by a rhythm of running and pausing. The action is halted repeatedly as Harvey stops to turn, look out of the shot and gauge the distance he has gained on his pursuers. Ultimately he will elude them not by speed but by stealth. Once he has been wounded, he can go no further. He loses his pursuers by dropping out of sight at the moment of maximum proximity, when they finally “catch up” and occupy the same shot as he does. This chase variant recalls the evasive maneuvers of the Modern Prodigal (The Modern Prodigal [1910]), who also twice ducks out of sight to elude his pursuers, and the passage in The Informer represents, therefore, an imaginative variation on an earlier model of pursuit. Additionally, as in The Modern Prodigal, The Informer’s chase is suspended for the sake of a second drama – in this latter case, the private tale of the heroine’s seduction. Momentarily it seems that the chase in The Informer also is going to be detached from the film’s resolution. But the interruption is only temporary. Unlike the earlier film, pursuit will be resumed and that resumption will herald action in the second, larger theater of struggle. PART II – THE HEROINE’S ADVENTURE Sequence 3 – Transition: the Hidden Revealed The action sequence in The Informer, then, leads not to the resolution of the chase, but to a transitional alternation of interior and exterior spaces that resolves the subplot of the preceding sequence and also portends greater danger. That which has been hidden at the beginning of the sequence is revealed. At the moment of her greatest peril, with one more glance at the window, when Mary is acceding to Stephen’s seductions (significantly, she touches his withered hand), Harvey, wounded but manifestly alive, crawls up onto the porch to deliver the lie to his brother’s deception. The release of information that had been withheld unseats Stephen from his temporary occupation of his brother’s intended spatial position. He is banished from Mary’s house and from her life. But the unresolved tension of the chase hangs over the scene as impressively as Harvey’s seriously wounded condition. In a swift and economical series of eight shots, the film then turns from the hero’s journey to the heroine’s adventure. Harvey, whose arrival has “delivered” the heroine from her delusion, is now clearly in need of deliverance himself. In fact, he will remain present in the frame but unable to act for the rest of the film. The active role is effectively turned over to the film’s women: Mary, her mother, and the black slave (a “mammy” figure) whose cabin provides shelter for the wounded Confederate hero. Interpolated in the alternation between repeated interior and exteriors is a new space indicating the arrival of the Confederate troops “in the neighborhood”. The gradual confluence of this arrival with the final siege sequence will generate the resolution of the film. Sequence 4 – Renewed Concealment and Renewed Pursuit. Not only have the hero’s and heroine’s roles been transposed, but in the world turned upside-down that constitutes the new narrative order, it is Harvey who is sidelined, and Stephen who acts. The women hide the delirious hero in a slave cabin. The chase is renewed by Stephen whose information reconnects the line of activity of the Union pursuers with their lost objective. The revived chase culminates in the siege. An alternative line of action is initiated by Dave, the slave lad who leads the Confederates on a race to the rescue. The convergence of the two lines of action on the besieged cabin provides an epic mixture of structural elements, which Griffith will continue to refine in The Battle of Elderbush Gulch (1913) and, of course, ultimately in The Birth of a Nation (1915). 184

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Sequence 5 – Chase, Siege and Race to the Rescue The resolving sequence of The Informer begins with a tense interchange of views between Mary and the Union soldiers – first over exterior shots in the more unspecified geography of road and woodland, then in the more localized geography of the besieged cabin itself. The siege structure that had been invoked in the earlier sequence 2 is now completely reworked as the film approaches its climactic crisis. In the most classic cases, this situation was constituted of a series of strategic retreats from exterior to interior. As the victim is “cornered”, i.e., confined to the space with no exit, a series of barriers (usually doors) is broken down by attackers. The clearly plotted geography of retreat creates a sense of inevitable and inescapable crisis. The doors are sites of tension and release that control tempo and generate anxiety. Joined to an allied line of rescuing action (often played out on a diagonal), the structure (usually laid out laterally) efficiently generates the question: Will the rescuers arrive in time? Various narrative answers can then be provided. Griffith had perfected this idea as far back as The Lonely Villa (1909) and had been utilizing it in various configurations ever since. In the subplot of Swords and Hearts, for instance, an aged father is forced “back” into the parlor of his home by Union guerillas seeking his fortune of gold. These are not the last marauders who will menace a southern home in Griffith’s oeuvre. In the case of Swords and Hearts, the outcome is tragic. The siege is detached from any race to the rescue. The gunbrandishing father resists, but after the exterior and then the parlor doors are broken down, the house is torched and the marauders escape. Though the father eventually is dragged from the flames by the faithful family retainer (a slave), he dies anyway. The gunbattle of The Informer explores a different narrative outcome. Here the resolving chase is withheld as the spatial opportunities between closed (the cabin door) and open (the space surrounding the cabin) are exploited and the dramatic visual possibilities of the gunbattle are examined. Mary’s position is first established in midshot at the doorway of the cabin where she has hidden her fiancée. She defies Harvey’s pursuers in shot 70, indicating by her orientation toward them their proximity “over the cut” – that is, they are known to be “in the next shot” where they can be seen by her. This usual contiguity of proximity is followed with a statement of continuous space. By cutting out on the axis from a midshot to a long shot, a smooth transition is made from Mary’s position at door of the cabin to her “situation” in the battle. This ensuing high long shot details the exact “Union” and “Confederate” positions in the siege geography, and reiterates the new aggressive posture that Griffith had been developing for a formerly passive role. Like Blanche Sweet in The Lonedale Operator (1911) and Dorothy Bernard in The Girl and Her Trust (1912), Mary Pickford – at the doorway brandishing a gun at the Union attackers; retreating into the cabin fortress; using her weapon at the window to hold the Yankees off – is a woman warrior, not a fainting female waiting for rescue. The energy of this siege flows back and forth between advancing attackers and cornered defenders. The constructed geography of her “retreat” into the cabin joined to the revelation of the continuous space between cabin and attackers, and the subsequent closing in by the Union troops, becomes a map of a battle, and less of an architectural trap in which women wait for rescue. Rescue, however, must still be provided. After the siege locale is well established, after the gunbattle is well underway, the potential for Confederate action, first suggested in sequence 3, is finally activated. The rebel troops sweep freely and boldly toward the camera as the complementary movement around the cabin moves toward the rear of the shot, successively closing down the space that has been delineated between Union position (fore) and the cabin (rear). The culminating images of the siege are much closer than usual (midshots). The villains approach, batter and then break down the door of the cabin. At this moment before his brother’s exposure, the perfidious Stephen also comes out of hiding. Griffith provides one last characterizing shot in 185

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which the informer is depicted, snake-like, twisting into view from behind the tree where he has been watching the battle. He is shown before the question Will they be in time?, is finally answered in the usual terms – the heroic Confederate rescuers swing around the cabin’s rear as Harvey is being hauled out of the cabin by his Yankee captors. In the battle’s aftermath, Stephen is shot and killed. His brother is saved. Mary’s valiant defense has been successful. Sequence 6 – Epilogue No matter the personal triumphs of love over perfidy, the larger outcome of the Civil War is a bittersweet one. The South does not win the battle for its way of life. Or that, at least, is the way D.W. Griffith saw the matter. In The Informer, the irony is wrenching. The Union enemy is beaten back in a glorious skirmish, but wins the war in the end. Mary and Harvey are reunited; but the recapitulated panorama of the trysting place implies all the tragedies that have not been dramatized. One armless veteran rejoins his sweetheart. Other ladies will spend their lives in mourning. From a structural point of view, one of the most startling images in The Battle of Elderbush Gulch is an aerial shot of the cabin and its environs connected with Mae Marsh’s look. This elevated perspective could not possibly reflect her character’s point of view. But it does hang the drama in the balance between one young girl’s position and the dire situation of the fortress within the larger siege geography. This ability to easily and yet radically negotiate between the personal and the totality begins to take on a new concreteness in The Informer, a film of longer structural and narrative lines than many preceding it. Epic scope is created in the combination of scenic vistas and large action structures, deployed first along a single narrative thread and then cunningly interwoven with converging lines of action. The personal is sharply delineated in telling details like Walthall’s characterization of Stephen made visible in efficiently constructed images. The combination of intense and detailed portraiture with epic action construction turned a review in The Moving Picture World that began somewhat tepidly, toward enthusiasm nonetheless. “So thrilling and so well made is the story that it will draw the audience forward, make it swallow the scenes with its eyes”, the reviewer promised. Indeed, The Informer gathers the energies of every kind of film that had preceded it to achieve a new and spectacular whole. Joyce Jesionowski

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439* BIOGRAPH

BRUTALITY Filming date: finished October 1912 Location: East Coast Release date: 2 December 1912; reissued by Biograph, 1 October 1915 Release length: two reels Copyright date: 29 November 1912 Director: D.W. Griffith Script: George Hennessy [“The Brute”] Camera: G.W. Bitzer Cast: Walter Miller (Young man); Mae Marsh (Young woman); Joseph Graybill (Victim of anger); Lionel Barrymore, John T. Dillon, Clara T. Bracey, Walter P. Lewis (At wedding); ? (Bouncer); John T. Dillon, Alfred Paget, Frank Evans (Outside bar); Harry Carey, Clara T. Bracey, Madge Kirby, W.C. Robinson, Charles Hill Mailes, Jack Pickford, Gus Pixley, William J. Butler, J. Waltham, Lillian Gish (At theatre); Elmer Booth, Henry B. Walthall (In play) Archival Sources: Library of Congress, 35mm nitrate negative (Public Archives of Canada/Dawson City Collection, part of end missing); 35mm paper print (fragment: 58 frames plus intertitles); The Museum of Modern Art, 35mm nitrate negative In every man struggles the two natures in conflict. Some, as in the case of the brute, pass through life dominated alone by the brute force, until there comes a regenerating influence arousing the latent good. Into his life first comes the instinctive attraction for the coquetry of the maid, but the strength she may have fancied she admired in him turns into gross brutality, subduing her hidden spirit. Then two tickets for the theater change the entire course of his life. The Bill Sikes in the play holds up the mirror to the Bill Sikes in life, and both man and wife are born anew. The Moving Picture World, November 30, 1912, p. 908 The Brute was young and when he passed the girl at the gate her hoiden nature instinctively attracted him. She threw him a kiss from distance and that was the beginning of their courtship. He came to take a walk with her and a passerby accidentally hit his shoulder and he gave him first exhibition of brutality before the girl. He knocked the stranger down. Perhaps it had been [t]his very brute nature which had first fascinated her, but she awoke form her shocked surprise when he assured her that he would never hurt her. Then came the marriage, and a happy bride in the joy of her new possessions. Her hoiden delight as she capered about the kitchen pleased him. Soon, however, the honeymoon was over, but still the young wife was happy in the possession of her home and her husband, until he came home drunk one night after his usual drink at the bar with his friends. She had arranged a delightful dinner and had waited expectantly for him before he came in. Then came the painful awakening. As time went one [sic] his brutal nature at last gained full control, until one night he returned home to her after a brawl in front of the saloon, where he knocked down a man. He found no supper ready and in his drunken state he struck her. She recoiled in horror, her mental nature more shocked than any feeling of physical injury. While he went into the kitchen to rave, she sat down too overcome for actual tears, which, however, rested very close to the surface. She determined to go away, and obtaining her hat by stealth, lest the brute in the next room hear her, she started toward the door, when

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a violent expostulation from the next room drew her back and her husband entered. Then she gave him the lie, by telling him that she had no intention of leaving him. [Some] [t]ime later he has obtained tickets to the local […] go together. He the ideal husband “bossing” her […]. At the theater they sit in the first row. The last act on the bill is an adaptation from “Oliver Twist,” – the scene where Fagin comes to inform Bill Sykes of Nancy’s deliberate exposure of their plans concerning little Oliver, – the murder scene. The brutality of Sykes affects both husband and wife, but each in their separate ways. They cast a sidelong glance at each other, but the man tries to throw it off. He does not altogether succeed. At the conclusion of the performance, he sits somewhat preoccupied until his timid little wife hurriedly gathers up her hat and coat and reminds him that they must go by a fearful little tap on his shoulder. The lesson of the play, however, has been a deep one, and once they are back in their own home, she sinks down into the chair before removing her wraps. The play has evidently made an impression on both. He sinks on his knees and throwing his arms about her as she sits there in the chair, he buries his head in her lap. Gradually the significance of it all dawns upon her and she begins to caress his head with her fingers, as he promises that hereafter all such things shall be eliminated from their lives. Some time later he meets his old friends in front of the saloon but refuses their company. He has evidently risen in the world, as he no longer carries a dinner pail. As he enters the house there is a smile on his face. He has fulfilled his promise. Within he meets his wife sitting before the fireplace with the baby – their promise of happiness attained. Synopsis from Copyright Material submitted to the Library of Congress, November 29, 1912, LU144

When they are courting, a saucy maiden flirts with a hot-tempered suitor. Though she gets a pre-marital demonstration of his dangerous lack of self-control, she allows herself to be reassured by his promise never to hurt her. Their marriage gets off to a good start, but drink erodes the young husband’s self-discipline and he is soon showing his fists to his wife. Though dismayed, and though she learns to fear her husband, the wife does not despair of him. One evening, at the theater, the husband squirms in his seat at the depiction from Oliver Twist of Nancy’s murder at the hands of Bill Sikes. Realizing at last the dangers of his unbridled temper, the husband repents, stops drinking and devotes himself to his wife and newborn child.

The issue of spousal abuse depicted in Brutality seems as strikingly contemporary as does its hopeful message that sobriety leads to family renewal in the wake of addiction and its attendant cruelties. In 1912, the film drew raves. “Every change of expression is more clearly pictured than if [the characters] were really before us, and one isn’t embarrassed drinking the effect in. Is it not truly soul-music? Can such impressions be created in any other way than on the screen?”, enthuses the reviewer for The Moving Picture World. And yet, there is something unusually raw and skeptical about this dark film for all the sunlight that seemingly breaks on its ending. Griffith gives so direct and so blunt a depiction of these domestic circumstances that the very same reviewer squirms even as he struggles to describe the film’s quality: “Brutality seems an honest but a rather unfortunate title for so good a picture; such a name is hardly a recommendation … The way [the husband] treats [the wife], and her consequent attitude toward him, are very truthfully suggested; one sees things not unlike it now and then.” He finally decides, however, that “there is also individuality of style and something of progressiveness and originality, which promises well for the future of the picture business.” 188

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As thrilling as were the prospects it foretold for the future of cinema, Brutality, like the three films that directly precede it, also posed a challenge. In the light of its candor, this late Biograph again questions whether the reconciliation promised by its happy ending could be true. Brutality indeed seems obsessed with gaining a clear-eyed perspective on the truth of its situation at every level from details of décor to organizing structures. About midway through the film a mirror hung on the back wall of the kitchen interior is a small but interesting indicator of this objective. In an earlier scene, a seemingly playful interchange between husband and wife had established the kitchen as her domain in the newly created home. At a later moment of particular fury, the husband invades that space to rage against the miserable spouse he has left cowering in the living/dining room. A table is kicked aside. The mirror reflects the temperamental storm. As the husband sinks to a seat at the kitchen table, the mirror also captures his image at a moment of dangerous calm. Though the reflection of his monstrousness is there for all to see, he does not see it. The dramatic arc of the film will aim to bring him to consciousness of this image of himself. Like the young husband’s true nature, the modernity of Brutality is also initially hidden. Though the film’s subject is uncontrolled anger rather than alcoholism per se, the husband’s behavior is triggered by drink and thus the film’s freshness and originality appear under the temperance rubrics Griffith had utilized previously, sometimes in the same dark temper. In What Drink Did (1909), a father’s degeneration ends in the death of one of his daughters; in The Broken Locket (1909), paternal neglect leads to the daughter’s delirium and blindness. Brutality also is steeped in the foreboding that hangs over bad habits left uncontrolled. It shares with What Drink Did the uneasy balance between aggressive “play” and violence (between father and children in the earlier film; between husband and wife in the later). And like The Drunkard’s Reformation (1908), Brutality offers a variation on the hopeful theme of conversion – in each film, induced by watching a play. In Griffith’s earlier career, the stage and the broadly theatrical life had been directly referenced in films like Behind the Scenes (1908) and The Call (1909). It is in the context of the temperance subjects, however, that drama, specifically the play within the (film)play, is recognized as an agent of identification and self-recognition. Certainly, the temperance melodrama was not the first dramatic form to suppose that the “play’s the thing wherein to catch the conscience…” The notion that performance is a vehicle of revelation, and that artifice is a vehicle of truth, if not of reality, is a potent idea exploited in all the arts. Temperance stories, however, with their powerful calls to therapeutic self-realization, offer a natural context for such a trope. Thus, the husbands in The Drunkard’s Reformation and Brutality are brought to consciousness of their failings by seeing “their” lives acted before them. Moreover, each man attends the conscience-pricking performance in the presence of the very person he threatens most seriously. The conversion of each reprobate is witnessed by child or childwife, the latter in Brutality certainly wondering if the spectacle will waken conscience or greater violence in the savage breast. The notion of sightedness, the ability to discern the truth of character, is thus as strong an element in Brutality as it is in the other films of this genre where the moment of revelation coincides with the moment of resolution and where tragedy results from blindness (in these cases, being “blind drunk”). Vision and visibility become subjects and structural themes of the films. Essentially, Brutality can be seen to be organized in three balanced sequences of alternated shots. In the first alternation of two exteriors, the tension between the garden gate and the “world” beyond it is governed by the movements of the young woman, soon to be wife. Her fancy seems to control her suitor’s entry/exit to and from shots that could be designated [her space]/cut/[his space]. He is frustrated that she seems arbitrarily to send him 189

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“away” (i.e., out of “her” space), but he also honors her decision. He waits for her invitation and her permission to reenter her “domain”. The woman’s management of the young man’s actions suggests her ability to regulate a courtship that clearly is cast as a mock battle full of romantic teasing. But by the same token, a formal current of tension runs through their relationship from the beginning. The contention over shots separated by cuts that previously would have been waged between adversaries, in Brutality is waged “playfully” between lovers. It is as if the audience is being led to misread the formal structure throughout the sequence. The gestural interaction between man and woman looks like an innocent picture of courtship. When the newly pledged couple mutually enter [hisspace], the resolution of the formal separation between the two shots should indicate a dramatic resolution: a serene walk into a new married union where they will face external threats together. The structural subtext, however, has been pointing toward the certainty that “something” is about to “break”, and though the outburst of street fighting that ends the first dramatic interchange is startling, it has been forecast by the form in which the courtship has been expressed. When the tussle ends with the young man’s promise that he will never turn his anger on his future wife, the residual feeling is uneasiness rather than reassurance. In The Drunkard’s Reformation, the effects of domestic degeneration were concentrated at the window where the wife watched for her husband’s return to the hearth. The scary part of What Drink Did was depicted in a child’s walk from barroom to barroom. A visualization of the plaint “Oh, father, dear father/Come home with me now…,” this walk serves as illustration of that anti-drink refrain. But such is the power of the image of Adele De Garde’s child character walking through sun-lit streets, that the little girl (for all Adele’s artifices) seems particularly vulnerable. She’s so small, and it is so inappropriate for her to have to find her way from barroom to barroom alone. And she’s all dressed up, as though she’s been protected from such realities to this point. Each stop at each successive watering hole with its complement of beery regulars is another encounter with the evils of a world she cannot understand and of a stark reality inconsistent with her child’s ability to cope. Tragedy is inevitable. Brutality both isolates the child-wife and arranges the confrontation of ingenuousness with hard fact in structural strategies that are distressingly implosive. For all the cast members crowding into its various scenes, Brutality is a drama of familiar images and the two faces that inhabit them. It relentlessly focuses on one man and one woman who is increasingly isolated and terrorized by her husband’s violent temper. While the traditional image of the worried wife stationed at the window is invoked in Brutality, it does not establish a critical emotional link between the (organized) home and the (disorganized) world (of the barroom) as it had been in previous films. Instead, the brawling barroom disorder of Brutality backs up into the home where the links between the wife and the world are successively broken and pared back. Once this woman has opened the gate and transversed the line between her garden and the “world”, her mobility is reversed and becomes the exclusive possession of her increasingly Hyde-like husband. It is he who is depicted walking from home to beer joint. His movements govern the uneasy alternation between spaces within the home they initially arrange together. She is progressively crushed into a space near the bottom of the frame in the image of her living room, as his brutality becomes more and more apparent to her. The anxieties typical to Griffith’s temperance films tilt now decidedly from mental to physical violence. The teasing that seemed natural to a flirtatious young maiden becomes increasingly dangerous to the wife as her husband’s true nature emerges. As in the film’s first sequence, the tensions in the second interchange grow between two images, a living/dining room and a kitchen. The threat that had been posed from the world without in previous films is here imported into and confined within the newly established home. The result is volatile. Though he has promised he would never hurt her, the husband soon loses 190

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control of his temper when he falls under the influence of alcohol. Though temperance literature was full accounts of the liquor-induced sorrows of females and children (compare with, for instance, a speech by Mother Eliza Daniel Stewart, scanned from Memories of the Crusade on the Ohio State Prohibition Project website), the actual image of wife-battering in this film must have been a newly disturbing one. Interestingly, the actual slap is preceded by a breaking dish. (This image is missing from the 35mm print I viewed at the Library of Congress, but is included in the 16mm viewing print at the Museum of Modern Art.) But impact is all the more powerful for its confinement within the two restricted domestic spaces. In no other film are interiors quite as hermetic; is the door/barrier quite as vulnerable; is the allocation of adversaries to separate spaces quite as threatening; is the atmosphere created as lowering as in the passage where domestic interiors are intercut as husband retreats into the kitchen to rage against his intimidated wife. The ebb and flow of activity impeded by the barrier/door, the structure that Griffith devised to dramatize assault by robbers and intruders, is here shockingly employed within the home itself. Mae Marsh’s performance occupies the conventional position of innocent/child both in the context of her previous roles and in the context of previous temperance subjects. Brutality is therefore a film where the girlishness of Griffith’s actresses serves him particularly well. Hanging on her garden gate, she seems a typically hopeful yet somewhat heedless young thing – shy and bold by turns, maidenly but strongly attracted to the “dangerous” and dashing young man who comes courting her. As a wife she seems visibly to age as she comes to grips with the full revelation of her husband’s “real” personality, its dangerous unpredictability and the awful immediacy of its violence in the enclosed spaces of the home she hoped to share within him. The tragedy that eventuated in What Drink Did colors Brutality. Grief seems to age the carefree young girl and rob her of her privileged innocence as it robbed the child of her life in What Drink Did. It also seems to rob her of any agency. Though she makes a gesture at escape, she does not leave her dangerous husband. Walter Miller certainly has the film’s greater burden in portraying this menacing character who is so quickly passing beyond the point of redemption. Miller was usually cast as the pretty hero in Griffith’s late Biographs and his boyishness naturally complements the heroine’s girlishness. In The Informer, the passivity of his ostensibly heroic character is wholly believable in the context of his previous characterizations. So typical was such casting that the critic in The New York Dramatic Mirror feels compelled to prepare viewers to accept the actor in his new role. “His first appearance on the screen is inclined to create a titter for he allows the droll side of his personality to stand uppermost”, the reviewer notes. “But even as the girl, we are startled at catching a glimpse of the character’s other nature and immediately become seriously interested.” Miller bravely undertakes to externalize unvarnished anger, and clearly was told to ratchet the demonstration up to tantrum level. Thus are his good looks profitably played against the violent impulses of his character as his handsomeness is progressively distorted by uncontrolled anger. He achieves a performance that reaches beyond his usual range and through it the film’s final images of sobriety attain that measure of believability necessary to sustain its happy ending. Savagery, not drink, then becomes the real object of Brutality’s sought-after conversion experience. Liquor is held to be only the catalyst that reveals an ugly fault in the young husband’s character that is clearly inherent, not induced by the usual buddy-tempters or vamping temptresses. Perhaps it is this fateful hint of heredity that unsettles the certainty of the permanence of the conversion to come and the selection of the subject for the selfrevealing spectacle is therefore of interest. Instead of staging a temperance drama as in The Drunkard’s Reformation, Brutality reproduces Nancy’s murder by Bill Sikes from Oliver Twist. Dickens’s tale, with its emphasis on the discovery of “true” natures, comes to a par191

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ticularly hideous climax in the slaughter of a young woman by a man whose signal bestiality is finally fully realized in an act of depraved violence. But as horrible as the scene of the murder itself, more horrible are the psychological repercussions Dickens delineates, zeroing in as he does on the image of the dead woman’s eyes continuing to “view” her killer. Bill’s dawning awareness of himself as a murderer, literally beginning at sunrise after the killing, and his inability to escape “the eyes”, finally results in his suicide. Griffith’s affinity for Dickens has been well-noted (Karl Brown, among others). Moreover, as Martin Meisel observes in his account of the cross-fertilization of theater, pictorial arts and narrative in the nineteenth century, this particular novel was being staged even before its serialization was complete in 1838. Roberta Pearson also notes the familiarity of the subject on the American stage. The overtone of Nancy’s fateful and accusatory stare might well have hung over Brutality for all familiar with Dickens’s story. But such prior knowledge is not necessary. Just as Fagin slyly incites Bill’s rage against Nancy (the actual subject of the film’s theatrical), the husband’s temper has also risen to the boiling point by the time he enters the theater. Though husband and wife occupy the same screen position that Griffith utilized in The Drunkard’s Reformation to seat father and daughter, the couple’s proximity to each other and in respect to the staged events, seems as uncomfortably crowded as are the interiors of their house. Once again, something is about to “break”. It is at this point that the moment of truth arises in the confrontation of film structure with theatrical distillation. As in The Drunkard’s Reformation, Griffith takes pains in Brutality to delineate stage spectacle from cinematic space. In this later film, stage characters are shown in full-figure as opposed to the three-quarters views of the cinema characters. The stage actors are trickedout in theatrical makeup as compared to the naturalistic look of the film characters. The spectacle is confined by proscenium and a chain that delineates the boundary of the downstage space. But at the “moment of truth”, when Bill is beating Nancy, a cut-in on action occurs. Cinema and theater conventions are formally reversed as the intensification of theatrical space is accomplished with a cinematic device. The boundary between stage and screen is muddied at the predictive moment: the beating will result in Nancy’s death. The reaction shots that display dawning realization are as subtly manipulated as the play is direct and blunt. Displaying a range of emotions from mild interest to discomfort and unease to mutual embarrassment, the husband and wife both see themselves reflected on the stage before them. Their exit from the theater seems miserable and prospects for the future uncertain. In fact, the stark almost ideographic simplicity of this film’s structures seems to render a stock story with, yes, a brutality that is almost too plain. The revelations seem too personal; the proximity to the violence too uncomfortable. The situation suggests the need for discretion, the ability to turn away from the image at the same time that voyeurism is evoked with violence that becomes more and more intimate. This general tone hangs over the final domestic concord. Though there is no death, accidental or murderous, in Brutality, neither is there any warming firelight in the final family portrait as there had been in The Drunkard’s Reformation. The coda that depicts the husband’s recovery and the birth of the couple’s child hovers closer to the broken family portrait in What Drink Did, where father, mother and remaining child clustered together as though the home has been assaulted and they are bowing to the power of life’s storm. Brutality’s final image is of this sort: a picture of tragedy narrowly averted; a sigh of relief. Though its end is ostensibly reconciliatory, its violence foreshadows the anguish of The Mothering Heart and the dread of Death’s Marathon (both 1913), the nightmares of domesticity lurking in the futures of young couples huddling together over the hopeful family cradle. Joyce Jesionowski

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440* BIOGRAPH

THE UNWELCOME GUEST Filming date: finished ca. October 1912 Location: East Coast Release date: 15 March 1913; reissued by Biograph, 26 June 1916 Release length: 1004 feet Copyright date: 10 March 1913 Director: D.W. Griffith Author: George Hennessy Source: none known Camera: G.W. Bitzer Cast: Mary Pickford (The Slavey); W. Chrystie Miller (The old father); Charles Hill Mailes (The son); Claire McDowell (His wife); Jack Pickford, ? (Their children); Elmer Booth (Hired hand); Kate Bruce (Old wife); Harry Carey (Sheriff?); J. Jiquel Lanoe (Doctor); Lillian Gish, Frank Evans, Adolph Lestina, W.C. Robinson, Lionel Barrymore (At auction) Archival Sources: Library of Congress, 35mm nitrate negative (plus intertitle roll); 35mm nitrate positive (all AFI/Mary Pickford Collection); 35mm paper print (fragment: 73 frames plus intertitles); UCLA Film and Television Archive, 16mm acetate positive (generation undetermined) The miserly wife hoards the money which she receives from her husband and when she dies its hiding-place remains a secret. The son is advised of his mother’s death and is informed that unless he gives his father a home the old man will have to go to the poorhouse. This the son and his wife are unwilling to do, but to avoid scandal they consent to take him. About this time a little girl from the workhouse comes to the son’s home, she having been engaged to do the housework. Upon the old man’s arrival at the home of his son he is made to feel that he is unwelcome. He and the little girl, being treated most unkindly by the son and his family, run away, and by a peculiar turn of conditions the son is made to regret the persecution to which he had subjected his father. The Moving Picture World, March 8, 1913, p. 1018 The miserly wife is anxious to receive the [m]oney which her husband has brought back from town, and as s[o]on as he leaves the room she places it in a vest which she hides beneath the false bottom of an old trunk. Shortly after, she dies, and the hiding-place of the money remains a secret. After the funeral expenses have been paid, there is no money left and one of the selectmen of the town informs the son that his mother has died and unless he takes his father into his home the old man will have to go to the poorhouse. This is much against the wishes of the son and his wife, but to avoid scandal they consent to take him. About t[h]is time, a girl from the workhouse arrives a[t] the son’s home, she having been engaged to [d]o the housework. The old man leaves his home with his sole possessions in the old trunk, but is not given a very warm reception on his arrival at his son’s house, even being treated with disrespect by the children. It being din[n]er time, the family sit [sic] down to eat, but the old father is told that he must wait until they have finished. He is sent into the kitchen where the little girl from the workhouse is attending to her duties. She, noting the treatment which the old man receives at the hands of his son and family, tries to cheer him. The family havin[g] finished eatin[g], the old man and

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the little girl sit down, but they find that very little has been left for them. The little girl, however, knowing that the old man is hungry, gives him the largest share. Later he is made to work on the farm, although hardly able to do it, and the little slavey, tired after the heavy housework, is forced to help on the farm also. The grandchildren coming along with two heavy bundles, tell the old man and the little girl to carry them into the house. This the girl refuses to allow the old man to do, but the son appearing on the scene commands that she take one and he the other. Finally, not being able to stand the awful treatment any longer, they decide to run away. The little girl gathers together her few possessions and hastens upstairs to help the old man. In letting his trunk down from an upper window, the lid breaks off and the false bottom is displaced. They are in a hurry to get away, fearing the son may miss them, and the little girl gathers up the clothes which were in the trunk, including the vest containing the money. They wander back to the old man’s former home, arriving there just as it is about to be sold. While the sale is going on, the little girl discovers the money in the old vest. The old man is then in a position to buy his home back again. The son and daughter-in-law, upon learning this, call upon him, telling him that it is too lonesome for him there, and inviting him to return and live with them. This invitation he refuses, and shows them to the door before they have decided to leave. Synopsis from Copyright Material submitted to the Library of Congress, March 10, 1913, LU456

An elderly man gives his miserly wife his pay, which she hides in the lining of a vest beneath the false bottom of a trunk. After her death, the impoverished man is reluctantly taken in by his son’s family, who has also just taken on a workhouse girl as a servant. After the family inflicts insults, meager rations, and strenuous work on the father and servant, the pair flees to his old home, which is about to be auctioned off. The girl finds the dead woman’s hoard in the vest, the home is saved, and the suddenly friendly son and daughter-in-law are ejected.

The Unwelcome Guest, with its sympathetic portrayals of not one but two victims of a cruel family, creates several appealing scenes between the elderly Father, played by W. Chrystie Miller, and the Slavey, played by Mary Pickford. One notable aspect of the film, however, is the contrast between the scenes featuring these two characters and the rather clumsy and perfunctory staging of the action involving the rest of the cast. The opening scene, in which the Father uncomplainingly surrenders his salary to his miserly wife, involves elaborate crossing back and forth and in depth by the three characters. These include a young man who seems to be a friend of the Father’s, though his exact identity is never made clear; he seems mainly to exist to provide a prospect of romance for the Slavey at the film’s end. There is a nice touch in this opening, as the Father smokes a cigar and his wife points to it with an annoyed look. He holds up his hand with spread fingers, presumably telling her that it is a mere five-cent cigar. She takes it and carefully tucks it away in a box sitting on a nearby shelf – presumably to ration it out to him later. Thus her penurious nature is established quickly before the incident of her hiding the money he gives her. Nevertheless, this scene is busy and confusing, and, as so often happens with hastily staged Griffith scenes, details are easily lost. The staging becomes even more bustling and confusing in the early scenes in the Son’s family’s sitting/dining room. The family includes three children: two teenage girls and a boy. Yet in the narrow, deep space, the second (blonde) sister seems to be blocked nearly out of view about half the time she is present. In the opening scene at the Son’s house, which shows the arrival of the Slavey, the second sister is barely visible behind the brunette one. Similarly, 194

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in the scene where the Father arrives, the family stands about staring at him. Initially the second sister is completely invisible, blocked by the Son’s wife in the foreground. Later it becomes clear that the narrative demanded three children to provide an excuse for the Father to be excluded from the crowded dining table and forced to eat afterwards with the Slavey and, more generally, to provide a sense of the family ganging up on the unfortunate pair. In contrast to these scenes, the interactions of the Father and Slavey are rendered with great precision. The film’s finest scene occupies a mere three shots as the pair sit down to eat after the greedy family have left them the remnants of their own meal. After an appropriately simple title – “THEIR TURN” – there is a shot of the table, and the Son’s wife gestures for the two to sit. We have seen this framing of the room eleven times already across the twenty-six previous shots in the film (excluding intertitles), usually full of people. Now the Father and Slavey sit down opposite each other, she helping the elderly man into his chair. As he reaches for the meat platter, there is a cut-in to an extraordinary, extended close view that conveys the growing relationship between the two through their hand movements – a stylistic flourish that by itself makes the film worth seeing. In a medium close-up, we see the table. A plate with a short stack of bread is visible at the rear, and at the right the Slavey’s hands rest on either side of a cup of coffee. The Father’s hands tilt up the platter to reveal nothing but a small pool of gravy. Her hands pick up both pieces of bread, placing one on her plate and soaking up all the gravy with the second, which she puts on his plate, salts, and tops with a piece of food from another plate. She transfers a second piece to her own dry slice of bread, and finally salvages a fragment from the same plate for his piece of bread. The sequence of gestures defines their relationship beautifully. The Slavey does not selflessly go hungry to feed the old man, but she carefully makes sure that he has a bit more than she does – partly perhaps through an innate respect for the weak, partly through budding friendship, and partly because she still considers herself his servant, despite his lowly position with her employers. In the return to the more distant view, the two eat their tiny meals in a passage of quiet, subtle acting. The Father mainly looks at the table as he eats, suggesting how he probably behaved at meals with his late wife. The Slavey watches him with a sort of quiet delight in having relatively pleasant company, perhaps for the first time in her life. Pickford’s performance may seem on the surface fairly ordinary, with her open-mouthed, startled reaction to such events as the Son’s scolding of his elderly father after a bag-carrying incident. Yet she lends a considerable nuance to her role. While the Son’s selfish family may seem utterly appalling to the audience, the Slavey seems actually to find them attractive. Even though they rebuff her tentatively friendly smiles upon her arrival in the household, she continues to try and please them. After she brings the pie into the dining room and the son transfers it to the table, the Slavey backs slowly out, looking back and watching with fascination as the Wife begins clumsily to cut and distribute the pieces. Pickford does not suggest that the Slavey is hungry, but that she has been so deprived of a normal family life that even this grim bunch looks good to her. Only after she sees the family’s mistreatment of the elderly father does his rebellion inspire her to run away. In passing, Griffith gets in a gratuitous dig at one of his favorite objects of ridicule, the female reformer, when the stern Wife briefly holds up a sash reading “Purity League” – a moment that never comes to anything in the plot. A small but interesting stylistic point relates to two disparities between the existing “Description of Scenes” for the film and its actual decoupage. The opening scene specifies that after the cut-in to the close view of the Wife hiding the money in the trunk, there is a return to the initial long view of the room. Similarly, when the Father and Slavey recover the clothes from the trunk during their escape, also shown in a cut-in, the script again indi195

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cates a return to the long shot. In the actual film, however, each scene ends on the close view. During this period, it was certainly customary to return to the long shot after cut-ins. Griffith perhaps, however, realized by this point that such a return was not really necessary. There is also a reasonable attempt to match action on these cuts to close views of the trunk, even though Griffith was notoriously cavalier about such matching well into his feature period. The only violations of screen direction in movement through contiguous spaces come in two exits from the Son’s house. In interiors, characters move out the front door toward the right in interiors, while the following exterior shots show them moving leftward. Such mismatches had been far more common in earlier years. The filming in location exteriors generally places the camera opposite the sun, creating attractive backlit compositions. Kristin Thompson

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441* BIOGRAPH

THE NEW YORK HAT Filming date: finished November 1912 Location: East Coast Release date: 5 December 1912; reissued by Biograph, 6 November 1916 Release length: 999 feet Copyright date: 5 December 1912 Director: D.W. Griffith Author: Anita Loos Source: none known Camera: G.W. Bitzer Cast: Mary Pickford (Young woman); Charles Hill Mailes (Her father); Kate Bruce (Her mother); Lionel Barrymore (Minister); Alfred Paget (Doctor); Claire McDowell, Mae Marsh, Clara T. Bracey (Gossips); Madge Kirby (Shopkeeper); Lillian Gish, Gertrude Bambrick, W.C. Robinson (In shop); Jack Pickford, Lillian Gish, Robert Harron, Gertrude Bambrick (Outside church); Walter P. Lewis, John T. Dillon, Adolph Lestina (Church board); Madge Kirby (At mother’s deathbed); Kathleen Butler, Marguerite Marsh (Window shoppers) Archival Sources: Academy Film Archive, 28mm diacetate positive (deteriorating); Library of Congress, 35mm nitrate negative, AFI/Mary Pickford Collection; 35mm paper print (fragment: 60 frames plus intertitles); The Museum of Modern Art, 35mm acetate negative; National Archives of Canada, 16mm acetate negative (Movie Museum sound reissue, Westwood Screen, Inc. Collection); National Film and Television Archive, 35mm nitrate negative; positive print (format and generation undetermined, Inv. # 2,877A); 35mm acetate negative (generation undetermined, Inv. # 62,237A[b], printed in 1973); Svenska Filminstitutet/Cinemateket (format and generation undetermined) The young village minister was not quite as discreet as he might have been in fulfilling the strange trust left by the dying mother, but it certainly worked for the common good. By the bequest the mother desired that her daughter possess some of the finery previously denied her. As a result the minister and Mary were linked in a scandal, with the church board in judgment. Gossip received the laugh, however, as it generally does, while the minister assumed a trust quite unexpected. The Moving Picture World, November 30, 1912, p. 908 When Mary’s mother is dying, the young minister is summoned to the bedside. There, surrounded by the leading members of the church, she gives the minister a small pasteboard box requesting that he open it in secret. The young minister, after attempting to cheer up the austere father and the shy but sincere daughter, returns to the parsonage and opens the packet. It contains a few bill and numerous coins of various denominations. The minister also finds a letter which reads: “My Beloved Pastor: My husband worked me to death, but I have managed to save a little sum. Take it and from time to time buy my daughter the bits of finery she has always been denied. Let no one know. Mary Harding.” After her mother’s death, perhaps Mary, the daughter, does not find things going quite as smoothly, but she has been schooled all her life in repression. Her father us [sic] the sturdy old

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New England character, possessed of all the faults and none the virtues of this type. Mary’s shy manners and queer clothes cause silly comment among the young people and the older people are too busy to bother with her. Some time after her mother’s death, at the opening of the picture, Mary is looking in the glass in the old dining-room, and becomes dissatisfied with her small old black velvet hat that sits on her head like a small half-baked pancake. She summons up courage to ask her father for a new hat but is met with an emphatic refusal. After further inspection of herself in the glass, Mary decides to go out without any hat. Her one and only black glove, left from her mother’s past finery, she doubles over in one hand giving the appearance of two gloves, and walks down the street in her mincing shy little steps holding her one glove out in front of her, as if to declare to the world that she was not without her finery. She passes two girls of the village who receive her smiling face kindly enough, but refuse to accept her society and smile at her odd appearance on her departure. Now, at the local millinery store there has just been received a hat from New York with the magnificent price of ten dollars attached. It is the sensation of the village, and many village maids pass by with longing eyes or are dragged away by disapproving mammas. Three gossips high in the affairs of the church are also attracted by the hat, but after a careful inspection inside the store, they pass to more practical conceptions in the hat line. In the meantime, Mary passes the window and looks in. As she is gazing fondly on the beautiful creation, the minister happens along. He and Mary admire the hat together, and after her departure, remembering the bequest left by the mother, he goes into the store to inspect the hat. The ladies of the church within are immediately aroused to a high pitch of suppressed excitement. After bidding him a polite departure as befits the dignity of his position, they at once begin to speculate. But Mary at home is dreaming of the marvels of the wonderful hat, when the minister enters with a bandbox. He presents it to Mary with little comment and goes. When Mary opens the bandbox the sight staggers her and, falling back into the chair, it is some time before she can actually believe her dream is true, but it soon becomes a fascinating actuality when once it is on her head before the glass. Next Sunday morning, as her father is leaving for church before her, she attempts to tell him about the new hat, but he abruptly dismisses her, presumably thinking she is repeating the request for a new hat. Accordingly Mary dons her new acquisition, and parading her one glove, in her usual style, marches off to church alone. On the way, she passes and bows to other church goers in her innocent endeavor to display the hat, but it is not until after church that the minister and Mary really are linked in a scandal. On her way out of church, she expects to be grandly received into society since her new acquisition should place her on a higher social standing, but the other young people are inclined to regard her with mingled awe and amusement, and when she passes the three ladies on the Church Board, the gossips at the store who witnessed the purchase, their smile of indulgence changes to sudden and marked disapproval as they see on her head the hat bought by the minister. Later these three ladies meet the father on his way from church and acquaint him with the facts of the case. He arrives home before Mary. She enters guiltily, remembering the snubs received after church and hides her hat behind her. He demands that she bring it forth, and in a tirade proceeds to tear it to shreds. He leaves Mary hugging the remains of the fond creation to herself, while he goes forth to seek reparation from the minister. When Mary realizes this she hastens after him, and meets the Church Board on the way to the minister’s to investigate the scandal. Mary intercepts them and arrives before them. In telling him she sinks on her knees before him and he lifts her face to better hear what she is saying, when the board arrives outside. The principal lady of the board peeps through the blind and sees them in this attitude. The men and women of the Board enter and demand an explanation. The minister shows them the bequest of the dead mother, and they are about to retire with apologies, when the father, having failed to find the minister at the church, comes into their midst. He also is shown the letter, and perhaps sees his characters in its true light for a moment. The Board departs, while the min-

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ister is suddenly filled with desire to assume another trust. Mary cannot believe her ears when the minister asks her to marry him and thus hush all scandal forever. She repeats the question to her father many times, until he tells her that it is the best way out of it and she then accepts the minister as befits a dutiful, simple maiden. Synopsis from Copyright Material submitted to the Library of Congress, December 5, 1912, LU151

A woman dies, leaving money and a letter instructing the Pastor secretly to buy for her daughter some little luxuries that her puritanical Father would deny her. When the father refuses to buy the Heroine a new hat, the Pastor buys an extravagant one for her. Gossips assume the pair is having an affair until finally the Pastor reveals the letter. He proposes marriage, and the Heroine accepts.

The New York Hat is notable, among other reasons, as Mary Pickford’s last Biograph film and as the first produced screenplay of Anita Loos. It allowed Pickford to exit on a high note, playing in a charming story that is thoroughly realized and unified. It betrays none of the haste and uneven quality of some other Griffith films of the period (e.g., The Unwelcome Guest). Its simple plot, with its fairy-tale quality, perhaps reflects the fact that its author was only sixteen years old when she submitted her script for Biograph’s consideration. (Supposedly she was paid twenty-five dollars for it, on the assumption that she was an adult male.) Yet ironically, the two central characters that Loos created are more naive than she herself. The Heroine and the Pastor must both be extremely unsophisticated to get themselves into the situation of being the subjects of a vicious rumor. The Pastor buys the distinctive hat in front of half the town’s female population, yet it never occurs to him that the Heroine’s wearing of the hat will cause comment. Similarly, the Heroine (probably intended to be about the same age as Loos actually was) takes the Pastor’s secret gift and flaunts it without considering what the consequences might be. Loos, the daughter of a manager of a theatrical stock company, clearly knew more about life than her creations did, and she knew how to craft a plot as well. The film is notably light in tone, despite its treatment of a favorite Griffith subject, the repressive group of female busybodies – in this case, three sour gossips who seek to back up their attack on the heroine by aligning themselves with three parallel male members of the church board. Yet the film never moves into heavy-handed criticism or melodrama. The stern Father’s destruction of the hat is perhaps the most wrenching moment, as the Heroine picks up the pieces and mourns over its loss. Yet the hat has been introduced as a frivolous object, a “bit of finery” as the dead mother’s letter puts it – though obviously one more expensive and flamboyant than she intended. (Had the Pastor stuck to more humble purchases, the gossip presumably would not have started.) The Pastor laughs as he reads the letter, declaring (as his lip movements reveal) “I’ll do it!” This scene establishes his fulfillment of the mother’s wishes as almost a lark rather than a sacred duty, and much of the film carries through that sense of whimsy. As the opening of the review in The Moving Picture World declared, “A picture of a few human beings. They live in a small country town and seem to center around the village church. It doesn’t shut its eyes to the frailties of mortal flesh; but it is optimistic, good natured, and leaves a pleasant taste, indeed, it is a picture among pictures to entertain, encourage and amuse” (December 21, 1912, p. 1183). Roberta Pearson has discussed The New York Hat as an instance of the “verisimilar code” 199

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of acting that was becoming more prominent in American films during the early 1910s (Pearson, pp. 43–50). She points to the scene of the Heroine trying on her old hat before a mirror, which depends far more on Pickford’s facial expressions than on conventional gestures. Yet as Pearson also points out, there are more histrionic moments as well, when the actors use more pantomimic means to convey events. The lead gossip (Claire McDowell) tells the Father about the supposedly scandalous source of the hat by pointing to her own hat, and later she describes the same thing to the men of the church board by holding her open hand palm downward at about chest level, the era’s standard gesture for a child of that height. Certainly the acting seems to have been considered realistic at the time. The Moving Picture World reviewer attributed the success of the ensemble to Griffith (though not by name): “It is wonderful how the Biograph producer gets his many different characters, for hardly can the players be recognized so sure are they in their assumption of the peculiarities and semblance of people not themselves.” Nevertheless, in a reflection of the era’s growing concern with the identities of the players, the author concludes his review, “Claire McDowell plays an old spinster, Mae Marsh has an unimportant part.” In the print I examined (the Museum of Modern Art circulating print with a contextualizing crawl title at the beginning), an intertitle seems to be out of place. After the shot in which the Pastor decides to carry through the dead mother’s request, the current print has a straight cut to the Father seated at a table in his sitting room, with the Heroine at the right. There follows a medium shot of her stroking her old hat sadly and trying it on before the mirror, then turning to her father. A combination expository and dialogue intertitle follows: “AFTERWARDS – ‘DADDY, CAN’T I HAVE A NEW HAT?’” According to the original typescript “Description of Scenes”, this intertitle was intended to come directly after the final shot of the Pastor, and before the shot of the Father and Heroine. The typescript order is more plausible. It was still common in 1912 to place the dialogue title at the beginning of a scene, even though the moment when it was spoken might come in the scene’s middle. It does not make much sense to have the “Afterwards” portion of the title come well into this new scene of the Father and Heroine. Perhaps when the film was re-released in 1916, the intertitle was moved to a spot two shots later than in the original. By 1916, intertitles routinely were cut in at the exact moments when the characters spoke their lines, and perhaps the distributors thought the audience would understand the scene better with this more up-to-date arrangement of the scene. Kristin Thompson

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442* BIOGRAPH

MY HERO Filming date: finished ca. November 1912 Location: East Coast Release date: 12 December 1912; reissued by Biograph, 3 December 1915 Release length: one reel Copyright date: 10 December 1912 Director: D.W. Griffith Author: D.W. Griffith Source: none known Camera: G.W. Bitzer Cast: Dorothy Gish (Young Woman); Walter P. Lewis, ? (Her parents); Robert Harron (Young man); Henry B. Walthall (Indian Charlie); Alfred Paget, W.C. Robinson, Hector V. Sarno, Jack Pickford?, Charles Hill Mailes, Harry Carey, Frank Lanning (Indians); W. Christy Cabanne, J. Jiquel Lanoe, Frank Evans, Charles H. West, Adolph Lestina (Settlers); John T. Dillon, Gus Pixley?, W.C. Robinson (Men in room) NOTE: Information on casting taken from examination of paper print fragment on deposit at the Library of Congress; identification of Frank Lanning as an Indian taken from The Moving Picture World (December 28, 1912), “Comments on the Films” column. Archival Sources: Library of Congress, 35mm paper print (fragment: 81 frames plus intertitles) Stern parents have ever been relentless obstacles in love’s young dream, but it is perhaps quite doubtful if ever love could equal the accentuated bliss and anguish of these two. She refused to eat for her hero and for her he bore the marks of battle, an eye made black by a cruel parent’s fist. Tired of such an unsympathetic world, they sought the wilderness, where, had it not been for Indian Charlie, these two “babes in the wood” would have ended their dream in a manner quite too disagreeable to think of. The Moving Picture World, December 7, 1912, p. 1006 In this Indian story humor and action are closely blended. Two love-sick children decide to end their abuses and fancied wrongs by eloping into the wilderness just as an Indian massacre is going on. They are pursued by a party of Indians and escape by meeting the ringleader, Indian Charlie as he is called by the settlers. The boy had previously befriended the Indian and naturally one good turn deserves another. Accordingly, Indian Charlie released him from the predicament. Indian Charlie has reached the period of his life when he must pass through the test of the hero. Strong of mind, but weak in body, he fails the test when the dart is thrust into his side. He is scorned and abused by the other braves and leaves them in shame and anger. On his way to the settlement he makes a vow with himself to redeem his honor in battle. In the nearby settlement his life crosses love’s young dream when he meets a certain Bobbie, whose love for a certain young maid is not running altogether smoothly. He has just made a clandestine visit to the girl’s cabin, where his soft whistle brought her to the door, but the cruel, irate father followed and he proceeded to knock Bobbie down presenting him with a black eye at the same time. Bob returned home, where outside he met Indian Charlie seeking aid from the settlers. When Bob

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learned that the Indian too was suffering from a wound, he was reminded of his own black eye and accordingly moved in sympathy. He stole into the house, by his grandfather and friends who were playing cards and brought out a blanket which he gave to the Indian. It was then that the Indian was filled with the humor of the situation and laughed, thereby proving that Indian character is not without its humor. Bob’s youthful pride is much incensed and he drives Indian Charlie away in much aggrieved wrath. Inside he meets with little less sympathy. His grandfather and friend abuse him generally and make sport over his black eye and order him to get wood. All this arouses his sense of injury and he concludes to leave for wilderness. He gets his gun and blanket and starts over to the girl’s house. She is sitting in the cabin with her ever watchful father who has fallen asleep. She hears the boy’s call at the door, and stealthily answers. Outside, she rushes into his arms, but when she learns her hero is to leave her, she declares he cannot possibly go without her. The two stealthily enter the cabin and the boy covers the sleeping father with his gun, while the girl goes back to don her clothes. The father wakes up and is immediately covered by the frightened youth who inadvertently lets slip a few stray buckshot in his ear. The girl appears, and while the boy holds him under cover of the gun, the girl ties him to one of the supports in the center of the cabin and the two leave. In the meantime, Indian Charlie has returned to his tribe and in order to fulfill his oath to himself, he goes among the brave and incites them to war upon the settlers. Thus he may regain his honor. There is a massacre in which men, women and children are slaughtered. Charlie separates his party and the boy and girl, who have reached the wilderness are seen by the other party, who at once give chase. Meanwhile, back in the settlement the mother of the girl has come in and found the father bound and he is much amused at her husband’s predicament. Released by her, he at once seeks Bob’s grandfather, upbraiding him on the conduct of his grandson. At this point news of the massacre reaches that point of the settlement and a messenger interrupts the quarrel of the parents by telling them of the massacre. They forget their differences in fear of the children’s safety and a search party is organized. Meanwhile, the children are being pursued by the Indians over the cliffs and through the woods. They are at last captured, being surrounded in the bushes where they have hidden, and are dragged away to a tree where the boy is vigorously threatened with knives and the like. At this point, Indian Charlie joins the party and prevents disaster to the boy, whose gratitude is overwhelming, but Indian Charlie dismisses the circumstance as a mere trifle. The children then fall asleep under the tree, where they are found by the searching party. Back home again there is a general reconciliation, while the girl throws her arms around his neck and acclaims him her hero. Synopsis from Copyright Material submitted to the Library of Congress, December 10, 1912, LU162

As no prints of My Hero are known to survive at the time of this writing, we are dependent for descriptions of it on the American Biograph synopsis from The Moving Picture World, the original list of shots, and contemporary reviews. The surviving “photoplays” of the Biographs of this period consist of a synopsis and a “Description of Scenes”, a bare-bones description of the setting and figures onscreen as the shot opens. Although the synopsis is titled simply My Hero, the script specifies that the familiar “Eagle Title” would read: “My [H]ero A Modern Version of ‘Babes In the Woods’”. The brief synopsis furnished to The Moving Picture World stresses this “babes” idea to the point of not making it clear that this is a settlers-versus-Indians story, complete with massacre. The synopsis begins: “In this Indian story humor and action are closely blended.” This mixture of tones seems rather odd, in that the story involves, on the one hand, the disgraced Indian Charlie attempting to redeem his standing in the tribe by instigating a massacre of 202

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the settlers, and on the other, the flight and near death of the young lovers in the woods. Suspense definitely outweighed humor for the two reviewers whose brief notices are given below in their entirety. From The New York Dramatic Mirror: This is termed a modern version of “Babes in the Woods,” but a spectator might be excused for not seeing a close connection. None the less, it is an acceptable story, telling how Indian Charlie comes to the rescue of a boy and girl who have run away to the woods, because the parents objected to their youthful romance. Indian Charlie is in disgrace with his tribe because he could not stand the torture test without flinching. When an outcast he is befriended by the boy. To redeem himself in the eyes of his fellow warriors he leads in a massacre of the whites, and it is here that he has an opportunity to repay his indebtedness to the “babes in the woods.” When the children return the boy is welcomed by his sweetheart’s mother as “my hero,” and objections to the match are withdrawn. The picture contains a number of exciting incidents and is well acted, but several of the settings fail to suggest the wildness requisite to such a tale. (December 18, 1912, p. 35)

From The Moving Picture World: Henry Walthall has the role of Indian Charlie, who, although strong in mind, has failed in the hero test through a weak body. He incites a massacre in order to raise himself in the estimation of his fellows. If one of the latter be not Frank Lanning then this writer has poor eyesight. There is a love story running through the picture. As in most Biograph pictures there is a flash of comedy at unexpected moments, just enough to ease the tension. There are some fine outdoors settings. In one of the scenes, where the boy and girl lovers are seated on a hollow log, the head of an Indian protruding from the end of the decayed tree gives one a start. There are several situations similar to this one. The picture goes over all the way. (December 28, 1912, p. 1292)

The Moving Picture World reviewer’s identification of one of the actors (one which has been accepted as correct by filmographers studying the Biographs) suggests that the star system had progressed quickly. Now even supporting actors’ names are known and considered worth mentioning. Contemporary reviewers seem to have played the same identification game with Biograph actors as do modern historians. Kristin Thompson

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443* BIOGRAPH

THE BURGLAR’S DILEMMA Filming date: finished November 1912 Location: East Coast Release date: 16 December 1912; reissued by Biograph, 28 February 1916 Release length: 998 feet Copyright date: 13 December 1912 Director: D.W. Griffith Script: Lionel Barrymore [“The Brothers’] Camera: G.W. Bitzer Cast: Lionel Barrymore (Householder); Henry B. Walthall (The weakling brother); Adolph Lestina (Butler); Lillian Gish, Madge Kirby, Gertrude Bambrick, J. Jiquel Lanoe (Householder’s friends); Harry Carey, Robert Harron (Thieves); W.C. Robinson, ? (Policemen); Alfred Paget, John T. Dillon (Detectives); Charles H. West (Medic); Frank Evans (Policeman) Archival Sources: George Eastman House, 16mm acetate positive (incomplete); Library of Congress, 35mm paper print (fragment: 77 frames plus intertitles); The Museum of Modern Art, 35mm nitrate negative; National Film and Television Archive, 35mm nitrate positive Perhaps no two subjects have concerned both judiciary circles and public alike more than the third degree and circumstantial evidence. The justice of their use in convicting a victim has always been an open question. While this subject takes no side in the matter and leaves the question still unsolved, it attempts to present the situation as it is in vivid, logical portrayal, and perchance may cause the more thoughtful to consider whether these principles, as carried out, work for the common good. The youth of the story passes through both ordeals. Truth is brought to light and the strong arm of the law foreseen. The Moving Picture World, December 14, 1912, p. 1110 Both the dangers and the fallacies of circumstantial evidence and the third degree are set forth in this picture. A young burglar is entrapped in a room with a supposedly murdered man. The police at once assume his guilt and put him through the brain-racking and exhausting process of the third degree. At the beginning of the picture two brothers are seen sitting together in their home, where they evidently live together, drinking and reading. One is a playwright; the other has never tasted of life’s success. When the playwright is attracted to a notice of his play, which has just made a phenomenal success, the other brother is seemingly pleased, but his smile contains much envy and the spirit of discontent. Soon the young author’s friends appear to pay him tribute. First come three girls, who hardly notice the other brother in their enthusiastic idolatry of the playwright. Other guests arrive and the brother becomes ostracized in the next room, where he drinks alone, while the gay throng in the next room toasts the successful brother. At last they leave and the playwright returns to his brother who is rather under the influence of drink. The butler asks permission to go out and the request is granted. Meanwhile, in the lower quarter of the city, a youth is being forced by a burglar to go out on a job with him against his will. The discontented brother becomes more insensible by drink and asks the other for money, which is given. He demands more, however. The other jocularly dissuades him and backs him

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toward the door. This the other objects to and strikes a blow, knocking his brother senseless. At this point the burglar and the boy are making entry at the back of the house. As the startled brother comes out of the room, he hears the boy entering the window and hides behind a curtain. The young thief begins to raffle the room and at last goes into the next room, where the brother lies unconscious. The man watching behind the curtain, goes to the door locking him in and then rushes out to inform the police, with the double purpose of trapping the burglar and perchance placing the blame of the crime on him. The young burglar enters with his lantern and does not see the pros[t]rate man on the floor until he stumbles on the body. He fumbles over it until it dawns on him what it may be. In sudden fear, he turns the light on in the room, and thus becomes aware of the presence of the apparently dead man. The brother returning with the police goes before and unlocks the door and admits the police, who at once condemn the youth, attempting to seek refuge behind the bookcase, as the murderer of the brother. He is brought down over the body, but he denies all accusations stoutly with the guilty brot[h]er sitting abstractedly by. An officer goes to the next room, where he summons two detectives on the ‘phone [sic]. On their arrival, the boy is put through the third degree but resists it. The real culprit stands back at times watching with keen interest and at times gloating, perhaps conscious-stricken. The coroner arrives and finds a spark of life in the body. He begins to work over it and at length while the third degree is being enacted and the other brother is on the verge of confessing, he comes into the room and thus relieves the situation. He frees suspicion from all concerned much to the relief of the young burglar who starts in at once to smoke a cigarette. He is taken off by the officers, however, while the two brothers make up their difficulties. The young burglar is placed on parole and it is evident that the eye of the law is far-seeing, for in the subsequent scene, the burglar, who had forced the youth into the affair, is seen to meet the youth on the street. An officer appears who at once separates them. The detectives also are on the scene and compel the other to leave, while they exact a promise from the youth to have no more to do with him, and he in his turn promises to keep out of [h]is way. Synopsis from Copyright Material submitted to the Library of Congress, December 13, 1912, LU169

A playwright’s hit play causes his brother to become jealous. After guests arrive to celebrate the playwright’s success, the brother becomes drunk and later strikes his brother, apparently killing him. Meanwhile, a burglar has set out to rob the playwright’s house, forcing a reluctant young accomplice to go with him. Reacting in shock over the body, the brother hears the accomplice enter and locks him in the study with the body. He then summons police, who give the accomplice an intense “third-degree” grilling. Afterwards, the playwright revives and forgives his brother. The accomplice refuses to participate with the burglar in a life of crime.

The Burglar’s Dilemma presents itself as a social-problem film dealing with questionable police tactics. Indeed, its full title as displayed on the “Eagle Title” at the opening is “THE BURGLAR’S DILEMMA: THE ABUSE OF THE THIRD DEGREE”. Although the brief Biograph description of the film (reprinted above) declares that “this subject takes no side in the matter and leaves the question still unsolved”, the subtitle does seem to condemn the bullying interrogation which the Accomplice receives. Nevertheless, the Playwright’s sudden appearance, alive, vitiates the point considerably, since we never learn how long the two detectives would have kept the pressure on the boy or what his ultimate reaction would have been. Indeed, the focus of the interrogation scene seems to be at least as much on the Brother’s 205

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tormented reaction as on the Accomplice’s dilemma. The Brother agonizes and seems at one point about to confess his own guilt in order to stop the third-degree treatment. Yet he also seems in suspense as to whether he will succeed in having the young man arrested for his own crime. Given that the spectator knows that the Accomplice is innocent and hence will probably not confess, his or her attention will more likely be given over to wondering what the Brother will ultimately do. The Moving Picture World’s harsh review of the film criticized this emphasis on the Brother: If this picture is a story about a burglar, it isn’t built in the best way; for it brings and keeps another character to the fore from the first. It labors under a poor title which is certainly a defect, for a name at the beginning of a picture directs the attention, it might almost be said, prepares the space in the mind which the picture is to fill. And if the offering fails to fill that space, there is almost sure to be a feeling of dissatisfaction. (December 28, 1912, p. 1292)

The review concludes, “It isn’t up to the best Biograph pictures.” (Another sign of the problem of emphasis may be the fact that we never learn what the Burglar does outside after helping the Accomplice enter the house; a simple cutaway to him slipping away when the police arrive would have dealt with him.) One could argue that, in fact, the film has two main lines of action developing in parallel. Even so, however, the ending is highly problematic for both the narrative structure and the action’s moral implications. The Playwright’s appearance not only defuses the question of the third degree, but it also lets the Brother completely off the hook. He has been doubly guilty of striking the Playwright and of arranging for another man to be accused of the “murder”, yet the moral tension at the end is completely dissipated by the Playwright’s surprisingly jovial attitude toward the Brother. One would expect at least that he would sternly admonish the Brother not to get drunk again, and the latter, having learned his lesson, would agree. As the plot stands, there is a considerable build-up of moral tension over both the detectives’ treatment of the Accomplice and the Brother’s bad behavior, yet nothing comes of either. Moreover, the third-degree treatment is easy to condemn in this case, because we know the Accomplice to be innocent of the murder and a reluctant participant in the burglary. The harder case of showing the third degree used on a guilty man and making it seem overly brutal probably would have been an impossible approach at the time, when simply raising the subject at all was perhaps controversial enough. At any rate, only one character learns a lesson: the Accomplice goes straight, though at the end he needs the backing of the police to resist the Burglar’s pressure. (Indeed, there would seem to be a slight implication that he has benefited by his earlier grilling by being frightened out of a life of crime.) Despite its problematic ending, the film does have its appeals, including the acting of Walthall and Harron. The New York Dramatic Mirror pointed out one of the most striking bits of business in the film: Coincidence is made to play an important part in the development of the plot, yet its usage is so cleverly covered and smoothed down with a clear exposition and superb detail work that it is not too apparent. As an instance in question, in referring to the detail work, we can take the scene where the boy has just completed the ordeal of a third degree and, by the recovery of the supposedly dead man, is clearly [sic]. The first thing that he does is hastily jam a cigarette into his mouth, light it and puff: quite the natural thing for a boy of this caliber to do under the circumstances. And even though there was sufficient other business to attract the eye of the spectator, the director has disregarded it in the effort to gain a perfect picture, natural and effective in its entirety. (December 25, 1912, p. 29)

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To the modern eye at least, the cigarette business comes across as comic, and hence it helps provide some transition from the tension of the previous lengthy scene to the happy endings. An interesting stylistic element in the film is the use of effects lighting in the study after the “murder”. The Brother kneels in shock over the body, then leaps up and turns off the light. The room goes almost entirely dark, a transformation apparently accomplished by the turning out of the artificial light on the scene. (On an editing table, one can detect that there is still a faint light in the room at the end of this shot.) A short time later, when the Accomplice enters the study, it is still noticeably darker than it had been initially, but the light level has been raised a bit so that we can see the young man’s actions. In addition, the semi-obscurity allows for the use of a moving spotlight to simulate the Accomplice’s flashlight, which he plays across the room for quite some time before finding the “corpse”. Two spotlights are used at various points, initially one from generally the front of the set and another from the side, permitting the flashlight beam to move over both the back and side walls of the set. Otherwise, the film is fairly ordinary stylistically. Presumably because the study set is unusually large and well appointed, the use of other sets is kept to a minimum. Aside from several exterior shots, the surviving part of the film simply alternates views of the study with shots taken in the smaller outer room. Cuts back and forth frequently involve eyeline matches, particularly as the Brother anxiously watches the interrogation, and proper screen direction is maintained. Later, when the questioning continues in the outer room, the Brother is visible at the rear, still tensely following the third degree. Three cut-ins to him completely mismatch Walthall’s position, since in the group shot he faces the back wall and after the cutins he faces front or to the right. Perhaps because Walthall is largely blocked in the group shots by one of the detectives, Griffith did not bother to ensure consistent staging. Kristin Thompson

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444* BIOGRAPH

A CRY FOR HELP Filming date: finished November 1912 Location: East Coast Release date: 23 December 1912; reissued by Biograph, 17 April 1916 Release length: 1000 feet Copyright date: 18 December 1912 Director: D.W. Griffith Author: Edward Acker Source: none known Camera: G.W. Bitzer Cast: Lionel Barrymore (The Bum); Walter Miller (Doctor); Lillian Gish (Maid); Harry Carey (Thief); Alfred Paget, John T. Dillon, ? (Policemen); Robert Harron, W. Christy Cabanne, John T. Dillon (Witnesses to accident); Claire McDowell (Charity patient) Archival Sources: Library of Congress, 35mm paper print (fragment: 79 frames plus intertitles); 16mm acetate negative (as Una voz pide socorro, o Una buena pasada se paga con otra, RKO Flicker Flashback series [Como solían ser], ca. 1943, Spanish language soundtrack, no intertitles, one text insert in Spanish); The Museum of Modern Art, 35mm nitrate negative (incomplete) Wisdom in charity is a problem which has confronted philanthropists the world over. In this film the attitude of two impecunious charity patients is contrasted, resulting in a somewhat startling concurrence of events, which, however, are both as human as they are intense. His wife dying as a charity patient, the ungrateful husband blames his poverty for the physician’s apparent neglect. He goes to seek retaliation, but the young physician is saved by a gratitude of a higher order. The Moving Picture World, December 21, 1912, p. 1224 This film represents an episode in the career of a young physician in his attempt to rise to prominence in his profession. At the beginning a young husband is awaiting his arrival in the chamber of his wife, who is apparently passing off. The young physician at last enters and going to the bedside, announces the wife dead. With clenched hands the husband springs at the physician’s throat but restrains himself. The physician goes out, leaving him alone with his sorrow. On a park bench a tramp is sitting. He has evidently been brought into his life through force of circumstance. A father and a boy appear and a father took him up as an evil example to be refrained from. The tramp feels the rebuke as fully as he is capable of and goes to another part of the park where a party of picnickers make sport of him and he passes through like adventures. Some time after this, the husband returns to the chamber of his dead wife, after the funeral, and the crape on the chair and the somber atmosphere of the room cause him to recall his dead wife. He begins to brood on the subject and he believes that it is had not been for his poverty the physician would not have apparently neglected him. Meantime, the physician is starting off on a round of charity patients which he has this special day in order to build up his profession. The tramp, also in that part of the village, is wandering around, all roads being alike to him. He is knocked down by an automobile and slightly injured. At this point the physician appears and offers his aid. He takes him to his home and there administers to him gratuitously,

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thus having [sic] another patient gratis. In the meantime, the husband, who has been brooding over his fancied wrongs, becomes crazed, and going into the next room obtains a revolver with the intention of going to the young physician’s house and doing away with him. He arrives outside the house just as the physician inside is restoring the tramp by administering to him in giving him drink and another stimulants. The tramp evidently is much pleased with the young physician and declares he wishes he could stay there forever, a direct comparison to the patient who is waiting outside seeking revenge for his apparent wrongs. The husband enters the house and is ushered upstairs and told to wait in the next room. He passes through the room where the tramp is eating the food laid out by the maid. Finished with his meal, the tramp arises to go and is given a small bank note by the young physician. He again expresses his gratitude and departs. Meanwhile, through a crack in the door, the crazed husband has been watching the departing of the tramp, trying to find an opportunity to shoot the physician, but at each time the tramp stands in the way. As the tramp goes out with the maid, the husband goes into the room and confronts the physician. A struggle immediately takes place and the maid returning to the room sees it. She rushes downstairs to telephone, but just as her hand touches the receiver she faints and falls unconscious on the stairs. In the struggle upstairs between the two men a shot is fired, and the tramp who has just gone out of the front door hears it. He tries to make entrance at the front door but fails and runs around to the back of the house. In the meantime the young physician has broken loose from the crazed man and fled into the next room. There is a struggle at the door which the physician has not been able to lock, the crazed man getting his arm half way through. The young physician, however, is able to close the door long enough to go to the window and cry for help. It is here that the tramp, coming around the corner, hears the cry, and getting a ladder, attempts to ascend it to the window. The physician, however, is drawn back into the room by the crazed husband. There is another silent struggle of deep intensity in which neither speak [sic]. The tramp is climbing the ladder to the window when an officer on horseback appears and sees him. Thinking the tramp is burglarizing the house, the policeman comes up to arrest him and unceremoniously drags him away. He will not listen to him since he cannot believe the word of a tramp. At some distance from the house, the tramp knocks the officer down and rushes to the rescue. He climbs up the ladder and through the window into the room. The maid in the hallway revives and rushes to the telephone, informing the police station. The officer who has been knocked down goes in pursuit of the tramp and is led into the house by the maid, and with the other officers who have who have arrived on the scene, goes up into the chamber and to the rescue. The crazed man is led away. The tramp is happy living as the young physician’s gardener and it is quite evident that a love affair is springing up between the maid and himself, thus proving that [circumstances alter cases.] Synopsis from Copyright Material submitted to the Library of Congress, December 18, 1912, LU185

A young doctor attempts to treat a female patient but is unable to save her life. Her husband, believing that the doctor withheld his skills because the husband was poor, remains embittered for years after her death. Meanwhile, the doctor prospers and is able to treat charity patients. A converging narrative introduces a tramp, who is held an object of ridicule, contempt, and suspicion by various members of the public. Eventually, the vengeful widower determines to kill the doctor, breaking into his home to effect his revenge. The tramp, passing the doctor’s home, sees the husband break into the house and hears the doctor’s and his maid’s cries for help. Unable to enter through a door, the tramp enters the house, ascending a ladder and climbing through a window to confront the would-be murderer. The 209

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maid succeeds in telephoning the police before collapsing with fear, and the arriving police at first assume the tramp to be a dangerous intruder. The tramp rescues the doctor and overpowers the berserk husband. For his bravery and selflessness, the tramp is congratulated and begins his reformation into a socially useful citizen as the doctor’s gardener.

There is probably too little remaining of A Cry for Help to reconstruct an intelligible version of this improbable rescue-melodrama which, when the tramp enters the narrative, swerves sharply towards comedy. Nonetheless, we have reasons to be grateful because the Museum of Modern Art’s fragmented version enables us to witness a series of unedited takes that serially reveal how Griffith, Bitzer, and Biograph actors shot and compiled the film. In particular, we are fortunate in observing a novice Lillian Gish, in the small supporting role of the maid, attempting to perform a role that has no defining character in a scene in which there is no through-line. We observe how, with the camera running, Gish receives off-camera instructions, responds to them as best she can, and then tries again, attempting to register dismay, confusion, and such overpowering fear that she faints. It is a far from convincing performance by the young Gish, which each successive take underlines. A further point of interest is Lionel Barrymore’s tramp. Until 1900, the tramp – or hobo, or bum – was, at best, an ambiguous feature of American life. On the one hand, the tramp – male and female – was apart of the rootlessness that saw individuals and families on the move – some a part of the general westward flow, but others more aimless in their peregrinations. On the other hand, the solitary hobo was associated with theft and dishonesty. Fresh-baked pies cooling on kitchen windowsills were thought to be among their more innocent targets. Mark Twain’s the “King” and the “Duke”, who enliven so much of Huckleberry Finn, illustrate, albeit comically, the seamier side of the hobo’s life. Twain’s two hobos are itinerant scam artists who, as they follow America’s waterways, prey on the credulous and leave consternation and empty pockets behind. By latter decades of the nineteenth century, as financial panics and industrial unrest, especially in the mining states, cast unemployed workers onto the road, the tramp at the kitchen door, who sought to exchange work for a meal or a night’s lodging in one’s haybarn, or the hobo in the “railroad jungle” – the “wobbly” or peripatetic International Worker of the World – came to be viewed with suspicion and outright hostility. The turning point, with the creation of a tramp who was unthreatening, humourous, and harmless, came in 1900 as Frederick B. Opper, a cartoonist with the Hearst press, created his strip character “Happy Hooligan”. The Adventures of Happy Hooligan and Gloomy Gus is credited with this change of view. These two non-predatory tramps and their English tramp cousin, Montmorency, were the butts of their own pranks; they were work-shy, but certain in their sense of justice. Beginning simultaneously in Hearst’s San Francisco and Boston weeklies, the strip’s circulation became nationwide within a few years. Tramps were seen to be less menacing. Edward Acker’s screenplay, Griffith, and Barrymore all play to this double understanding of the tramp. Barrymore in his first appearance is lethargic, hung-over, and indifferent, corresponding to the earlier received view. But the tramp’s transformation into a comically improbable rescuer, active and thereafter industrious and employable, plays to the newer perception of the tramp as an ally, not enemy, of society. Chaplin’s “little tramp”, inheriting and building on this legacy, is only two years over the horizon. David Mayer

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445* BIOGRAPH

THE GOD WITHIN Filming date: finished November 1912 Location: East Coast Release date: 26 December 1912; reissued by Biograph, 12 November 1915 Release length: 1000 feet Copyright date: 21 December 1912 Director: D.W. Griffith Author: T.P. Bayer Source: none known Camera: G.W. Bitzer Cast: Henry B. Walthall (Woodsman); Claire McDowell (His wife); Blanche Sweet (Woman of the camp); Lionel Barrymore (Her lover); Charles Hill Mailes (Doctor); John T. Dillon, W. Christy Cabanne (On street); Clara T. Bracey (Madam); Frank Evans, Charles Gorman, Joseph Graybill, W.C. Robinson, Gertrude Bambrick (In bar); J. Jiquel Lanoe, Charles Gorman, Charles H. West, Adolph Lestina, William J. Butler (In other town) Archival Sources: Library of Congress, 35mm paper print (fragment: 61 frames plus intertitles); The Museum of Modern Art, 35mm nitrate negative When the woman was desolate and alone she listened to the god within and regeneration came through the motherless baby given in place of the little lifeless form she had called her own. Then the father of this child thought of the associations surrounding his baby. The other man was awakened by the god within, but seeking the woman he found her at the father’s fireside, singing the eternal lullaby, controlled in full by the god within. The Moving Picture World, December 21, 1912, p. 1224 The story of this film is laid in a rough mining-camp of the Bret Harte nature and deals with the regeneration of a woman through the love of a child. At the opening of the picture we see her with the young man who promises all that a man should promise to any woman. She feels the assurance which he gives her and goes out into the world with him. Some time later they have drifted into a mining-camp out West. It is evident from her destitute appearance that he has failed to keep his promise and we see the sad result of a broken promise in the woman’s mental attitude as she goes to the outskirts of the city where she is about to throw herself off the cliff but is prevented by the landlady of the inn of the camp. This woman takes her back to the inn where she is jeered by the men in passing who have no sympathy because of the reputation she has made. In contrast to this scene, the only married woman of the village, who is termed “the saint” by the boys, appears on the scene and in marked deference they remove their hats as she passes, declaring that she is the only good women in the whole district. The man who has failed to live up to his promise to the woman, learns that she is at the inn and goes to her seeking a meeting. She tells him of her trouble and their mutual sin, but he fails to listen to the god within and leaves her to suffer alone. He seeks to forget in a nearby mining-camp and goes at once to the saloon to drink down his troubles. Some time later the doctor of the mining-camp is summoned to the inn to the woman’s bedside. A child is born but dies. The woman, however, is not apparently aware of the child’s death. As the doctor is leaving, he receives a like summons from the husband of “the saint” who comes to tell him of a like circumstance in his own home.

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In this case the mother dies instead of the child. The doctor goes to the business district of the town but is there unable to find any sustenance for the baby. An idea occurs to him. He will substitute the live baby for the dead one, thus giving the live mother the live baby and thus saving the baby’s life. The father at first objects but he is persuaded that it is the only course in this rough mining-camp and the baby is taken to the woman who is unaware of the substitution. The baby, however, awakens the sleeping god within her breast and later she is seen in the inn caring for the child with all the love of a true woman and mother. The father goes to see his child and wishes to take it away with him as he does not wish it to exist in such surroundings. The woman who naturally has grown to love the child as her own, cannot bear to have the child leave her and the physician and the husband go out for a short consultation and returning, ask the woman to go to the father’s home, to care for the child. After an argument she consents to go for the baby’s sake alone. As she passes out of the inn, the men begin to scorn and jeer her as previously, but the physician makes them respect this woman who has consented to sacrifice herself in this manner. She arrives at the home where she begins to care for the baby and she is left alone by the doctor and husband singing the eternal lullaby in true accord with every good and loving mother. Meanwhile, the man who had deserted her in the neighboring camp, has been brooding over his treatment of her and the god within prompts him to return. He appears in the camp and goes at once to the inn but does not find her. He is told of her whereabouts and goes to the man’s home where she is alone crooning her song to the baby, controlled now by the god within alone, all other thoughts having left her mind. He approaches her and asks her to marry him. She looks at the baby and her mind is filled with doubts and misgivings. At this point the husband and the doctor, who is evidently the justice of peace of the mining-camp, enter. The boys of the village are in their wake outside of the cabin. It is evident that a marriage is to take place. The woman is asked to choose between the men. She looks at the baby – that evidently decides the question for her and she tells the other man that he no longer has any claims upon her. That her duty is with the other man and his baby. He leaves them and the marriage is consummated with the boys who previously laughed and jeered at her, as wedding guests. Synopsis from Copyright Material submitted to the Library of Congress, December 21, 1912, LU191

Buoyant with optimism, a miner in the California gold fields promises a young woman marriage and a happy life if she will accompany him in his travels. Years pass. The miner has failed to become rich. Worse, he has failed to marry his partner, and she has drifted into a dissolute life, losing the respect of the inhabitants of the mining community. Another woman, married to a woodsman, is revered by the community for her goodness. As the unmarried woman gives birth, the wife of the woodsman also gives birth. The baby of the miner and his partner dies, and simultaneously, the woodsman’s wife also dies. The doctor who has attended both births proposes a solution for the care of the motherless infant: he will persuade the despised woman-of-the-camp to foster the child. Against public misgivings and over the protests of the woman-of-the-camp, the baby is brought to its new foster mother and is received with tenderness. Through this act, the woman-of-the-camp wins public respect. Moreover, the baby’s father proposes marriage, but at this point the miner also proposes marriage. The woman-of-the-camp, forced to a decision, chooses the woodsman. The miner departs with few regrets.

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security. We have seen Griffith’s previous essays on mothers, notably in A Plain Song (1910) and The Eternal Mother (1911), and we shall eventually see even more eloquent and complex treatments in Home Sweet Home (1914), Intolerance (1916), and Way Down East (1920). The God Within concurrently grates on our sensibilities and yet satisfies our hunger for closure by its balance and symmetry: one woman dies giving birth; another, giving birth, loses her baby. The solution to the dilemma of the motherless child and the childless mother is to unite the desolate, uncomforted singles and, in the process, reclaim the virtue of the fallen woman. Although somewhat differing in plot and details of characterisation, and with screenplay credited to T.P. Bayer, The God Within owes much to the tales of the California gold fields, especially to Bret Harte’s “The Luck of Roaring Camp” and “The Outcasts of Poker Flat”, where the presence of a child and its disreputable mother transforms the behaviour of a ramshackle mining hamlet and rehabilitates the errant mother. The God Within is at its best when Blanche Sweet, as the bereaved mother, is forced to relinquish her dead baby to the attending camp doctor. Her rendering of denial and disbelief, attempting to restore warmth and breath to the tiny corpse, and her defiant despair for the departed child is a sequence of particularly good acting and direction. So too, and far better than in The Eternal Mother, is her sullen acceptance of her foster-child, and her change of heart as the baby takes milk from her. The former scene will be a benchmark when Griffith and Lillian Gish dramatise the trauma, despair, and desperate grief of infant death in Way Down East, but even without this latter film, this episode shows the quality of Griffith’s deft handling of small intimate moments. Biograph’s scenic artists have done an effective job of differentiating between two squalid mining camps and their several honky-tonks, but they have somewhat overexcelled themselves in locating Henry Walthall’s woodland cabin on the edge of a rocky precipice. It’s all very picturesque, but just wait until his baby begins to take its first steps. That’s ending a film on a note of suspense. David Mayer

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446* BIOGRAPH

THREE FRIENDS Filming date: finished November 1912 Location: East Coast (Coytesville, New Jersey?) Release date: 2 January 1913; reissued by Biograph, 3 April 1916 Release length: 999 feet Copyright date: 27 December 1912 Director: D.W. Griffith Script: M.S. Reardon [“Baby’s Future”] Camera: G.W. Bitzer Cast: Henry B. Walthall (Husband); Blanche Sweet (His wife); John T. Dillon, Lionel Barrymore, Joseph McDermott (Three friends); Mae Marsh (Wife’s friend?); Harry Carey, W.C. Robinson (In saloon); Harry Carey, Kathleen Butler, J. Jiquel Lanoe, Frank Evans, Clara T. Bracey (In first factory); Walter P. Lewis (Foreman); Wilfred Lucas, J. Waltham (In second factory) NOTE: Information on casting taken from examination of paper print fragment on deposit at the Library of Congress. Archival Sources: Library of Congress, 35mm paper print (fragment: 52 frames plus intertitles); The Museum of Modern Art, 35mm nitrate negative; National Film and Television Archive, 35mm nitrate positive Each night, after the day’s work at the factory, the three bachelor friends met and declared anew their attachment over a social glass. They bound themselves to remain thus as long as life might last, – never to marry. But one was a traitor, while the other two were called away. A widened breach, a quarrel, fanned the resentment, but true friendship at last claimed its own. The Moving Picture World, December 28, 1912, p. 1330 For many years the three friends have grown up side by side at work in the factory. Each night they met at the back of Murphy’s saloon where they drank a social glass together and swore anew their eternal friendship. On one of these occasions, at the opening of the picture, they swear over their beer never to marry, but the usurper appears upon the horizon. No sooner does the youngest member of the party leave the saloon, when he meets a girl acquaintance in front of the home of another girl to whom his acquaintance introduces him. An attachment at once springs up between the two. The next night when meeting time arrives for the bachelors, there is one vacant place. The waiter, however, sits down the third glass of beer and the other two agree to wait for the younger member. He, however, has met the girl at the gate and is taking a walk with her around the factory district. He passes by the dam which gives power to the factory, up the old canal where a canal boat is seen to pass. Meanwhile, the friends are waiting at the saloon and as he does not put in an appearance they conclude to leave, but they are much puzzled at his failure to appear. At the girl’s gate the two friends meet him returning. They, at first, are very much incensed, particularly the older of the two who refuses to take his hand in congratulation, though the other is willing to do so. After the wedding, the two friends are called away to take charge of a shop in another town and they leave, bidding an unceremonious farewell to their other friend. Some time later he is happy with his wife and baby when the two men

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return. The elder has been made foreman of the factory. The friend left behind hastens to tell him of [h]is new happiness, but the new foreman still incensed at the other’s failure to keep his oath, will not listen to him and tells him to go to work. The young father, however, is filled with thoughts of his child […] begins to tell other workmen in the shop about its cute and winning ways. This arouses the foreman’s wrath and a quarrel ensues, in which the young man strikes at him. The young man is discharged. He is filled with courage, however, and the next day starts out to get another job. However, the various bosses of the different mills and factories to which he goes, refer back to the [f]oreman of the factory from which he had been discharged. He gives him a bad reputation and thus he is unable to obtain work. Later, his money gone, there is no outlook for the future. He is even unable to buy milk for the child. While his wife has gone on a fruitless errand to obtain nourishment for the baby, he considers his lot in life and wonders what the future has to hold out for the new life before him and for himself and his wife. When she returns, he persuades her to meet death with him and brings out his revolver. In the meantime, the two friends have met at the back of the saloon where the waiter has brought out a third glass of beer, unmindful of the quarrel which has occurred. He asks where the other member is. The younger of the two tells him that Jim fired him. It is evident that another quarrel is about to take place when the two remember that it was through a difference of opinion that their bachelors’ club was dissolved. The foreman is conscience-stricken at what he has brought upon his friend and the two set out to recompense what they have done. They arrive at the house just in time to prevent the young man and his wife from meeting death, the younger of the two giving the wife sufficient money to buy food, while the husband is taken back into the shop and reinstated in his position. Thus the bachelors’ club is reorganized and instead of meeting in the back of the saloon each night they meet in the married friend’s home, drinking their beer in the presence of the wife and baby. Synopsis from Copyright Material submitted to the Library of Congress, December 27, 1912, LP218

Three friends work at nearby machines in the same East Coast shoe factory, and they continue their friendship over glasses of beer when the workday ends. One of the three meets a young woman and forsakes his friends to enjoy her company. One of the remaining friends is sympathetic to this new attachment, but the elder is deeply resentful and outright hostile when their erstwhile colleague marries. Years pass. The young couple now has a son. The elder of the friends has left the factory, worked elsewhere, and returns as foreman. The sight of his former friend is too much for the foreman, and he begins bullying the younger man. Unable to endure his taunts, the younger man strikes his harasser and is immediately discharged from his job. The foreman, now implacably hostile, blacklists the young husband and father so that no shoe plant will employ him. Starving and unable to feed their child, the young couple contemplate suicide. Meanwhile, the two remaining friends sit together in a bar to enjoy a glass of beer. The waiter, recognising them, absentmindedly brings three glasses. The third stein prompts their remembrance of their absent friend. The friend and foreman, suddenly aware of their grudging behavior, rush to their friend’s house to ask pardon. They arrive in time to prevent three deaths and to rekindle their former friendship.

At first glance, Three Friends is a quiet film narrating the slow disintegration of a long-term friendship, victimisation of one of the friends, and a sudden awakening that saves both the friend and the friendship. There are few intense moments apart from Henry Walthall’s angry assault on his former friend, now an antagonistic and abusive overseer. Even Walthall and 215

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Mae Marsh’s preparation for mutual suicide has a slow, dreamy quality about it. Hunger has made the characters sleepy, not desperate. Despite its relaxed tempo – in keeping with the leisurely friendship, gradual courtship, and unhurried progression into marriage – the drama reflects circumstances that were of compelling concern to Biograph and its stable of actors and directors. Three Friends is set in the world of work, an environment frequently visited by Griffith in such films as A Corner in Wheat (1909), Examination Day at School (1910), What Shall We Do with Our Old (1910), and The Iconoclast (1910). Some scenes appear to have been filmed in an authentic shoe factory, with actors actually trimming and burnishing shoes on genuine machinery, then leaving their shift through the factory gates (an homage to the Lumières for their similar scene?) to stroll about an actual mill town, with its mixture of urban and village scenery. Yet the world of labour, which Griffith depicts in this film, is less immediate than the one on his own doorstep. In 1912, American entertainment professions were experiencing the final convulsions of the “Theatrical Syndicate”. The Syndicate had been organised in 1896 by a group of theatrical entrepreneurs to create a vertical trust that placed theatrical productions, variety acts, and actors at a disadvantage. Those showpeople who accepted the Syndicate’s terms and acknowledged the Syndicate’s nationwide power were permitted to work in Syndicateowned theatres on Syndicate-controlled circuits. Those who demurred and who attempted to work in independent theatres on independent circuits were blacklisted from an expanding list of Syndicate theatres and circuits. As a business practice and in terms of its overall effect on the development of the American theatre, the Syndicate was vicious and stifling. Under fire for these damaging practices, the Syndicate, in 1912, increasingly resorted to the blacklist to enforce its weakening hold. Linked to the Motion Picture Patents Company in its battle with the independents, the Syndicate directly affected the lives of Griffith and his colleagues and has been cited as one of the reasons for movement to California, beyond the reach of the Motion Pictures Patents Company and Syndicate booking agents. Thus the critical episode in this film is not the fight between John T. Dillon and Walthall, but Dillon’s vindictive use of the blacklist to prevent his former friend from earning a livelihood. That is a fearful moment, not only for members of the entertainment business, but also for workers in numerous industries who were experiencing heavy-handed management practices. Just as the shoe factory masks the reality of the Syndicate’s oppression, so the composition of the workforce and the leisure of the workers distort the degree to which immigration from Southern Europe had altered the identity of East Coast factory workers. Sociable beerdrinking, a sanctioned relaxation of male workers descended from Northern European stock had been replaced by the consumption of wine, grown in New Jersey and upstate New York, and the drinking mill-workers were more likely to be Italian or Portuguese. The homo-social Americans Griffith depicts are becoming a memory, and there is a whiff of nostalgia in these quiet closing moments. The didascalia for Three Friends states that it was filmed in Coytesville, New Jersey, but there was no discernible shoe industry there, and the exteriors of the mill town, with its weir and picturesque river-bridge, suggest a venue somewhere in the Hackensack River Valley, northwestward of Coytesville. Does anyone recognise the locale? David Mayer

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447* BIOGRAPH

THE TELEPHONE GIRL AND THE LADY Filming date: finished November 1912 Location: East Coast Release date: 6 January 1913; reissued by Biograph, 7 August 1916 Release length: 1000 feet Copyright date: 3 January 1913 Director: D.W. Griffith Script: Edward Acker [“The Heroine at Central Office”] Camera: G.W. Bitzer Cast: Mae Marsh (Telephone girl); Alfred Paget (Her sweetheart); Claire McDowell (The lady); Walter P. Lewis (Father); Harry Carey (Thief); John T. Dillon (Grocery man); Madge Kirby (Telephone operator); Joseph McDermott (Jewelry salesman); Kate Bruce (The lady’s friend); Gertrude Bambrick (Maid); Lionel Barrymore (Desk sergeant); ? (Girl’s sister) Archival Sources: Library of Congress, 35mm Paper Print (fragment: 101 frames plus intertitles); The Museum of Modern Art, 35mm nitrate negative; National Film and Television Archive, 35mm nitrate positive Over the wire two friends were made and a catastrophe averted. Then in gratitude for her deliverance the lady enabled two young hearts to realize their desire. Watchful eyes had reckoned without the telephone girl and her many branching wires, while her father had reckoned without the sergeant on the beat and the lady. The father coveted the groceryman and his store for the girl, but the lady found a way to satisfy all. The Moving Picture World, January 4, 1913, p. 82 In the morning’s mail on the day of her departure for Europe, the lady received a letter from her jewelers in town, which read as follows: “Dear Madam: The jewels left for resetting are waiting your convenience. Will you kindly call at our warerooms. Julius Jorgenson & Son.” She telephones to the jewelers telling them that she will be in to receive the goods which have been repair[ed] […] conversation [with] […] has learned to regard and esteem because of her promptness and [k]indness in looking after various calls and business matters which she has been obliged to carry on over the phone. She [h]as the automobile brought to the door and starts on her journey to town, but as she lives out in the suburbs the journey is rather a long one and it is near noon when she reaches the city. In the meantime, the girl at the central office has returned to her home for the noon hour. She meets the young sergeant on the beat from the mounted police and he sees her home for the purpose of telling her father that she is the only girl in the world for him. Her father, however, is differently minded as he has brought home with him for a similar purpose the young groceryman of the village. The girl rejects his proposal and tells her father that the young sergeant, who has come in with her, is the man she desires to marry. The father orders the sergeant from the house and bringing forth the youn[g] groceryman, he insists that the girl marry him. She, however, still refuses and sittin[g] down at the table refuses to eat any luncheon. The father, however, coveting the store for his daughter is insistent that she should marry the groceryman. She, however, returns to the central office without making any promise to her father. Meanwhile, the lady has arrived in New York City and entered the jewelers. S[h]e is seen by a crook who evidently anticipates from her appearance that she is

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a lady of wealth. He watches her through the window and sees the jeweler deliver the jewels to her. Before s[h]e comes out of the store he steals a bicycle from a mess[e]ng[e]r boy and on her appearance he follows her in her automobile o[u]t into [t]he suburbs. The lady stops at the grocery store to [g]ive her order and she meets the father and the girl returning to work. She passes a pleasant word with them but the father hurries the girl on. The lady then continues her journey followed by the crook. The lady is reminded of t[h]e little telephone girl and determines to give h[e]r a gift of appreciation. Doing up one of t[h]e jewels in a package, she gives it to the maid with a letter which reads as follows: “My Dear Miss Harmon: I am asking you to accept this token in appreciation of your promptness and painstaking efforts to please.” She then puts the other jewels away in a safe deposit vault in the wall which is covered over by a picture. She sits down to read. Meanwhile, the gift is delivered by the maid and the girl at central office calls up the lady to thank her. At this point, the crook, who had seen the maid depart, enters the villa and appears in the lady’s boudoir. The lady at first does not see him in listening to the thanks of the girl. She turns suddenly. She gives a cry for help which is heard by the girl, but the crook seizes the receiver and throws it to the floor. He demands to know where the jewels are hidden and a struggle follows in which he at length strangles the woman and […] [Me]anwh[il]e the girl at t[he] telephone […] [Th]e sergeant is about to answer the call when he receives notice that a riot is going on in another part of the city which attracts his attention and he drops the receiver unconsciously. The girl rushes out of the office and seeing her policeman lover mounted on his horse going up the road, she calls him and together they set out for the villa. The lady in the meantime, overcome with her fear, surrenders to the crook and shows him the safe deposit vault where the jewels are hidden. He seizes them and rushes out into the hall just as the sergeant and the girl enter with another policeman who has been met outside. A struggle ensues in the hall in which the burglar throws the jewels from him. He is overcome and the jewels are regained by the girl who passes them over to the lady. The lady learns all of the telephone girl’s troubles and of her love for t[h]e sergeant and how the father will not permit the marriage on account of the groceryman and his store. The matter is soon rectified for i[n] the last scene we see the lady purchasin[g] the store from th[e] groceryman and handing the deed over to the [g]irl. Synopsis from Copyright Material submitted to the Library of Congress, January 3, 1913, LU240

As a means of thanking a telephone operator for her courteous service, a wealthy lady sends the girl a chain and pendant. The girl is delighted by this unexpected act of generosity. At the same time the lady receives a message from a jeweler informing her that jewels she has had cleaned are now ready for collection. The lady sets out in her car to collect these items and is observed leaving the jeweler’s shop by a burglar. The telephone girl, meanwhile, has two suitors: a policeman, whom she obviously favours, and a grocer, preferred by her father because marriage to this man of business will assure his daughter’s comfort. The jewelry stowed in the lady’s safe, the burglar enters the house and threatens the lady until she is compelled to open her safe. The lady has the presence of mind to telephone the exchange, but, before she can speak to anyone, the burglar takes the phone from her. Through her earpiece the girl overhears the burglar threatening and the lady pleading for her life. Understanding what is occurring, the telephone girl alerts her policeman, and together they ride to the rescue, overpower the burglar, and reassure the lady. Afterward the telephone girl’s father brings forward the grocer to urge his daughter to an engagement. The telephone girl resists; the father, however, scorns the policeman and is insistent until the lady arrives. She thereupon buys the grocery from its owner and presents it as a wedding present to the girl. Provided now with a source of income, she has her father’s consent to marry the policeman. 218

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The Telephone Girl and the Lady conforms to the pattern of Griffith’s “rescue melodramas” and uses devices already known to the viewer familiar with The Lonely Villa (1909), The Banker’s Daughters (1910), The Lonedale Operator (1911), and A Girl and Her Trust (1912): a female occupant imperilled by a violent intruder in the home or work-place; the telephone as both an instrument of frustration (in this film snatched by the intruding burglar before a full call for help can be received) and a means of actually hearing a crime in progress; females both as the person in peril and as the principal rescuer. Here the rescuer is a resourceful telephone operator who keeps her presence of mind and who actually races to confront the intruder, mounted behind her policeman-suitor. Scott Simmon and Tom Gunning have both identified this recurrent action within Griffith’s oeuvre, and the reader is encouraged to consult Gunning’s penetrating analysis of The Lonely Villa (DWG Project, #150). If Edward Acker’s screenplay goes over old ground and resurrects well-used conventions, what distinguishes this film from its predecessors and contemporaries? One forward step is the introduction of Mae Marsh. Ostensibly a newcomer to Biograph and a novice actress at this date, Marsh had sufficient melodramatic technique to play the unworldly telephone operator catapulted into heroism by circumstances not of her making, then further enlarged her playing to incorporate comedy. Note her exchanges with John Dillon’s grocer, especially her finger-tip handshake, which in a single gesture conveys rebellious defiance and disgust with her father’s choice of suitor. Marsh also rides horses with skill, filling gaps in the company left by Florence Lawrence and Dorothy West. Although Griffith has filmed rides-to-the-rescue from moving vehicles on previous occasions, Bitzer’s camerawork here is skilful and sustained. Griffith’s actors appear rehearsed, especially in the well-choreographed scuffle between the robber and the rescuing policeman, with the defining moment of triumph as the telephone girl joins the fray. Unlike other Biograph films in which the company wardrobe, scene-dock, and propertystore were ransacked to provide elegantly fashionable attire and furnish luxurious interiors, an economy of effort now prevails. Corroborating details of the lady’s wealth and home – jewelry, picture-covered wall-safe, a vase of chrysanthemums, and a leopard skin wrap – are compressed within a few medium shots. Nothing more is needed. These details contrast with the functional hard surfaces – plain oak furniture and ebony switchboard – of the telephone girl’s working environment. The lady’s home is soft and sexy; the telephone girl’s environment is all utilitarian. This film might have been an exploration of idleness and industry, but Acker and Griffith are more interested in their rescue plot than in social or economic questions. What remains unanswered by this film and by Acker’s screenplay is why, in the first place, the lady gives the telephone girl such a costly gift to reward routine service. Some questions are better left unasked. David Mayer

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448* BIOGRAPH

OIL AND WATER Filming date: finished November 1912 Location: East Coast Release date: 6 February 1913; reissued by Biograph, 10 September 1915 and 21 November 1916 Release length: 1513 feet Copyright date: 31 January 1913 Director: D.W. Griffith Script: E. J. Montagne [“The Better Way”] Camera: G.W. Bitzer Cast: Blanche Sweet (Mlle. Genova); Henry B. Walthall (The Idealist); Walter Miller (His brother, a minister); Clara T. Bracey (Nurse); ? (Child); Lionel Barrymore, Lillian Gish, Kathleen Butler, Dorothy Gish, W. Chrystie Miller, J. Jiquel Lanoe, Charles H. West, Frank Evans, Matt B. Snyder (In theatre audience); J. Jiquel Lanoe, Alfred Paget, William J. Butler?, Gertrude Bambrick, Kathleen Butler (Among dancers); Charles H. West, Lionel Barrymore, John T. Dillon, Adolph Lestina, Frank Evans (In second audience); Joseph McDermott, Antonio Moreno, L. Willis (Actors in play); Harry Carey (Stage manager); Joseph McDermott, Harry Carey, John T. Dillon (At dinner); ? (Maid); ? (Governess); Lionel Barrymore (Visitor); ? (Father Time) NOTE: Information on casting taken from examination of paper print fragment on deposit at the Library of Congress. Archival Sources: Library of Congress, 35mm paper print (fragment: 128 frames plus intertitles [note indicates extensive damage]); National Film and Television Archive, 35mm nitrate positive; 35mm acetate negative (generation undetermined); UCLA Film and Television Archive, 35mm nitrate positive The dancer, as the saying is, was a “good actress on and off.” To the idealist she appeared the living goddess of the dance and as such she entered his home. Then came the moment of illusion. The goddess became the actress longing for the life that was past. Oil and water each found its own and what might have been a fatal mistake was rectified by sacrifice. The Moving Picture World, February 1, 1913, p. 494 His friends had always called him “the idealist.” There had been nothing particularly practical in all his life. Now he was occupied in writing a set of books on the art[s] and sciences of history, which his friends did not consider particularly useful or beneficial. However, he came from an old settled family of Boston. His brother had taken up the ministry and into their quiet home very little disquieting t[...] of the world had [ever entered]. [...] city. Mlle. Genova had been engaged by the management of the Olympic Theater in a series of classical dances in which she had made great success in European cities. The idealist went with his friends and saw in the dancer the living goddess of the dance, unable to separate the superficial from the real. It was a dance of much meaning to him and seemed to follow exactly his own interpretation of life. It was called “The Dance of the Fleeting Hours” and was laid in Greece in its youth. Mlle. Genova as Venus, the goddess of love, symbolized all that life and love had meant to him. She came ushering youth into

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the world with all the vague illusive promises. Then came Jupiter, the god of earth, holding aloft the roses of happiness. The mortals bound their allegiance to him, but unobserved by them the sands of time ran on; but mortals are mortals the world over, and on they danced for the impossible, while Time, the silent reaper, shadows their excesses. Then old age creeps upon them and the reaper reaps his fruitful harvest of death and ashes. This conception was the young idealist’s own idea of life and he could not help but feel that the actress playing the leading part must be in full sympathy with her interpretation. Therefore, after the performance when he was introduced to this lady at the cafe, he [...] [feelings] [...] to his quiet home as his wife. Some years later the fact of mixing oil and water was learned. The actress, repressed by her surroundings, be[g]an to feel the need of her old excitem[e]nt. The goddess was no longer present in the actress lady. She became the actress lady in everything that she did. She loved to make a scene, but the quiet household look [sic] on with patience and love. At last she began to revive her old associations and they excited her old desires by telling her of the latest dance. She indulges in a few stray cigarettes and wine with them. The husband entering at this time, sees that he can no longer hold her in the life that she has been living. His ideal of the goddess that had been was completely shattered. After the friends had gone, he told her such people could no longer come into his house. A quarrel ensued of an in[t]ense and dramatic nature in which the woman told him that she could no longer stand her associations; that she must go back to the life that was hers, but in justice to him she would surrender all claims to her child. Shortly after this she departed with her maid. Once more she became the fickle public’s favorite; she was no longer Venus, the goddes [sic] of love, but the leading lady in a comic opera, doing the latest song sensation. [T]he goddess of the years before was forgotten. Her old frie[nds] an[d] [associat]ions were revived com[pletely and] [...] started out for their usual dinner at the cafe, the automobile failed to put in an appearance and they decided to walk. In the meantime, at the home, her child’s nurse had left the child in the care of the father. He, still the idealist, occupied with his writing, lost track of the child, and slipping from his embrace, she wandered out of the house into the night. Here she was found by the actress and her friends as she was on her way to the cafe. She brought the child home. While the father, alarmed at the child’s departure, was seeking everywhere for her, he came upon the two in the drawing-room. Even now he was willing to take her back again and give her another chance to be goddess of his dreams and fitting mother to his child, but her only answer was “My ways are not your ways.” Thus, oil and water each returned to its own element, he finding comfort in the home life that he had always loved, and she satisfied with the approbation of the public. Synopsis from Copyright Material submitted to the Library of Congress, January 31, 1913, LU329

An idealistic man marries an actress/dancer, but their temperaments prove incompatible. Ultimately, they part and she returns to the theater. Later, their daughter wanders away from home and the actress finds her on the street. She returns the child to her former husband, and the two consider the possibility of a reunion, but then decide it is better to remain apart.

One of the most striking qualities of Griffith’s Biograph output is its evidence of a restless, innovative spirit. Inevitably, given the enormous quantity of films Griffith produced in a fiveyear period, there’s a certain amount of filler – but his overwhelming tendency is to avoid repetition, to try new and different ideas, to recycle story material only for the purpose of improving on his earlier results. Oil and Water is a case in point. Its story is based on familiar plot elements, but it uses those elements in a fresh way. The basic situation of the “idealist” mismatched with the actress suggests a familiar plot 221

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line: the sympathetic, long-suffering partner who ultimately reforms the unsympathetic partner. This story could easily have become a loose remake of The Seventh Day (1909), in which Rose King’s preoccupation with her social life made her an incompatible wife and an unfit mother, until she reformed at the end and was brought back into the fold, the natural order restored. The long synopsis of Oil and Water, deposited with the U.S. Copyright Office, offers hints that its writer took this judgmental interpretation. The actress is gently scolded in print: “She loved to make a scene, but the quiet household look on [sic] with patience and love.” When the husband finds her socializing with her old friends, “His ideal of the goddess that had been was completely shattered.” And at the end, when chance brings them together, “Even now he was willing to take her back again and give her another chance to be goddess of his dreams and a fitting mother to his child” (who happens, of course, to be her child, too). But audiences and critics didn’t read this synopsis; they saw the film. And the film tells a different story. Griffith’s artistic sensibility had become more sophisticated since 1909, and in Oil and Water he offers us a remarkably non-judgmental film. Henry B. Walthall and Blanche Sweet are not a “good” and a “bad” spouse; they’re simply mismatched. That, in fact, becomes the whole point of the film, summed up in its very title. As Blanche Sweet’s character is directed and played, it’s hard to believe that Griffith intends us to see her in an unsympathetic light. As for Walthall, his sympathetic portrayal of the quiet, studious thinker is mitigated by a slight tendency toward pomposity and stuffiness (and by his rash marriage proposal to Blanche within a few minutes of his first meeting with her). At the end, when Blanche finds their daughter on the street and brings her home, she encounters Walthall and the stage is set for what Russell Merritt (in his doctoral dissertation) has called “the Child-Centered Family Reconciliation Romance” – but it doesn’t happen. Instead, the couple wisely agrees that they simply don’t belong together, and the film ends with an implicit acknowledgement that their separation really is the best thing for all concerned. One of the film’s highlights is Blanche Sweet’s portrayal of the actress/dancer. With her florid, expansive gestures, she convincingly creates a character to whom all of life is a performance, “A GOOD ACTRESS ON AND OFF” as a title has it. Throughout the film she affects dramatic moods, among them a relatively subtle scene in a restaurant where she is apparently moved to tears by the beauty of a bouquet of flowers (a scene which may help to motivate Walthall’s impulsive proposal to her). Even her climactic moment, returning her daughter to Walthall and rejecting the proposed reunion, is performed as if she were on the stage. (Afterward, with her friends, she continues to play it as a tragic scene – until someone offers her a glass of wine, at which her mood instantly brightens!) Her display of temperament will remind some viewers of Mary Pickford’s more extended tantrums in Wilful Peggy (1910). Blanche’s performance was not lost on the New York Dramatic Mirror reviewer, who commented that her role “requires variety of expression and is unlike most of the work required of this gifted Biograph player in the past. It would not be going too far to say that the Biograph acting force includes no more valuable performer” (February 12, 1913, p. 31). Vachel Lindsay, too, was impressed. His 1914 poem “Blanche Sweet” was prefaced with the subtitle: “After seeing the reel called ‘Oil and Water’.” Incidentally, although Oil and Water was technically released on two reels, its actual length was the odd hybrid figure of 1513 feet. One is tempted to think of it as a standard one-reel picture, expanded to two reels by the inclusion of the stage performances – but “The Dance of the Fleeting Hours”, an extended piece of pseudo-classical silliness that opens the film, only runs about 350 feet, and the other performances glimpsed near film’s end are too short to make up the difference. It’s perhaps worth pointing out that Blanche’s on-screen performance as a dancer draws on her own background: she had taken the year 222

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1910 off from Biograph, primarily so that she could perform with Gertrude Hoffman’s dance troupe. That said, it should also be pointed out that she spends most of “The Dance of the Fleeting Hours” sitting in a chair while the rest of the company does the dancing. This becomes more striking as the number progresses and Griffith cuts more frequently between close shots of their furious activity and Blanche’s relatively static shots. J.B. Kaufman

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449* BIOGRAPH

AN ADVENTURE IN THE AUTUMN WOODS Filming date: finished November 1912 Location: East Coast Release date: 16 January 1913; reissued by Biograph, 24 January 1916 Release length: 999 feet Copyright date: 10 January 1913 Director: D.W. Griffith Author: W. Christy Cabanne Source: none known Camera: G.W. Bitzer Cast: Mae Marsh (Girl); W. Chrystie Miller (Grandad); Lionel Barrymore (Father); Walter Miller (Boy); Alfred Paget (Woodsman); Frank Opperman, Charles Hill Mailes, Harry Carey (Thieves); Joseph McDermott, Adolph Lestina (At trading post); Walter P. Lewis (In posse) NOTE: Information on casting taken from examination of paper print fragment on deposit at the Library of Congress. Archival Sources: Library of Congress, 35mm paper print (fragment: 118 frames plus intertitles) Summoned to the trading post, granddad promised the girls the money from the deal. He remained true to the end, though it seemed for a time as if his purpose would never be fulfilled. Cunning minds were thwarted and the girl received a double promise. The Moving Picture World, January 11, 1913, p. 190 Up in the Canadian wilds where men do nothing [–] but trade, granddad lived with his family, h[is] son and granddaughter. Granddad had been a trapper in his days [and] now he was showing the weakness that age brings. He had been summoned to the nearby trading post on a business deal and although he did not feel in the humor to go as his bones ached with rheumatism. His son was afflicted with an injured knee so was not able to take the trip, so granddad consented to go to the post. Before he left he promi[sed] that the money obtained from the deal should be given to the girl for there was a faint suspicion of a young man on the horizon and a new life about to begin. After the old man’s departure, the girl tries to persuade her father to go out in the forest for a hunt, but his knee rebels and the girl takes the trip alone. Out in the woods she is surprised by a wolf passing through the bushes and later meets the young man of her heart as he is on the track of a bear. She stops to talk wit[h] him and happy promises are hinted at. She returns to the cab[in] in a happy frame of mind and persuades her father the best way out of his indisposition is to go out into the forest to hunt. Once outside, they find nothing but squirrels. The father takes aim but is unable to bring the little creature down. The girl however [i]s more successful. Meanwhile, granddad at the trading post has [c]ompleted his deal but watchful eyes have been witnessing the tra[n]saction and as granddad goes back through the forest he is attacked by the two men and brought to the ground. The money is taken from him and they retire into the forest where they fall asleep. Granddad remembering his promise to the gir[l] takes a desperate chance and dragging his old shattered frame a[...] ground, he comes across the two outla[ws] and takes the mon[ey], [...]and there falls exhaus[ted] [...] [jo]urney on his

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way, but finally grand[dad] [i]s seen by th[e] girl and her father who come to the rescue. Meanwhile, the outlaws have awakened and discovered the loss of the gold. They notice grandfather’s tracks and set out to trace him to the cabin. They arrive just after the father has gone for the doctor. He takes the gold with him, fearing that there may be an intrusion on the cabin while he is gone. The men enter and on pretext of stopping for the night they win the girl’s confidence. She tells them all that has happened, including the fact that her father has gone to the trading post with the gold. They conclude to wait his return and send the girl up into the attic chamber to retire. She, however, has become suspicious of their actions and, looking down through the trap door, she hears them converse about the gold. She jumps out of the window from the attic chamber and goes for help. Her lover and his companions are camping nearby and hear her cry. In the meantime, however, the father has returned to the cabin and finding the strangers there [sic] is also fooled into believing that they are simply wayfarers. He consents to their passing the night there. Again they lie down on the floor, [w]hile the father nods ove[r] the sleeping grandfather, his gun under [his] arm, and as he falls asleep “Watchful Eyes” who has been eyeing the muzzle suddenly seizes it, overcomes the father and dashes out of the cabin. At this point the hunters return with the girl and seeing the mad dash of the two desperate men set out in pursuit. A shot is fired and t[he] man holding the gold falls to the ground. The hunters reach him and the father regains the gold. Later it is evident that the gir[l] and the boy are getting on, but the grandfather and father deem it wise to postpone the gift until – Synopsis from Copyright Material submitted to the Library of Congress, January 10, 1913, LU256

At the time of this writing, no viewing material of this film is known to survive. To judge from written descriptions, An Adventure in the Autumn Woods was a further refinement of story elements that had surfaced periodically throughout Griffith’s films to date. In particular, the theme of destructive greed was a familiar element in the Biographs dating back to For Love of Gold (1908), one of Griffith’s earliest directorial efforts. In the intervening four years, however, his skill and technique had become immeasurably more sophisticated. In For Love of Gold it’s enough for the two thieves to register mutual mistrust and poison each other’s drinks. By late 1912 Griffith is posing far greater challenges for himself: An Adventure in the Autumn Woods follows a large sum of money along a twisted, convoluted trail as it changes hands repeatedly in the course of a single night. The scenario was written by W. Christy Cabanne, who had previously worked for Biograph as an actor. It was the first scenario Cabanne sold to the company, and was soon followed by others. Within six months he would move on to direction, inaugurating a directorial career that would continue for several decades. The setting, too, is important. If pastoral settings represent happiness and innocence in Griffith’s world, forests function as places of foreboding and doom. Griffith had set the tone as early as 1908 with The Ingrate, set in the north woods, in which George Gebhardt repays Arthur Johnson’s kindness by maiming him and attacking his wife. Subsequent forests would function as the setting for Marion Leonard’s infidelity and bitter punishment in Fools of Fate (1909), James Kirkwood’s murderous vendetta in The Final Settlement (1910), and Florence Barker’s temptation and grisly retribution in The Man (1910). An Adventure in the Autumn Woods, filmed in an unspecified woodland location in New York state, is set in what the copyright synopsis describes as “the Canadian wilds”. Like earlier Biograph forests, this one provides cover for man’s darkest secrets: miscreants can conceal themselves from their intended prey; a presumably dead body can be left on the ground with little fear of discovery. (Unlike earlier Griffith forests, this one also abounds in wildlife. One doesn’t normally 225

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associate the Biographs with wildlife photography, but characters in this film were seen hunting squirrels, wolves and bears, and at least one bear was photographed at close range.) About the performances, we can only speculate. As the grandfather who is attacked and robbed and who heroically recovers the money, little W. Chrystie Miller would seem to be a perfect casting choice. We’ve already seen Miller victimized in numerous Biographs, ranging from the genuinely moving (What Shall We Do With Our Old [1911]) to the perhaps unintentionally comic (Her Father’s Pride [1910]). Here, dragging his battered body along the ground to retrieve the stolen money and so keep his promise to his granddaughter, he must have found a role made to order. Lionel Barrymore (half hidden behind a bushy beard) and Mae Marsh were also featured prominently. The Moving Picture World, for its part, was ambivalent about the performances: “It seems to us not quite up to the best Biographs in acting and general conduct, but it surely is tense and exciting” (February 1, 1913, p. 465). Clearly, Griffith saw this film less as an acting showcase than as an exercise in building suspense. Thieves in earlier films like The Lonedale Operator (1911) had displayed an uncanny tenacity in pursuit of wealth, but the thieves in this film (apparently played by Harry Carey and Charles Hill Mailes, though the authors of the Biograph sourcebook also include Frank Opperman) set a new standard. Their pursuit of Miller’s gold requires cunning as well as brute force; after stealing the gold and then losing it again, they must win the confidence of Mae Marsh – and, later in the night, Lionel Barrymore – long enough to regain the money before either character becomes suspicious of their real motives. To keep these plot twists clear, and to maintain interest and suspense, was Griffith’s challenge in An Adventure in the Autumn Woods. Frames deposited by Biograph with the Copyright Office (special thanks to Madeline Matz, of the Library of Congress, for providing access to these frames) confirm that he accomplished this object largely through editing. Perhaps the key sequence is that in which the thieves, feigning sleep on the cabin floor, watch for their chance to steal a gun from the drowsy Barrymore. Here the copyright frames reveal that Griffith cut between Barrymore and the thieves no fewer than twelve times, interrupted by two additional cuts to parallel action taking place outside the cabin. J.B. Kaufman

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450* BIOGRAPH

THE TENDER-HEARTED BOY Filming date: finished November 1912 Location: East Coast Release date: 23 January 1913; reissued by Biograph, 10 April 1916 Release length: 1008 feet Copyright date: 18 January 1913 Director: D.W. Griffith Author: Lionel Barrymore Source: none known Camera: G.W. Bitzer Cast: Robert Harron (Tender-hearted boy); Kate Bruce (His mother); Mae Marsh (His sister); John T. Dillon (Butcher); W.C. Robinson (On street); Clara T. Bracey (Old woman); Alfred Paget, J. Waltham (Policemen); Walter P. Lewis (Rent collector); W. Chrystie Miller (Extra) NOTE: Information on casting taken from examination of paper print fragment on deposit at the Library of Congress. Archival Sources: Library of Congress, 35mm paper print (fragment: 76 frames plus intertitles [note indicates extensive damage]) His sympathies in conflict with his fears, the butcher boy hemmed himself in by subterfuge and thereby learned a lesson of life. Wrong, though unintentional, supersedes [sic] suffering. The crafty old beggar woman shows her gratitude for the one kind heart she had been seeking all her life, and a sympathetic boy starts out once more with the world before him, his sympathies attuned to reason. The Moving Picture World, January 18, 1913, p. 290 He was a tender-hearted boy whose heart ran away with his head. One could hardly call him bad. He was hemmed in on all sides by his promises and his feelings and accordingly one learns from his difficulties that even unintentional wrong brings suffering. He was the butcher boy of a small village and lived alone with his widowed mother, of whom he was very fond. The sight of the old man who lived next door with his lame grand-daughter coming in through the gate inspired a promise from him that he would always care for his mother and he furthermore added that she would always be his best girl. That was before fate intervened and took the old neighbor away on a long journey from which there is no return. So the little lame girl had no home. Again the heart of the tender-hearted boy went out and he bound himself down to another promise - that if his mother would ask the girl to come to their home he would give all his savings to support the girl. Thus it was that he really broke his first promise to his mother, because now he had another girl. After this he was very careful to give all his savings to his mother and had very little spare change himself. On this particular morning when his mother was sick with a headache, he went to the store and spent his last change for medicine for her. This caused him to be late for the butcher shop, where the unsympathetic butcher, who was known for his hardheartedness throughout the town, upbraided him for being late. He sent him out to a customer adding with extraordinary vehemence that he should accept absolutely no credit from that customer. This was a rule of the butcher shop as the butcher had no rival in the place and was

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known throughout the community as “Skinflint Sam.” On the way to the customer the boy first met the beggar woman. Unaware that she had savings laid away in a mattress, he listened to her tale of woe. All the way back to the butcher shop her cries of “I’m starvin’, boy,” kept ringing in his ears until he could stand it no longer. Then [...] man [...] [...] no cre[dit] [...] [...] [for] mea[t for] the poor old beggar woman; besides, [...] sav[in]gs were all tied up with his mother by the promise to support the l[it]tle lame girl. He was in a quandary what he should do. A[t] length he decided that he would take a slice of the meat and pay for it at the end of the week out of his salary. This was no sooner thought of than done while the butcher was in the next room with the other assistant. The old lady was more than grateful for the meat and declared at last she had found one kind heart in the world. The next day the thing was repeated and again his sympathies were enlarged. He returned to the shop with the firm determination of accosting the butcher, telling him the condition of the poor old lady, but on that point he heard the erratic butcher outside the shop vehemently telling a customer that he would receive absolutely no credit; it was a rule of the shop and he never had and never would take anything but cash. This changed the boy’s mind and he wondered how he could honestly get the meat and still supply the old starving lady. He decided that he would take the meat, carry it to the old lady and that noon ask his mother for the money out of his savings and return with it to the butcher that afternoon. He was successful in getting the meat, carrying it to the old lady and reaching his home, when the butcher, who had been told by the assistant, who had watched the theft concealed behind the counter, arrived at the house. The boy, however, had seen his approach from the window, and went to hide in a closet. The incensed butcher declared that the boy was a thief and told the story to the mother. There was a noise inside the closet and the boy came through. After hearing his story, the mother paid for the meat taken by the boy out of his own savings and succeeded at last in appeasing the butcher, who went his way, telling the policeman outside waiting by the gate the matter was settled as far as he was concerned, though he believed the boy to be a nasty little thief. Later, the old beggar woman in her dingy surroundings, felt the call of the big summons that all must feel sooner or later and sitting down at her table, on an old piece of wrapping paper, the very paper that the boy had brought the steak in, she wrote her will, which read: “All my life I have looked for one kind heart. I leave all my money to the butcher boy’s mother to make a man of him. The bank books are under the head of my mattress. Sarah Hoane.” Later the rent collector came and found the old lady dead on her old mattress. He summoned an officer and her will was discovered clenched in her hands. The bank books brought out from the mattress were found to contain $14,000. Together they went to the butcher boy’s house to tell him of his good fortune. Once more the butcher boy [...] [...] [comi]ng. Aga[...] […]himself to the closet. The mother had [be]en [...] pressing on his mind in silent prayer the fact that even though […]e meant no harm in taking the meat it was wrong and that wrong m[...]always bring suffering to all concerned. The boy believed that the officer was after him this time and listened with panting breath in the closet until he heard the rent collector in loud sonorous tones read the contents of the will. Taking off his coat, he pretended to be coming out of the closet, and was told of his good fortune. Later he learned that butchers were not as bad as they were painted. On Sunday morning on his way to church, although he tried to hide [b]ehind his mother and back away from his former employer, that individual removed his hat - dollars make a difference. Synopsis from Copyright Material submitted to the Library of Congress, January 18, 1913, LU285

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At the time of this writing, no viewing material for this film is known to survive. As much as one wishes that no Griffith films (or, for that matter, no silent films of any kind) had been lost, some losses are especially egregious. From all accounts, The Tender-Hearted Boy sounds like a film of exceptional charm. Its story of a youth whose compassion and generosity overwhelm his common sense is nicely original, and must have been immensely appealing on the screen. Among other things, it suggests that Lionel Barrymore’s accomplishments as an actor may have overshadowed an equally pronounced talent as a writer. The title role is, of course, tailor-made for Bobby Harron, who had come a long way since his earliest appearances for Biograph (which predated Griffith’s directorial debut in 1908). In the beginning, Harron’s obvious youth had dictated numerous walk-ons as messenger boys and other marginal characters. As time passed, he had been given more prominent roles, most recently in The Burglar’s Dilemma (also written by Barrymore), which had demonstrated his genuine acting ability. This leading role was a logical next step; one can imagine that his performance in such an ideal part was well received and led in turn to even greater opportunities. It’s also perhaps worth noting that Harron was once again paired with Mae Marsh in this film; their teaming was incidental to the story, but trade advertisements featured a scene of the two of them together. The natural chemistry that Bobby and Mae enjoyed as a team was becoming increasingly obvious by this time, and they continued to appear together in succeeding years, culminating perhaps most famously in Intolerance (1916). The Tender-Hearted Boy, like most Biographs at the time, was well received by critics. “If one is writing photoplays,” said The Moving Picture World, “he can learn more from some of these Biographs than from any other company’s pictures” (February 8, 1913, p. 571). The New York Dramatic Mirror (January 29, 1913, p. 33) found fault with John T. Dillon’s performance as the irascible butcher – “His bombastic method is in unpleasant contrast to the sincere and moderate acting of his fellow players” – but was otherwise enthusiastic about the picture. In the absence of the film itself, we can gain a sense of it from the materials Biograph deposited with the copyright office (special thanks to Madeline Matz, of the Library of Congress, for facilitating this writer’s access to those materials). Those viewers interested in tracking Griffith’s increasing use of close-ups may want to know that Bobby Harron was featured in several medium close-ups in this film. In particular, and of necessity, he was photographed at close range inside the closet, where the character periodically took refuge in times of crisis. And we might note that the film’s sweetness and charm were balanced by a sardonically humorous ending, after the butcher boy had received his inheritance. The copyright synopsis tells the story: “On Sunday morning on his way to church, although [the boy] tried to hide behind his mother and back away from his former employer, that individual removed his hat – dollars make a difference.” J.B. Kaufman

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451* BIOGRAPH

A CHANCE DECEPTION Filming date: finished November 1912 Location: East Coast Release date: 24 February 1913; reissued by Biograph, 7 February 1916 Release length: 998 feet Copyright date: 18 February 1913 Director: D.W. Griffith Author: W. Christy Cabanne Source: none known Camera: G.W. Bitzer Cast: Blanche Sweet (Wife); Charles Hill Mailes (Jealous husband); Harry Carey (Raffles); Mildred Manning (His woman); John T. Dillon (Waiter); ? (Maid); Joseph McDermott, Lionel Barrymore (Policemen); Adolph Lestina (Visitor); ? (In restaurant) Note: Information on casting taken from examination of paper print fragment on deposit at the Library of Congress. Archival Sources: Library of Congress, 35mm paper print (fragment: 88 frames plus intertitles); The Museum of Modern Art, 35mm nitrate negative The jealous husband saw a flirtation; the Raffles, a necklace. The husband’s suspicions were further confirmed when the Raffles came out of his hiding. The Raffles permitted the deception, until his manhood came to the surface. He realized how his own happiness might have been so jeopardized, and the little wife concerned was restored to her own. The Moving Picture World, February 22, 1913, p. 806 His one great fault was his jealousy. Perhaps this was due to the fact that he was so much older than his wife, and yet, he was always showering attentions upon her and trying to hold the love that he fancied was slipping away from him into the hands of some younger or handsomer man, but the little lady herself was very much devoted to him. One evening at the cafe when he had been especially attentive to her, he became annoyed at her dreamy attitude. In reality the little wife was filled with untold joy from the secret that she had yet to tell him that would bring mutual joy and happiness, – the baby that was to come. At the opposite table, Raffles and his wife appeared. A different mental conflict was going on with this married couple. It was the one desire of this wife’s heart that Raffles should reform. Yet, he could not give up the life because he felt that he too was entitled to riches and wealth and that he must live in luxury; that there was plenty of wealth in the world to be shared with him. Yet, out of her love for him, she could not leave him. Raffles was attracted to the necklace worn by the little lady who cast her dreamy eyes in his direction. The jealous husband at once imagined a flirtation and after a slight quarrel, left the cafe in a violent temper. Raffles, however, bribed the waiter for his name, and looking up his address in the telephone directory, followed the man to his house and verified the address. Inside, a slight quarrel was going on. The husband accused the wife of not loving him because he was too old. She, however, silenced his suggestions by throwing her arms impulsively around his neck. However, she felt that he was in no mood for her to tell him of the secret and so decided to wait and keep it as a surprise. On the following night she again attempted to tell him, but

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something in his attitude prevented her and he left for his office. She began at once to work on the coming baby’s basket. While she was thus employed, her husband called her up on the phone, telling her that he would not be home that evening. Something in the tone of her voice showed unconcern. Feeling that she was glad that he was not coming home, it aroused his suspicions and he determined to return. Meanwhile, Raffles, although his wife had continued to urge that he give up the life, saw in this chance the opportunity of a lifetime and felt that it was something that he could not let go by. Throwing his wife to one side, he goes out of the room and on his way to the house. His wife, however, decides to prevent the crime and hastily putting on her hat follows him. The husband returns from the office just in time to see Raffles enter the house. His suspicions are confirmed. Raffles goes in, going upstairs into the woman’s chamber, and obtains the necklace out of the bureau drawer. At this point, the wife returns, and hearing her husband coming up the steps, throws the basket into the closet where Raffles is concealed. The husband demands to know who has been in the house, and hearing a shuffle inside the closet, he goes to the door and opens it. Raffles steps out. “Oh, your lover. I had long suspected it.” Raffles seeing an opportunity for escape, seizes it, and backing up against the door, makes his way out. The husband accuses the wife and orders her to leave his house forever. The woman becomes stunned; the jealous accusations have shattered her life; she becomes a victim of aphasia. Going out of the house and into the street, she is seen by Raffles and his wife, who has followed him. Later she is found by a policeman who takes her to the station-house, where her identity is discovered. Once in their own home, Raffles and his wife have a long argument on his past life and the deeds he has committed. She at length persuades him that the life he has been leading is not for those who wish happiness. She holds up to him a picture of what their own life would have been had they been separated – had she been in the same condition that the other woman was. This brings Raffles’s true nature to light and going to the house with his wife he returns the necklace and tells the truth to the husband. At this point the wife comes in with the officers and a hospital physician. Raffles is protected by the husband and the officers depart without knowing his identity. The baby clothes which the husband had been looking over so lovingly are held up to her by him and at last recognition comes into the woman’s face and she is healed. Thus this was Raffles’s last deception. Synopsis from Copyright Material submitted to the Library of Congress, February 18, 1913, LU390

When a thief ogles a woman’s expensive necklace at a restaurant, her jealous husband mistakes his interest for a flirtation. Later the thief breaks into the couple’s home. The husband, finding his wife with the other man, assumes that his suspicions were correct, and the thief takes advantage of the misunderstanding to make his escape. The husband orders his wife out of the house, and she, dazed by the shock, becomes a victim of aphasia. Later, goaded by his own wife, the thief confesses the truth. Husband and wife are reunited, the wife is cured, the thief is shielded from the police, and all ends happily.

W. Christy Cabanne, who had begun a new phase of his career by writing the scenario for An Adventure in the Autumn Woods, contributed the scenario for this film as well. For A Chance Deception he leaned heavily on Griffith’s increasing ability to convey subtle ideas by economical means. In this case, the simple basic situation of the jealous husband mistaking a burglary for an illicit affair was complicated by the fact that the wife was pregnant, but had not yet found the right moment to tell her husband the news. Understanding the subtleties of the couple’s relationship was crucial to an audience’s enjoyment of the film, for much of 231

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the plot was motivated by their misunderstandings. Unfortunately, the film proved too subtle for the New York Dramatic Mirror reviewer. The opening scene in the café summed up the plot situation in an obliquely written intertitle: “THE WIFE DREAMS OF HER UNTOLD JOY/THE JEALOUS HUSBAND SEES ONLY A FLIRTATION.” The reviewer for the New York Dramatic Mirror felt that this demanded too much of the audience: “It is ambiguous, and unless the spectator pays particularly close attention at [sic] what follows, the meaning will be entirely lost” (March 5, 1913, p. 37). The meaning may well be lost on today’s viewer, for this is another film that can be seen (at this writing) only in the form of an unassembled workprint. Deprived of the intertitles, and seeing the shots grouped by camera position, we’re forced to take the effect of the finished product on faith. On the other hand, as in other such cases, seeing the film in this form has rewards of its own. It’s fascinating to see Griffith’s working method (which would ultimately become the standard) in action, with all the shots from a single position shown consecutively. Camera position 7, for example, is a simple setup showing a hallway door and the head of a staircase, and affords us a selection of assorted entrances and exits from various parts of the story. Several continuous takes are broken up into sections, with labels identifying each section and its place in the finished continuity. And if the shots are arranged in the order of shooting, it’s interesting to note that some of the most intense emotional moments of the story – not only Harry Carey’s climactic confession scene, but also the moment when Blanche Sweet is stricken with aphasia – are seen near the end of the reel. That attack of “aphasia” may be the most problematic aspect of the film for modern viewers. By 1912 the misconception which persists today, confusing aphasia with amnesia, had already become widespread (special thanks to Karen L. Everson for bringing this distinction to my attention). Justus Miles Forman’s successful 1902 novel The Garden of Lies, built around a loss of memory which was labeled “aphasia”, and its subsequent stage and film adaptations which repeated the mistake, may be taken as representative of the general misunderstanding. In any case, A Chance Deception is more concerned with dramatic effect than with strict medical accuracy, and when Blanche is stricken, she takes it as if suffering a sharp blow to the head. Later, when she recovers, she seems to be waking from a bad dream. None of this was of concern to the Moving Picture World reviewer; his disbelief was reserved for Harry Carey’s conversion and reform at the end: “We don’t believe that even a gentleman burglar would behave in just that way” (March 8, 1913, p. 996). One interesting aspect of this film does not appear on the screen (at least in the film’s current form): writers, within and without Biograph, consistently linked Carey’s character with Raffles, the debonair thief introduced to popular fiction by E.W. Hornung in 1899. Raffles had become an immensely popular character, thanks to the Hornung novel and a 1903 stage adaptation. By 1912 he had appeared in at least one film, and at least four more would follow in succeeding years. That he was associated with the Carey character at all is a testament to Raffles’s popularity, for hardly anything about A Chance Deception bore any resemblance whatsoever to anything in Raffles. Aside from the theft of a necklace, the two plots were widely dissimilar, and Carey’s taciturn, businesslike, and potentially violent American thief had virtually nothing in common with his charming, ingenious, and elegant English counterpart. Nevertheless, trade ads, reviews, and the film’s intertitles all referred to Carey’s character as “the Raffles” – suggesting that he embodied an easily recognizable type – while the long copyright synopsis referred to the character as if his name actually was “Raffles”. J.B. Kaufman

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452* BIOGRAPH

FATE Filming date: finished November 1912 Location: East Coast Release date: 22 March 1913; reissued by Biograph, 17 December 1915 Release length: 1038 feet Copyright date: 18 March 1913 Director: D.W. Griffith Author: Mrs. William L. Honkers Source: none known Camera: G.W. Bitzer Cast: Charles Hill Mailes (Sim); Robert Harron (Beloved son); John T. Dillon (Friend); Lionel Barrymore, Mae Marsh (Loving family); Adolph Lestina, Frank Evans, W.C. Robinson, Walter P. Lewis. J. Waltham (In bar); Jack Pickford, Gladys Egan (At school); Joseph McDermott, ? (Two hunters); ? (Teacher); Charles Gorman, Walter P. Lewis (Villagers) Archival Sources: Library of Congress, 35mm paper print (fragment: 107 frames plus intertitles); The Museum of Modern Art, 35mm nitrate negative (incomplete); 35mm acetate negative (complete); National Film and Television Archive, 35mm nitrate positive Sim Sloane and his beloved son were reprobates of the village, not what would be called lovers of peace and kindness. But granddad dwelt in a house filled more with love, and when Sim came in for his brutal sport, he soon went out assisted by granddad. Incited by ridicule and drink, Sim swore to get even. That was where granddad’s new supply of powder came in. Sim appropriated it and although he wrecked the house of love, he destroyed through his venom the only thing he cherished in life. The Moving Picture World, March 15, 1913, p. 1128 In this small western village there were two families – one known as “The Brutal Family” and the other “The Home Where Love Ruled.” Sim Sloane and his beloved son were known as the brutal family and were the reprobates of the village. Sim Sloane was never known to do any work all his life and he brought his son up with the same hope, teaching him that brutal jokes and characteristics were the only things in life worth while. Granddad, however, had brought up his little granddaughter in an entirely different way. Even when the little dog and the kitten came to live in the house they were duly introduced to each other, placed in one basket and taught to love one another. One day Sim Sloane went hunting. As Sim Sloane was a very awkward individual, he did not always look where he was going. Sim Sloane met with an accident, – he fell and injured his knee, right near grandfather’s home. The granddaughter came running out of the house, saw Sim tumble, and telling her grandfather, the two rushed out to Sim’s assistance. He was taken into the house and duly cared for, and while he was recovering from his injury, granddad went out to split wood, telling granddaughter to take good care of Sim. But it was quite evident that Sim did not need to be cared for, and no sooner had granddad gone than he wanted to show granddaughter what a nice little girl she was, but granddaughter objected to his familiarity and forthwith to show his mean disposition, Sim gave the puppy a vicious kick. This so incensed granddaughter, it being so against all the principles of her life, that she rushed out to granddad

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heartbroken and told him of the cruelty which Sim had inflicted on the puppy. This was too much for granddad to stand. He rushed into the house and seizing Sim by the lapel of his coat, he threw him out of the house in a surprising and energetic manner for one of granddad’s mild disposition and age. To add to the humility, men from the village were passing by the cabin; there they saw Sim Sloane sprawled out on the road and granddad’s angry figure expostulating over him. They saw how the trouble began and when Sim appeared in the saloon and began to tell them of the big hero he was, nobody believed him and then to add insult to injury, granddad appeared among them and drove Sim out into the wilderness. But he swore to get even, and prowling around granddad’s cabin, he saw granddaughter and her younger sister go off for school. There was his opportunity. He strolled into the house to see what mischief he could create. Standing in the corner of the room was a keg of powder which granddad had recently brought up from the village. There was an idea! Sim would destroy the house at once. Taking shavings from the hearth he made a long line out into the middle of the room which he set on fire with his pipe, thinking how he would be avenged on granddad. But that day there was to be no school and no sooner had granddaughter arrived than she was told to go home. Sim Sloane’s beloved son is seized with an appetite and no means to gratify it in his own home. Strolling into the cabin he was refused food by granddaughter. Out went granddaughter and the child with the puppy and the kitten after them, and Sim Sloane’s beloved son sat down on the keg of powder to munch a crust of bread. Meanwhile, the shavings were burning gradually up toward the powder. On the way back to the village, Sim Sloane met granddad and told him of his revenge. Granddad reached the cabin just in time to see an explosion and his cabin go up in flames. But there on the outskirts he found granddaughter and the puppy and the kitten; the house of love was safe but in another part Sim Sloane’s beloved son lay dead. Hate had killed itself. Synopsis from Copyright Material submitted to the Library of Congress, March 18, 1913, LP490

Sim hurts his knee whilst hunting and is helped by a grandfather and his granddaughter, who take him to their home and tend to his injury. But when the grandfather leaves the house to chop some wood, Sim propositions the granddaughter and, when rejected, kicks her puppy. She tells the grandfather and after a fight with Sim, he throws him out of the house. Sim goes to the local saloon but cowers behind a friend when the grandfather arrives; he leaves, vowing vengeance, and later breaks into the grandfather’s home and lights a fuse leading to a keg of gunpowder. In quick succession, the two grandchildren arrive home after having been told that there was no school that day and Sim’s son breaks into the house looking for food. He throws the grandchildren and the puppy and kitten out. Sim encounters the grandfather and tells him of his actions and the grandfather rushes home, believing his grandchildren to be in danger. The house explodes, killing Sim’s son. Sim arrives at the scene and is told about his son. He kneels over his body.

The film begins with a contrast between two families, starting with what an intertitle describes as “THE BRUTAL FAMILY – SIM SLOANE AND HIS BELOVED SON, THE REPROBATES OF THE VILLAGE”, who are shown drinking and idly bullying another man. In contrast, in the house “WHERE LOVE RULES”, a grandfather brings a kitten to his granddaughters and together they watch as the kitten plays with their puppy, shown in close-up. (In the longer and more complete version at the National Film and Television Archive in London, the film begins with the intertitle “WHERE LOVE RULES”, showing the granddaughter playing with her puppy before the grandfather brings in a keg of gunpowder and a kitten, before cutting to 234

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the “brutal family” – though this in some ways works more smoothly than the Museum of Modern Art print, the continuity script supports the ordering of the MoMA print). The miseen-scène provides a distinct contrast, for the brutal family’s house is spartan whereas the grandfather’s house is filled with domestic essentials (a clock, table, bed and so on). Likewise, the puppy and the kitten – seen in a number of shots throughout the film – function it seems as symbols of the happiness and love within the house, if not of a more general bucolic innocence and of the moral values of a pastoral tradition that will be threatened by the brutality of Sim and his son. Separated at first, the two houses will be brought together as the story continues. Sim goes out hunting near grandfather’s house but is hurt. He is seen by the granddaughter and together with her grandfather she takes him to her house and tends his injury. However, Sim’s brutality is shown when the grandfather leaves to cut some wood, for he touches the young granddaughter’s arm in a suggestive way and evidently propositions her (the synopsis produced with the cutting continuity deposited for copyright purposes coyly – if not a little creepily – describes this as Sim wanting “to show granddaughter what a nice little girl she was”). So, Sim’s brutality and villainy is linked to drink – a common enough theme in Griffith’s films – and also to sexual perversity (the granddaughter is still at school and her innocence is emphasized by her continually playing with the puppy and the kitten). His brutality threatens the sanctity of the home, seen symbolically when – after the granddaughter has refused his advance – he kicks her puppy. Sim is thrown out of the house by the grandfather and he walks to the local saloon. An ironic intertitle proclaims “SIM, THE HERO”, and Sim evidently tells a different version of his fight with and defeat by the elderly grandfather, only for grandfather to arrive at the saloon and for Sim to be further humiliated – hiding behind his friend and quickly leaving, subjected to the laughter of a group of men standing outside the saloon. “INCITED BY DRINK AND RIDICULE,” an intertitle tells us, “SIM SWEARS TO GET EVEN”. He breaks into grandfather’s house, takes a swig of alcohol, and chances upon a keg of gunpowder in the back room of the house. In quick succession we see the granddaughters arrive at school, Sim’s son leave his house after an intertitle declaring “THE BELOVED SON IS HUNGRY”, the granddaughters leave school because it was cancelled for the day, and Sim back at the house, setting a long fuse made of wood shavings from the hearth and then leaving, after shaking his fist in a stock gesture of villainy and revenge. The children arrive home and play in the front room, oblivious to the fuse in the back room. Griffith cuts between the two spaces within the house in a familiar structure, setting up a structure of suspense (he will cut back to the fuse a total of thirteen times). Yet this is revised slightly for shortly after the granddaughters arrive home, Sim’s son breaks into the house, looking for food. After an intertitle “THE WIND OF FATE”, we see the fuse blown by a draft from the door and rendered ineffective. Sim’s son forces the granddaughters to leave and throws the puppy and kitten after them, standing in the doorway shaking his fist in a gesture that links him to his father. But the opening of the door causes a draft that leads the trail of wood shavings to re-form. (Interestingly, the NFTVA print has the intertitle “THE WIND OF FATE” here, a shift from the MoMA print and the continuity script that again makes more sense for the second opening of the door is indeed fateful. This suggests that an exhibitor cut the film around a little and in the process – at least for me – actually clarified the story and rendered it easier to follow). Sim’s son eats as Griffith periodically cuts to the ever-shorter fuse until we move away entirely. Sim encounters the grandfather and tells him of his actions, the grandfather rushes to see if he can save his granddaughters – forward towards the camera, giving us a clearer glimpse of his anguish with the more intimate shot scale – and the house explodes, killing 235

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Sim’s son. Here we see the explosion from the inside, the room being swallowed up in a puff of smoke, before shifting to the outside to see the whole house being consumed by smoke. Again, there are discrepancies here between the prints in New York and London. In the MoMA print, there is a temporal gap between the two shots – we see the internal explosion, cut to a high-angle shot of the house (the high angle still something of a rarity at the time) and then see the house engulfed in smoke. It is not exactly akin to the repetition of Life of an American Fireman (1903) but it is curious (the continuity script seems to support this, for there are four shots of the explosion: “Interior explosion. Exterior – trees in background. Exterior of Cabin. Exterior – Explosion of Cabin.”) In the NFTVA print, this is again smoothed out, for we cut directly from a shot of the interior explosion to the shot of the exterior explotion. In a brief comment on the film, Joyce Jesionowski praises the cut to the long shot of the house before it explodes for its creation of “a moment of wholeness and peacefulness for the audience in the midst of a multi-shot depiction of crisis” (1987, p. 39). In the end, the good family is reconstituted, as the grandfather embraces his grandchildren and the puppy and kitten; Sim kneels over the body of his dead son in anguish and the film recapitulates the contrast of the opening. In the meantime, the threat to the family has been averted and “fate” has been both “vengeful”, as an intertitle here notes, but also “ethical”, as the Biograph Bulletin for the earlier The Banker’s Daughter (1910) averred it always was. Even though The Moving Picture World later described the film as a “masterpiece of dramatic suspense” (December 4, 1915, p. 1844), Griffith’s variation on the race-to-the-rescue scenario here for me rather drains the film of suspense, for it now resides only in Sim’s reaction to the consequences of his action. Notwithstanding this, the film was highly praised on its release in 1913 and its re-release in 1915, largely for what The Moving Picture World described as its “tremendously effective climax” (April 5, 1913, p. 48), showing in long shot the house explode and the burning debris fall around the dead son. “If such an explosion can be made more real and effective, it may be done in some later picture,” The Moving Picture World commented, “but we think this will stand for a while”. Indeed, upon the film’s re-release two years later, “this excellent photoplay” was said in one of the reviews in The Moving Picture World to culminate “in a real thrill” and was described as a “vivid story of rough woodsmen, with early scenes giving careful preparation for the big situation of the picture, that in which a log cabin is blown to pieces by an explosion of powder” (December 4, 1915, p. 1844). Interestingly, whilst the 1913 review refers only to Biograph, the two reviews in The Moving Picture World in 1915 refer directly to “famous director” Griffith, evidently testament to the success of his 1913 (self) advertisement and to The Birth of a Nation (1915). Still, a brief comment in the same journal passed on the re-release of the film rings truer to me: “Although this D.W. Griffith reissue is a spirited one-reel picture it has been surpassed by many of the famous director’s efforts” (The Moving Picture World, December 25, 1915, p. 2338). Lee Grieveson

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453* BIOGRAPH

A FATHER’S LESSON Filming date: finished November 1912 Location: East Coast Release date: 13 February 1913 Release length: 997 feet Copyright date: 8 February 1913 Story purchase date: 20 November 1912 Director: D.W. Griffith or Anthony O’Sullivan Author: W. Christy Cabanne Source: none known Camera: G.W. Bitzer or unknown Cast: Hector Dion (Husband); Claire McDowell (Wife); two unidentified (Children); ? (Sick neighbor); Kathleen Butler (Friend of neighbor); ? (Policeman); ? (Man on street) NOTE: Information on casting taken from examination of paper print fragment on deposit at the Library of Congress. Archival Sources: Library of Congress, 35mm paper print (fragment: 120 frames plus intertitles); The Museum of Modern Art, 35mm nitrate negative The home was alternately a house of love and a house of fear, according to the mood of the father. It depended on how he spent the evening. On his return from the village saloon the father was another man. Then came the lesson. The wife was called away to a sick neighbor and he refused the charge of the children. His brutality and carelessness gave birth to a double anger [sic], averted in time – but a narrow escape. The Moving Picture World, February 8, 1913, p. 606 The father was really possessed of two natures. When he kept away from the saloon he was filled with love and kindness for his wife and children, but after such an evening he came home a very different man. On one of these occasions he appeared worse than ususal and the children retreated in fear and were taken to the next room by their mother where they were placed in bed and told to be quiet and not annoy their father. At this point the daughter of a sick neighbor appeared, asking help for her mother, and going out into the next room the wife asked the father to look after the children, but in his drunken state his sleep was of vastly more importance and he told the mother that she had better stay home herself and take care of them and keep them quiet so that he could take his nap uninterrupted. It was, however, more a question of duty with the mother and she decided to leave the children, and bidding them to be quiet, she went over to the neighbors’s. However, the excitement of the day had not worn off from the children and no sooner had the mother gone than they decided to have a pillow fight. Not satisfied with that, the little boy jumped out of bed and donning his soldier hat and seizing his sword, he decided to be a pirate chief. On her knees the little girl begged him to spare her life but the chieftain was relentless. She was put into the chest until she would come to terms. And here was the end of make-believe. The chest had a spring-lock and when the little fellow tried to open it he found he could not. He rushed out to the father, who, while he had been annoyed by the children, was in too great a drunken stupor to mind it to any great extent. Angered at the

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child’s interruption and interference with his sleep, the father seized the little boy and threw him into the closet, bidding him to be quiet. When he returned, a spark fell from his pipe on to the rug under the table, which immediately caught fire. The little boy in the closet was insistent and at length the father was aroused and let him out. After hearing his story, the father rushed into the other room and attempted to open the chest, but the key broke. Seizing the little boy’s sword, it bent under the weight of the chest and he was unable to find anything to open it with. Rushing out into the next room, he met with no better luck and was obliged to go down to the village for aid. He found the only hardware store in the village closed. With a rock he broke the window and seizing a crow-bar made off with it when an officer seized him and demanded to know where he was going. Learning the truth, he went back to the house with him, which now was in flames. The father went into the next room with the crow-bar and opened the chest. They put out the fire, smothering the flames under rugs. The little girl was rescued from the chest and restored to her father’s arms. The mother returning from the sick neighbor found the father in loving embrace among the children, his lesson learned. Synopsis from Copyright Material submitted to the Library of Congress, February 8, 1913, LU360

The tail end of 1912 is wrapped in small mysteries designed to warm any Biographiliac’s heart. By now Biograph was thriving, at the zenith of its prosperity, and expanding in all directions. In the flurry of preparing for the construction of a new studio in the Bronx and a new lab in New Jersey, while keeping track of three production companies – two working in New York, the other in Los Angeles – plus handling the legal and business requirements of their rapidly changing service to the nickelodeons, the company had stretched itself to the limit. The front office, like everyone else, was severely overworked – and the strain was beginning to show in the bookkeeping. Ever since it had set up a second unit in December 1909, clerks kept track of who directed what by putting a large initial after each film title in the company story register: G for Griffith, P for Powell, and then S for Sennett, H for Dell Henderson, L for Wilfred Lucas, and O for Tony O’Sullivan. The entry for A Father’s Lesson shows a large, florid H and, accordingly, we have always assumed Dell Henderson directed it. The difficulty is that he couldn’t have. At the time, Henderson was in California, while the actors and locations were three thousand miles away in New York. A Father’s Lesson was filmed in late November 1912. According to the Story Register, Biograph bought the treatment from W. Christy Cabanne on 20 November for twenty-five dollars and finished shooting the same month. But by then Henderson had been at the Los Angeles studio for about a month directing split-reel comedies with Biograph’s latest funny men, Gus Pixley and Eddie Dillon. The man at The New York Dramatic Mirror (October 23, 1912, p. 204) identified “G.D. Henderson” as the leader of the California troupe that arrived at Los Angeles’ Santa Fe Station on 11 October, and by late November, Henderson had been busy churning out at least ten movies in and around Los Angeles, starting with Mr. Boggs’ Windfall and A Day’s Outing. So who did direct A Father’s Lesson? Either Griffith or Biograph’s newest director, Tony O’Sullivan, and thereby hangs a tale. With Henderson out in California producing its comedy line, Biograph was now ready to accommodate Griffith by cutting down his workload of dramatic pictures. Griffith had not been obliged to direct a split-reel comedy ever since Powell – followed by Sennett and Henderson – had taken over Biograph’s comedy unit in late 1909. But now, Griffith was given help in directing the serious Biographs, too – films that featured his first-string players, were full one-reelers, and were taken from the most expensive scripts. Lucas had been the first, hired as a director in March 1912. But he made 238

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only eight films and was gone by autumn. Far more durable was Tony O’Sullivan who stayed directing at Biograph nearly until the bitter end in early 1916, becoming the company’s most prolific post-Griffith director. O’Sullivan was not as strange a choice for serious drama as it might first appear. True, along with Sennett, he had been the ubiquitous Biograph knockabout clown. But since then he had been hired away by Reliance and had established himself as a talented director of melodrama and action pictures. Moving Picture News thought Biograph had scored a coup in re-hiring him: After an absence of three years, Anthony O’Sullivan, one of the famous original Biograph stock company, is going back to the scene of his former triumphs. He goes to the Biograph Company, Nov. 2, as a dramatic producer. He was formerly one of the company’s best comedians. Mr. O’Sullivan for the past year has been the principal producer for the Reliance Co., having been advanced to that position from the stock company ranks. His success as a director has been noted in these columns many times, and his call to the Biograph Company will perhaps justify those assertions. While being a comedian of rare ability and long experience, Mr. O’Sullivan, as a director, has shown that he possesses the dramatic instinct to a remarkable degree, and has turned out some powerful dramatic subjects. These he has varied with his “Bedelia” comedy productions, appearing himself as “Bedelia” and directing the work. Incidentally, Tony will receive a far handsomer salary than he did in “them happy days gone by.” (November 2, 1912, p. 17)

There is no reason to believe that, upon his return, O’Sullivan didn’t hit the ground running in the same way everyone else did. But there are strange incongruities in the record books. If we take the Biograph Story Register literally, O’Sullivan directed only one film during his first month of employment – The Wrong Bottle with Claire McDowell and Charles Hill Mailes – while Griffith finished a whopping twelve or thirteen one-reelers in the same time period. These numbers might have made sense in 1909 when Griffith in some months actually did deliver that many split and full reels single-handedly. But by 1912 Griffith was averaging no more than five films per month, and in 1913 he was down to no more than one per week. Nor does O’Sullivan’s lack of activity make sense. In December 1912, O’Sullivan’s second month of employment and Biograph’s final month in New York, O’Sullivan isn’t credited with any films. Griffith is credited with one, but three more – A Misappropriated Turkey, When Love Forgives, and Drink’s Lure – are left anonymous. We may speculate that, together with A Father’s Lesson, O’Sullivan directed all the unassigned films, which at least would have given him something to do. The same leading actors – McDowell, Mailes, and Dorothy West – appear in all four of them, as they had in O’Sullivan’s The Wrong Bottle. Biograph may have assigned them to O’Sullivan in the same way the company earmarked certain actors as regulars in the Powell–Sennett–Henderson comedy unit. But we can’t be certain. Although they were no longer usually in the Griffith troupe, Griffith never abandoned these players altogether when he went to California, and he may have been using them here in his last New York films. My guess is that the puzzle of who directed A Father’s Lesson won’t be solved even after the film can be screened. Currently the Museum of Modern Art has no prints – only the nitrate negative and an unassembled fine grain master. So the evidence is out, but based on the O’Sullivan Biographs that can be screened, he is very much a Griffith copycat – arguably the most talented of Griffith’s protégés at Biograph, but a director hired to make films that looked as much like Griffith’s as possible. There’s little in A Father’s Lesson we haven’t seen before and won’t see again: the drunken father whose alcoholism puts his beloved children 239

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in danger, the resourceful child who saves his sister trapped in a locked trunk, a family reconciliation with the missing mother, and father’s vow to stop drinking. More than that, its denouement features Griffith’s particular specialties: claustrophobia, fear of entombment, and slow suffocation. In play, a boy – wooden sword in hand – forces his sister into a chest when she refuses to marry him, and accidentally locks her inside. When he tries to rouse his dozing father, father – drunk and annoyed – locks the boy in a hallway closet. When father finally comes to his senses, unable to ignore his son’s screams through the keyhole, he discovers that both he and his children are trapped inside a room that has caught fire. These are frights and phobias that Griffith had worked since his theater days when he was still in his early twenties, and which he never abandoned (I develop this argument in my note to Heart Beats of Long Ago [1911, see DWG Project, #318]). We could be forgiven, in fact, were we to assume that Griffith had written it himself, so filled is the script with images that Griffith had already made his own: a boy standing on a bed waving a sword over his head terrorizing his sister; a drunken father locking his son in a closet; a girl kicking and pounding inside the walls of a locked chest. But in fact, the script is credited to another Griffith protégé, W. Christy Cabanne, who would shortly become yet another Biograph director and make Griffith-like films of his own. Whoever directed A Father’s Lesson, the trade press was favorably impressed. The reviews were benign, if perfunctory. The Moving Picture World called the direction “clear” and termed the cinematography “of high order”, concluding that the film was a “fine, substantial offering” (March 1, 1913, p. 886). According to The New York Dramatic Mirror: “The plot is superbly worked out with a climax that grips in its suspense. The photography is up to the usual high standard of the Biograph Company. There is nothing objectionable, nothing but what could be digested by even a child possessed of a normal mind.” (February 26, 1913, p. 412) Russell Merritt

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454* BIOGRAPH

A MISAPPROPRIATED TURKEY Filming date: finished ca. December 1912 Location: East Coast Release date: 27 January 1913 Release length: one reel Copyright date: 24 January 1913 Director: D.W. Griffith or Anthony O’Sullivan Author: Edward Acker Source: none known Camera: G.W. Bitzer or unknown Cast: Charles H. West (Striker); Claire McDowell (Mrs. Fallon/Widow Logan); Edna Foster (His son); Charles Hill Mailes, John T. Dillon, Robert Harron, W. Chrystie Miller, Frank Evans, Joseph McDermott, Walter P. Lewis (Union members); Harry Carey (Bartender); Joseph McDermott (In bar); Jack Pickford (On street); ? (Children) NOTE: Information on casting taken from examination of paper print fragment on deposit at the Library of Congress. Archival Sources: Library of Congress, 35mm paper print (fragment: 76 frames plus intertitles); The Museum of Modern Art, 35mm nitrate negative His mind perverted by the many lies forced upon him, Lang becomes an outcast from the Labor Union. In order to reinstate himself he conceives a plot to do away with the owner of the iron works – an infernal machine stuffed in a turkey’s breast. The story tells how the turkey found its way to a table where there was more love than plenty. The Moving Picture World, January 25, 1913, p. 388 Perhaps Bill Sands was not to be blamed for his perverted sense of life. The strike had now continued for six months and he was virtually at the end of his rope. Besides, he was in love with Mrs. Logan, a widow with two children, who was obliged to take in washing for their support. She, however, added to his misery by refusing to have anyt[...] with him until he gave up his drunken ways and habits. Members of the local Iron Union had long been disgusted with him because of his diabolical suggestion in the way of ending the strike and at last his actions had compelled them to expel him from the union. Bill, however, had not given up hopes of getting back in the good graces of the boys and he was frequently seen in the company of a chemist and together they plotted to place their time-infernal machine in the breast of a turkey, which would be presented to the President of the Iron Works, arriving at his house at a time when all the family should be assembled. The clock was set for one o’clock. On the morning of the receipt of this turkey, he carried out the plan, placing the infernal machine inside the turkey. Addressing it to the President of the Iron Works, he went out to the headquarters of the league to tell them of his plans. His presence there, however, was more resented than appreciated and they refused to hear his proposition. Repressed by their action, he sought solace, as was his custom, at the saloon. Meanwhile, Mrs. Logan’s family was up bright and early. There was very little for breakfast that morning and it was apparent, that there was more love than plenty in that home. It was a holiday and the children begged to go out as raggamuffins to celebrate. They promised

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to bring back to their mother untold riches. Meanwhile, at the saloon, Bill Sands became stupefied with drink and two jokers entered the saloon and separated the body of the turkey from the neck. Bill awoke, but in his stupid state he did not realize what had happened and went stumbling forth out of the saloon in his dazed condition. Meanwhile, the widow’s children had joined the neighboring youngsters and were now coming down the street toward the saloon. With their horns and rattles they attracted the attention of the saloon-keeper who chanced to see the headless turkey lying on the table. An idea strikes him. He will give the turkey to the children. Thus the widow’s children were enabled to fulfill their promise to the widow that they would fill the house with plenty, and home they go with the turkey. Once out in the air, Bill Sands came to himself. He noticed the absence of the turkey. It was too late to reconsider what he should do; the only thing that remained for him to do was to go back to the saloon. There he found the turkey gone. He confessed that the turkey contained an infernal machine which was set to go off at one o’clock. The saloon-keeper and his assistant handed him over to an officer. The saloon-keeper then rushed off to the widow’s house to avoid a catastrophe. He chanced to find a motor cycle on which he continued but a short way when the tire gave out. An automobile was then pressed into service but an accident in the roadway was the result. In this accident he was hurt and was only able to continue the way with difficulty, but he managed to arrive at the front of the Widow Logan’s house where he sat in agony on the watering-trough. During all this time the Widow was preparing the turkey for dinner and the children had been playing with the supposed clock. They were about to sit down to their feast of turkey when the son of a neighbor rushed in informed by the saloon-keeper on the trough that the turkey contained an infernal machine. Seizing it from the mantel he rushed out and threw it in the trough just as the hand struck one. A terrific explosion followed. Synopsis from Copyright Material submitted to the Library of Congress, January 24, 1913, LU294

A striker stuffs a turkey with a time bomb, seemingly to kill the industrialist’s family. Sometime later though, he gets drunk at a saloon and leaves without the turkey. The bartender gives the turkey to some children, who take it back to the home of “Widow Logan” who begins to prepare a meal for the children. The man returns to the bar to find his turkey and tells the bartender what it contained. He is turned over to the police and jailed for his actions, and the saloonkeeper races to rescue the children, arriving just before the bomb is due to explode.

A Misappropriated Turkey is for the moment viewable only in frame fragments at the Library of Congress. Even reduced like this, what can be seen is certainly intriguing, in the first place simply because of the story itself – a story in part of industrial action that represents the terrible excesses of labor unrest in the designing of a bomb to destroy the family of the industrialist. Its political perspective appears uncertain, at least from the perspective of the clearer delineation of the evils of corporate capitalism in Intolerance (1916). The film is clear that the striker who designs the bomb has been ostracized by the legitimate union. An intertitle at the beginning of the film reads: “A PERVERTED MIND. EXPELLED FROM THE UNION, THE STRIKER ATTEMPTS TO REINSTATE HIMSELF.” Later he is rebuffed by the “United Iron Workers”, who refuse to hear his proposition (an intertitle tells us, “DAZED BY HIS FRIENDS’ ATTITUDE HE LOSES HEART”). Nevertheless, even though the film is careful to separate the man from legitimate strikers, the representation of labor unrest as linked to “perversion”, drunkenness, and anarchy was certainly consistent with much conservative discourse in the period. 242

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Leaving the political subtext behind, the film tells a familiar story of a family threatened and saved in a formulaic race-to-the-rescue narrative. Engagement with politics is subordinated to the melodramatic here, showing the enmeshing of politics with a drama of the family so common to what Nickelodeon called “uplift dramatic” films (January 21, 1911, p. 69) and to the meshing of issues germane to progressivism and developing narrative paradigms (Sloan, 1988). Here the conventions of Griffith’s suspense sequencing is readily apparent, for we are told that “[the] machine is set for one o’clock” and Griffith repeatedly cuts between the saloonkeeper racing to warn the mother of the danger, the mother making the lunch whilst children play happily around her, and a clock telling us the time, beginning with 12:15 and moving through to 1:00. Much of this is indeed familiar stuff, situating the film in a line of descent from films such as The Fatal Hour (1908) and The Drive for a Life (1909) and linking it to the narrative configuration analyzed so well in Tom Gunning’s account of the parallel editing, omniscient narration, and narrative “retardation” in the earlier Biographs (Gunning, 1991). Interestingly, it stands also as an almost literal enactment of Alfred Hitchcock’s later discussion of the principle of suspense, where the audience knows a bomb is under a table, knows it will go off at a certain time, and knows the time (Alfred Hitchcock in Hitchcock by Truffaut, pp. 90–91). Hitchcock would, of course, cite Griffith as an influence (Ibid., pp. 65–67). Even so, for the Moving Picture World reviewer, this race-to-the-rescue scenario was becoming just a bit tired. Describing the film as a “clearly defined type of motion picture thriller”, the reviewer noted a “slackening in the plot’s workings”: though the children carried home the turkey, “it seems a very long race for the man trying to save them”. He travels by a motorcycle and a car but the “[c]hildren such as were shown couldn’t travel far on foot” and consequently, “the race fails to convince very strongly” (The Moving Picture World, February 8, 1913, p. 494). It is apparent that the family threatened here is not the bourgeois family of a film like The Lonely Villa (1909), but a family that is already in some ways fractured, for the bomb finds it way to the table of “Widow Logan”. Even though there is some discrepancy between the intertitle, synopsis and the image here, for later we see a sign next to her house saying “Mrs. Fallon. Washing and Ironing”, the intertitle that introduces her near the beginning of film reads, “A FATHERLESS HOME. LOVE MAKES PLENTY”, and so makes clear both the absence of the father and the perilous financial position of the mother. In the synopsis provided with the cutting continuity script, there is some suggestion that the man who set the bomb – named Lang in the synopsis – was in love with Logan/Fallon but that she refused to countenance a relationship until he stopped drinking. It is not clear how or if this was made apparent in the film but the theme of father’s drinking and threatening the stability of the couple or the family was certainly a recurring one in Griffith’s work and would be revisited shortly after this in Drink’s Lure. Equally, the theme of the fractured family was increasingly prevalent in the late Biographs, as Charlie Keil has observed (Keil 1989, pp. 36–37). Here what is perhaps particularly interesting is how these issues about the family were linked, tangentially, to a story that at its edges dealt with the pressing political question of labor unrest. Lee Grieveson

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455* BIOGRAPH

BROTHERS Filming date: finished December 1912 Location: East Coast Release date: 3 February 1913 Release length: 999 feet Copyright date: 29 January 1913 Director: D.W. Griffith Author: H.M.L. Nolte Source: none known Camera: G.W. Bitzer Cast: Charles Hill Mailes (Father); Robert Harron (His favorite); Clara T. Bracey (Mother); Harry Carey (Her favorite); Adolph Lestina (Doctor); Gertrude Bambrick (Non-committal woman); Walter P. Lewis (Neighbor) NOTE: Information on casting taken from examination of paper print fragment on deposit at the Library of Congress. Archival Sources: Library of Congress, 35mm paper print (fragment: 80 frames plus intertitles) His dumb grief was mistaken for indifference at his mother death-bed, but it was the non-committal lady who learned the truth. The favorite son came to woo and win her. She made fine biscuits. In the end, as is quite apt to be the case, the lady gave up herself and her accomplishments in a way quite unexpected. The Moving Picture World, February 1, 1913, p. 494 When the younger brother came into the world he was deformed. Thus he had won the mother’s love and sympathy. All his life she had nursed him and cared for him and was virtually the only one who understood him, while on the other hand, the elder brother had become the father’s favorite. He was a bully in nature, though more readily understood. But there came a time when the mother died and as they all stood around her death-bed grieving for their loss, the unfortunate brother stood outside the window weeping away his grief in silence. His attitude was mistaken for indifference and he was dragged into the house by the favorite brother. Only the non-committal lady understood. Later she came to show her sympathy, bringing a pan of freshbaked biscuits and received much thanks from the father and the elder brother, but the unfortunate brother stood silently by. But the non-committal lady was never known to commit herself and she pushed him gently away. This the elder brother took to mean that he was the favorite he had always been and he followed the non-committal lady and tried to kiss her. Later the two brothers quarreled and returning to the father, he sided, as usual, with his favorite; the unfortunate brother was sent out of the house; while they enjoyed the biscuits. This incensed the unfortunate brother and he determined to assert himself. As the father came out of the house he demanded the rifle to go hunting, although he knew that the father was like-minded. This the favorite brother saw while on his way to visit the non-committal lady, but after he had gone the unfortunate brother, in a moment of repentance, returned the gun to the father who went off into the woods to hunt. The favorite brother’s visit to the non- committal lady was somewhat

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of a disappointment as she sat in one chair and he in another. The favorite brother for once in his life was much embarrassed and he found an excuse to go, but outside the door he made up his mind that he had not assumed a brave enough attitude toward the fair lady. He returned, and carefully wiping his mouth with his handkerchief, he demanded a kiss. Then the non-committal lady really committed herself. She placed her hand up before her enticing mouth and the favorite brother left the house. Meanwhile, the unfortunate brother, unable to keep at peace with his family, determined to start further West, but before he went he wanted one more sight of the non-committal lady. He went, but the sight of her was too much and when the non-committal lady returned with wood to warm his heart as well as his body, he had fled. Her kindly attitude had completely overcome him. Whereas he had been determined to go away, the thoughts of the lady now caused him to want to remain. Out in the woods, however, the father met with an accident and dragging himself home he was met in front of the cabin by a neighbor who helped him into his house. The neighbor attempted to restore him while the man told him the story of the accident, but before he could give him any relief the father had died. The neighbor went off for the doctor. It was then that the favorite brother returned from his visit to the non-committal lady and, finding the rifle, over which there had been a dispute earlier in the day, near the father’s dead body, he believed that the unfortunate brother was guilty of their father’s death. Taking the rifle, he went out to seek vengeance from the unfortunate brother. Meanwhile, the unfortunate brother had determined to return and make peace, – thoughts of the non-committal lady together with the belief that he was to blame for much of his own unhappiness causing him to return. There he found his father dead. At this point the favorite brother returned from his quest for him. Seeing him sitting at the table, he entered, and without even asking whether he had actually committed the crime, he was about to avenge the father’s death when the neighbor returned with the doctor. Explanations followed. Later the non-committal lady returned for the pan in which she had baked the biscuits, and when the favorite brother wanted to know if she would always bake biscuits for him, she marched over to the unfortunate brother and taking his hands showed him where they rightfully belonged and the unfortunate brother did not object. Synopsis from Copyright Material submitted to the Library of Congress, January 29, 1913, LU308

A mother dies. Her husband and one of her sons stand at her side but the younger son looks in from outside the house. He is comforted by a woman. She bakes biscuits for the family. Some time later the two brothers fight and the father takes the side of the first son; together they eat the biscuits whilst the younger brother looks in. The younger son decides to leave. In the meantime, the father is injured and is helped by a neighbor, who then leaves to find a doctor. The older son arrives back to find his father dead and believes the younger son has killed him. He leaves with a rifle. The younger son changes his mind about leaving and returns home, discovering his dead father. His older brother arrives back at the house and points the rifle at his brother but the neighbor returns and tells them of the accident. Later, the woman who had comforted the younger brother and baked biscuits for the family returns to their house and seems to declare her affection for the younger brother.

Like A Misappropriated Turkey this film is only available, at the time of writing, as a series of frame fragments, including the intertitles and a number of frames that show empty rooms and landscapes. It is hard to judge the film from what remains. The reviewer for The Moving Picture World (February 15, 1913, p. 679) suggested that “In the characters we find the 245

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same respect for truth that we have come to expect from the Biograph studio”, and singled out for praise the opening “sober and effecting” death scene (though he also noted that “screen explanations might have been made clearer”). The film evidently continues the theme of fractured families seen both in Fate and A Misappropriated Turkey, beginning here with the death of the mother but including also references to the fact that the two children were liked differently by their parents (the film begins with the intertitle “THE FATHER’S FAVORITE AND THE MOTHER’S – DUMB GRIEF MISTAKEN FOR INDIFFERENCE” and later shows the father taking the side of the older brother in an argument). Linked to this statement of differential favoritism is the question of the representation of masculinities here, for the child favored by the mother – evidently sensitive, less physically imposing, and according to the synopsis, somehow physically “deformed” at birth – is the emotional center of the film and is opposed to the bigger and seemingly rougher father and brother (the synopsis suggests the older brother was a “bully in nature”). A sensitive masculinity, allied to the mother and to the woman who bakes biscuits and thus to domesticity in general, is validated here – a theme that is visible in Fate, which counterposes two versions of masculinity separated by their relationship to domesticity. Indeed, this theme is visible in many other Griffith films, which frequently define heroism and villainy according to their relation to the family in a way consistent both with a melodramatic framework and with the particular goals of the film industry to render cinema respectable by tying it together with gendered configurations of middle-class morality and to render cinema profitable by attracting the family audience. In this context, the figuration of masculinities and the family was particularly important. Slight thought as it is, Brothers might be situated in that regulatory and economic context. Lee Grieveson

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456* BIOGRAPH

DRINK’S LURE Filming date: finished December 1912 Location: East Coast Release date: 17 February 1913 Release length: 1005 feet Copyright date: 12 February 1913 Director: D.W. Griffith or Anthony O’Sullivan Script: George Hennessy [“The Struggle”] Camera: G.W. Bitzer or unknown Cast: Claire McDowell (Neglected wife); Hector Dion (Husband); Kate Bruce (Salvation Anne); Matt B. Snyder (Mr. Edwards); Elmer Booth (Burglar); Alfred Paget, ? (Policemen); ? (Child); ? (Desk sergeant) NOTE: Information on casting taken from examination of paper print fragment on deposit at the Library of Congress. Archival Sources: Library of Congress, 35mm paper print (fragment: 94 frames plus intertitles); The Museum of Modern Art, 35mm nitrate negative Jim Anderson was more weak than intentionally bad. Salvation Anne, however, at last aroused his pride by her constant kindness to his family. He promised to stand by the good, but temptation proved too much for him. He left his wife in the care of the salvation Army, but a force of circumstances brought them together again, placing him out of temptation’s reach. The Moving Picture World, February 15, 1913, p. 706 Mary Anderson considered herself a neglected wife, not that her husband was not a kind and lovable one, but he was one of those weak natured men who really had no grasp on life or any idea of his obligations to himself or society. She had become tired of his futile promises. Every week he had promised to give her his salary and supply the needs of herself and their child, but every night he spent his entire earnings at the saloon. Had it not been for Salvation Anne, the good angel of the family, Mrs. Anderson would have fared very badly. But there was a good streak in the man after all, for one night he returned and found nothing to eat and Salvation Anne appeared with bountiful provisions; his pride was touched and he resolved to seek the better way. That evening he went to the meeting in the Salvation Army quarters and there he promised to stand up for all that was good. Back home, his wife was filled with the joy of his resolution and while she was putting their child to bed, a bitter struggle was going on in the man’s heart. Once more the temptation stood before him. In his pocket he had found a bottle that had been the ruin of his life. He tried to satisfy himself with a drink of water. He attempted to throw the bottle out of the window but he could not find it in his mind to do so. “Just one more drink,” he said to himself. He took it, and then another, and after that, another. Then he realized that he was too weak to fulfill his promise and thinking of the joy of the wife in the next room, he had not the heart to tell her. Therefore, he wrote a note, saying: “I cannot resist the temptation. I leave you and the baby to the care of the Army and Anne.” Back in the saloon, he met two crooks and soon fell into their clutches. The next morning when Salvation Anne appeared, she was shown the note left by the deserting husband, but Anne knew a way out of

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the difficulty. Forthwith she sent the deserted wife off to a noted philanthropist who was in need of a housekeeper. This noted philanthropist was the same man that the crooks, into whose hands the husband had fallen, were intending to rob the next night. The next night the husband was reminded of his promise and was taken to the estate of the philanthropist. He was commanded to stand on watch outside the window. The crooks entered and finding the safe where the philanthropist kept his bonds and valuable papers, they were about to insert their jimmy when they were attracted by the old man coming down the stairs. He saw them through the curtain and going to the telephone at once notified the police. A struggle followed which was heard by the little girl who was lying in bed with her mother in one of the upper rooms. She came down stairs [sic], and seeing what was the matter rushed in to save the old man. The father looking in at the window, saw his own daughter in the clutches of the thieves, and jumping through the window, he held up the crooks. At this point, the officers entered and took them to the stationhouse. When the philanthropist heard the story of the man from his wife’s lips, he realized that here was an opportunity to carry his philanthropy a little further. It had always been his belief that the best way to overcome temptation was to remove it, and accordingly he bought the father a little farm out in the country where he could not renew his old associations. Synopsis from Copyright Material submitted to the Library of Congress, February 12, 1913, LU378

A man attends a meeting of the Salvation Army and promises his wife he will give up drink but is unable to. A Salvation Army worker finds his wife and daughter a live-in position at a wealthy philanthropist’s home. In the meantime, the husband has been persuaded by two men whom he meets at the saloon to be a lookout when they burgle a house that turns out to be the wealthy philanthropist’s house. The philanthropist hears the burglars and calls the police; the burglars find him and the struggle wakes the young daughter, who walks down the stairs to find out what is going on. The husband sees this from the outside and enters with a gun to rescue his daughter. He detains the burglars until the police arrive. He is seen talking with the wealthy philanthropist after the burglars are taken away, and at the end it appears that the family has been set up on a small farm by the philanthropist.

Leading on from the themes of the effects of alcohol and the cultural figuration of masculinity visible in Fate, A Misappropriated Turkey and Brothers, Drink’s Lure is a fuller working-out of those themes. This film stands in a long line of Griffith films that deal in part or whole with alcoholism, temperance and male reformation, stretching back to A Drunkard’s Reformation (1909), What Drink Did (1909), The Broken Locket (1909), The Expiation (1909), The Day After (1909), The Iconoclast (1910), The Face at the Window (1910), Brutality (1912), and forward to films such as The Reformers (1913) and The Struggle (1931). The effects of drinking are also sub-themes in countless other films, as the examples of Fate and A Misappropriated Turkey suggest. In Drink’s Lure, and in many of the above, the saloon is presented as a space diametrically opposed to the home, and drinking is seen to destroy the family. In this sense the films can be linked to the underlying thematic of so many of Griffith’s Biographs: the threat to the family. Still, this threat is generally more internalized or “psychologized” in these films, resulting from the husband or father (or both) himself and not from outside forces; its resolution, the rescuing of the family, is frequently a consequence of the reformation of the central male character. In Drink’s Lure this internal conflict is hard to follow in the fragment viewable at the Library of Congress – aside from the intertitle “THE STRUGGLE” – but is detailed in the description in the synopsis of the “bitter struggle … going 248

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on in the man’s heart” and of his succumbing to the temptation of drink. In any case, the man’s reformation here results in a literal saving of his family from the threat of the criminals, interestingly positioning the film as a sort of cross between some of the temperance dramas and those films telling stories of thwarted attempts to somehow destroy the family. Here, for the first time in the four films I analyze in this volume, the fractured family is effectively reconstituted at the close, for following the reformation of the man and the actions of the generous philanthropist the family is set up on a farm – taken “OUT OF TEMPTATION”, an intertitle notes – in a way that ties the film together with the general validation of the moral values of a pastoral tradition visible in Griffith’s work. In some respects the temperance films made by Griffith highlight the complexities of situating an authorial analysis in both a broader social, political and cultural context and in the context of the institutional project of the film industry. Evidently the theme of alcoholism and temperance was particularly compelling to Griffith, who in later years himself waged a struggle with alcoholism (Schickel, pp. 600–605). It was also a standard theme of melodramas from the mid-nineteenth century on. Equally, the theme of temperance was widely debated in the progressive years, leading up to the establishment of Prohibition in the late teens. In particular, various women’s organizations, such as the Women’s Christian Temperance Union or the Salvation Army (as seen in Drink’s Lure), campaigned for temperance to reform the male (usually seen as the immigrant male) and to save the family in what has been described by feminist historians as a “politics of domesticity” (see, for example, Barbara Leslie Epstein, The Politics of Domesticity: Women, Evangelism, and Temperance in the Nineteenth Century). In this sense, telling stories about the struggle for temperance in the movies was tied to the broader alliance sought by the film industry with progressive reformers in order to uplift the cultural status of cinema. A Drunkard’s Reformation was famously seen at the first meeting of the New York (later National) Board of Censorship and was widely praised as an example of the moral and educational potential of cinema. A plethora of temperance dramas followed, including not only those made at Biograph but films such as The Honor of the Slums (Vitagraph 1909), The New Minister; or, the Drunkard’s Daughter (Kalem 1909), and A Slave to Drink (Kalem 1909). At the same time these films were being made, industry entrepreneurs were presenting cinema as a “substitute for the saloon”, arguing that unlike the saloon the cinema brought the family together. No doubt this rhetoric served economic as well as regulatory goals, for the film industry was conscious that women made up a large proportion of the audience and that the path to respectability and profitability lay in attracting women and family audiences (a path already taken by theatre and vaudeville). Simply put, temperance dramas had a highuse value for the film industry as it faced the twin goals of assuaging regulatory concern and of increasing profitability and its role in the leisure life of the United States. Interestingly, what emerged then, at least for a short period, was a discursive alliance with the goals of predominantly feminist campaigners for temperance that is seen clearly in rhetoric about cinema and saloons and in the production of temperance dramas and that is played out on a textual level in stories about male reformation as seen in a film like Drink’s Lure – the central male character realizes the error of his ways, reforms to become a better husband and father, and thus saves the threatened family. He does so in line with the moral position of the mother and child – who are seen in one shot praying together – and, so it seems, of the Salvation Army, a meeting of which he attends at the outset. Located in this context, Drink’s Lure provides new wrinkles to the story by affording the wife and mother an agency not usually visible in the temperance dramas – she is, an intertitle tells us, “TIRED OF FUTILE PROMISES” and she leaves the familial home – and by linking the theme of alcoholism and temperance together with a thrilling story about attempted bur249

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glary that produced, as The Moving Picture World noted, some “tense moments” (March 1, 1913, p. 888). Interesting here is the shot of the burglars cracking the safe, beautifully lit as if from the flash lamp within the scene (still extant in the fragment that survives and singled out by The Moving Picture World as an “effective scene” – though one wonders if the National Board of Censorship had some reservations about this, for their early standards consistently warned producers to avoid showing in detail scenes of crime for fear of imitation). Even though only a fragment of the film is at the moment viewable, I concur with the Moving Picture World reviewer’s judgment that “This is a strong picture – with many of the best Biograph characteristics”. Lee Grieveson

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457* BIOGRAPH

WHEN LOVE FORGIVES Filming date: finished December 1912 Location: East Coast Release date: 2 August 1913 Release length: 680 feet Copyright date: 26 July 1913 Director: D.W. Griffith or Anthony O’Sullivan Author: Lulu S. Vollmer Source: not known Camera: G.W. Bitzer or unknown Cast: Charles H. West (Man); ? (Woman); George Beranger (Bartender); Charles Gorman, Harry Carey (Criminals); Charles Hill Mailes (Employer) NOTE: Information on casting taken from examination of paper print fragment on deposit at the Library of Congress. Archival Sources: Library of Congress, 35mm paper print (fragment: 65 frames plus intertitles); The Museum of Modern Art, 35mm nitrate negative Bessie and Harry are employees of the Lumber Company. Harry is the confidential clerk of the President, while Bess is the bookkeeper. Harry was a strong regard for Bess but she devotedly loves him and tries every reasonable way to make him realize the strength of her affection. Harry’s youth may be to blame for his indifference, or, on the other hand, his associations, for we are given evidences of his not being extremely careful in the selection of his companions. Bess realizes that Harry is a bit weak which fault is simply due to the fact that he was been alone in the world; living apart from his [parents] who reside on a farm somewhere up in the country. Consequently, Bess’s most fervent prayer is for the wellfare [sic] of the object of her love. It is pay-day at the company’s office, each receiving his pay envelope, Harry’s salary being $50.00 per month. After escorting Bessie to her home, Harry makes his way to the tavern to get a drink and there meets a couple of gamblers who are a bit down and out on account of the scarcity of victims. They have a speaking acquaintance with Harry and upon his entrance, by a significant nudge one suggests to the other that they make good use of the boy. Consequently, engaging him in conversation over a drink that they have stood for, they ask how much money he is getting. Fifty dollars a month. This intelligence is received with derision by the two crooks who tell him he i[s] a fool to grind his life away for such a pittance when in a single night with them he could make more money than in his present sphere he would ever see in a lifetime. “You’re the confidential clerk; you know the combination of the safe; you make the bank deposits; you are there at the withdrawals; what’s easier?” All this is terrifying to the boy, who, of course, rejects their questionable proposition. The next day, however, the boy finds himself a toy of fate for the early mail brings to him a letter from his father stating that a foreclosure on the mortgage is threatened and unless they can get help from him, the boy, they will be made homeless. Here a tender chord is struck. The vision of his old parents homeless dissolves into that of the t[w]o crooks and their argument, and the more he thinks, the stronger the temptation becomes until finally he writes a note hurriedly: “Bill Mack: I have changed my mind. Today we go to the bank for a withdrawal at 10:30. Meet us at the old ice house on return. Louis Clark.” He then

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despatches [sic] the office boy with it to the gamblers. At this moment his employer calls him to get ready to go to the bank for the withdrawal and as usual he carries the pistol and the bag. As they leave an unaccountable depression seizes the girl and after a few moments’ reasoning she believes that it is jealousy. “That letter received this morning was from another sweetheart.” Consequently, she searches the desk to confirm her suspicion. On turning over the papers, she lifts a typewritten carbon sheet off a pad and there discovers the boy’s intention, for upon writing the note the boy had unwittingly imprinted a carbon copy of it on the pad. For a moment she stood transfixed with horror and then she realized that something must be done and done quickly, not only to save the boy’s honor but also to save her employer. So, destroying the carbon sheet she [seizes her h]at and cloak and a pistol that was lying in her employer’s desk and mounts a horse, making a short cut across the fields to a point in the turn of the road where she knew the carriage was to pass before they came to the spot indicated in the letter. Meanwhile, the boss and the clerk have arrived at the bank and while the boss is inside cashing the check Harry extracts the bullets from the revolver, replacing the same with blank cartridges. Re-entering the carriage, the couple make their way back toward the mill and upon arriving at the river bank near the ice house they are held up by the two crooks. Retaliation on the part of the boss, of course, is futile, as the shots he fires are harmless. However, from around the corner there comes a flash and the crooks, upon looking back, see a figure on horseback sending bullets whizzing about their heads. This is an interference they had not bargained for and in a measure cowers them, driving them off some little distance. After this shock, however, they turn and see the girl and a well directed bullet is sent into her arm from the pistol of one of the thugs, who retreat still a little further. This throws the girl from the horse and the sight conjures up Harry’s better self and he now takes determined sides with his employer to fight off the thieves. This turn in the affairs was unlooked for by the gamblers and makes them more stubborn in their determination of attack. However, Harry, now in the possession of the girl’s pistol, sends a bullet into the side of one of the thieves, which wins the fight for the occupants of the carriage. Bess is taken home and cared for by the village physician, rest being about his only injunction, and convalescent, she sends for Harry who shamefacedly enters to her presence. Here she tells the [s]tory of her discovery and here he realizes her great love for him. So great is the love that it can forgive what he imagined an unpardonable crime. Synopsis from Copyright Material submitted to the Library of Congress, July 26, 1913, LU1001

Among the many Biograph films that cannot currently be viewed at the time of this writing, there are some titles that are not only unavailable but completely unknown. When Love Forgives is such a film; completed in December 1912 and not released until eight months later, it has been relegated to the shadowy corners of film history. Even the identity of its director is open to question. It has been tentatively attributed to Anthony O’Sullivan, but it may well have been directed by Griffith. Company records are uncertain as to this point. That eight-month gap between production and release is a curiosity, as is the odd length of 680 feet. The evidence suggests that When Love Forgives, produced in an awkwardly unmanageable length, was shelved until it could be released on a split reel with The Monument. The latter film was produced circa June 1913 – a mere two months before the release date – and is attributed with more certainty to O’Sullivan. Whether or not When Love Forgives was directed by Griffith himself, surviving evidence strongly suggests the Griffith influence. Its story is a familiar combination of moral dilemma and fast action. The cast includes Griffith regulars Charles West and Charles Hill Mailes as, respectively, the weak-willed protagonist and his employer, as well as Harry Carey, one of 252

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Griffith’s busiest miscreants, as one of the would-be thieves. The leading lady has not been identified at this writing. One might wish that Dorothy West, who had earlier demonstrated her equestrian ability in The House with Closed Shutters (1910) and Swords and Hearts (1911), had been cast in this role requiring similar action – but West had long since departed from Biograph by the time this film was produced. Whoever the actress was, it’s clear that her daring horseback pursuit of the thieves was a highlight of the film. The cutting continuity indicates numerous shots of the cloaked heroine pounding along roads and cutting across a field to head off the robbery. The continuity also suggests Griffith’s specialty of conveying psychological subtleties via pantomime, with a minimum of titles. The scene in which West, in the saloon, is tempted by Carey and Charles Gorman to rob his employer and initially refuses, is covered visually by shots of the three men at the table, interrupted only by a single intertitle: “THEIR QUESTIONABLE PROPOSITION REJECTED”. None of this particularly impressed the Moving Picture World reviewer, who regarded the film with grudging approval: “A slight melodramatic plot that is not powerfully convincing … It is not inspiring; but it is undeniably well acted. There is no drag to it either, and the photographs are clear” (August 16, 1913, p. 743). Oddly, for such an unknown film, When Love Forgives would come to have a Griffith connection that no one could have predicted in 1912. The scenario was purchased from Lulu S. Vollmer, an author whose name does not otherwise appear in the Biograph Story Register. A decade later, however, Vollmer established herself as a playwright specializing in stories of Southern mountaineers. Her magnum opus, Sun-Up, opened in 1923 and was a tremendous success, running in one form or another for a good seven years. Much of the success of Sun-Up was due to the performance of Lucille La Verne, who created a leading character role in the play and made it a career specialty – on the New York, London and Los Angeles stages and in the MGM film version – in between her performances in Griffith films! (When Sun-Up opened in May 1923, New York theatergoers could see La Verne simultaneously on stage and in Griffith’s The White Rose.) After the initial run of the play, La Verne undertook to produce it herself in shortened versions, appearing in vaudeville houses and one-act presentations. Lulu Vollmer’s stories of simple mountain people might have been subjected to ridicule in the sophisticated 1920s, but, in fact, critics consistently praised her work for its authenticity. Restoration of When Love Forgives may yet show whether this early effort displays Vollmer’s talents in embryo. J.B. Kaufman

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BIBLIOGRAPHY

ARVIDSON, Linda (Mrs. D.W. Griffith). When the Movies Were Young (New York: Dutton, 1925; reprinted by Dover Publications, 1969) BOWSER, Eileen. The Transformation of Cinema, 1907–1915 (New York: Scribner’s, 1990 [Volume 2 of the History of American Cinema series, edited by Charles Harpole]) BREWSTER, Ben and Lea JACOBS, Theatre to Cinema (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997) CHERCHI USAI, Paolo (ed.) The Griffith Project, volumes 1–5 (London: British Film Institute/Pordenone: Le Giornate del Cinema Muto, 1999–2001) CHERCHI USAI, Paolo. Silent Cinema: An Introduction (London: British Film Institute, 2000) DE JORIO, Andrea. Gesture in Naples and Gesture in Classical Antiquity (trans. Adam Kendon, Naples: 1832, rpt. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2000) DEMILLE, Cecil B. The Autobiography of Cecil B. DeMille (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: PrenticeHall, 1959). EPSTEIN, Barbara L. The Politics of Domesticity: Women, Evangelism, and Temperance in the Nineteenth Century (Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 1981) EYMAN, Scott. Mary Pickford: America’s Sweetheart (New York: Donald and Fine, 1990) FITZGERALD, Percy. Principles of Comedy and Dramatic Effect (London: Tinsley Brothers, 1870) GRAHAM, Cooper C., Steven HIGGINS, Elaine MANCINI, João Luiz VIEIRA. D.W. Griffith and the Biograph Company (Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow Press, 1985) GUNNING, Tom. D.W. Griffith and the Origins of the American Narrative Film: The Early Years at Biograph (Champaign/Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1991) HAMPTON, Benjamin B. History of the American Film industry from its Beginning to 1931 (New York: Dover, 1970) HENDERSON, Robert M. D.W. Griffith: The Years at Biograph (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1970) HENDERSON, Robert M. D.W Griffith: His Life and Work (New York: Oxford University Press, 1972) JESIONOWSKI, Joyce E. Thinking in Pictures: Dramatic Structure in D.W. Griffith’s Biograph Films (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987)

KEIL, Charlie. “Transition through Tension: Stylistic Diversity in the Late Griffith Biograph,” Cinema Journal vol. 28, no. 3 (Spring 1989), pp. 36–7 KEPLEY, Vance, Jr. “The Musketeers of Pig Alley and the Well-Made Sausage”, unpublished seminar paper (Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin, Fall 1978) KIRBY, Lynne. Parallel Tracks: The Railroad and Silent Cinema (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1997) MCLUHAN, T.C. Dream Tracks: The Railroad and the American Indian 1890–1930 (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1985) MERRITT, Russell. “Mr. Griffith, The Painted Lady, and the Distractive Frame,” Cinema Journal vol. 19 (December 1976), pp. 26–30 [reprinted in IMAGE on The Art and Evolution of Film, ed. Marshall Deutelbaum (New York: Dover Publications, 1979), pp. 147–52] MOTTET, Jean. L’invention de la scène américaine: cinema et paysage (Paris: L’Harmattan, 1998) NIVER, Kemp. D.W. Griffith: His Biograph Films in Perspective (Los Angeles: John D. Roche, 1974) PACE, Barbara. “The Painted Lady”, unpublished seminar paper (Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin, Fall 1975) PEARSON, Roberta. Eloquent Gestures: The Transformation of Performance Style in the Griffith Biograph Films (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992) PICKFORD, Mary. Sunshine and Shadows (Garden City, NY: Doubleday and Company, 1955) SCHICKEL, Richard. D.W. Griffith: An American Life (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1984; London: Pavilion Books, 1984) SIMMON, Scott. The Films of D.W. Griffith (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993) SLOAN, Kay. The Loud Silents: Origins of the Social Problem Film (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1988) SPEHR, Paul C. The Movies Begin: Making Movies in New Jersey, 1887–1920 (Newark, NJ: The Newark Museum, 1977) TRUFFAUT, François. Hitchcock by Truffaut (London: Paladin, 1984) VARDAC, A. Nicholas. Stage to Screen: Theatrical Origins of Early Film. From Garrick to Griffith, (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1949)

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DESCRIPTIONS OF SCENES From the copyright material deposited at the Library of Congress

421 A PUEBLO LEGEND Eagle Title: A Pueblo Legend Sub-title: This production was made in the old Pueblo of Isleta, New Mexico, where the incidents of the story were supposed to have occurred. The costume plates, shields, weapons and accessories were kindly loaned by the Museum of Indian Antiques at Albuquerque, New Mexico. Sub-title: The Feast-Day – Before the coming of the Spanish. “The Spring Dance of the Green Boughs.” Exterior: Indians dancing Sub-title: The little stranger girl adopted from the Hopi Exterior: Indian enters scene. Exterior: Indians dancing. Oven: Girl at oven. Exterior: Indians dancing Sub-title: The Sun Priest in his kiva. The Kiva: Sun Priest enters and prays. Village: Indians at games. Kiva of Sun Priest: Sun Priest praying. Road: Men sitting on wall. Oven: Girl before oven. Sub-titles: The Sun Priest asks the Great Brother to go in quest of the turquois [sic] sky stone to light the doorways of Isleta. Road: Sun Priest talking to men. Road: Girl enters, running Road: The Sun Priest talking to Great Brother. Sub-title: The Love Call. Bank of river: Indians talking – girl enters. Road: Sun Priest talking to men. Sub-title: The Great Brother promises to bring back the precious symbol of happiness before answering the love call. Bank of river: Girl and Great Brother before altar. Sub-title: On the Holy Mission.

Exterior of girl’s home: Girl and Great Brother talking; others in background. Bank of river: Altar in foreground. People in background. Exterior of girl’s home: Girl standing before her home; people leaving. Bank of river: Men before altar. Mountains – Great Brother and party enter. Exterior of girl’s home: Girl before her home, praying. Mountains – Great Brother and party on. Sub-title: The Pueblos meet their hereditary enemies, the Apaches. Exterior: Indians fighting. Exterior: Great Brother shooting arrow Exterior – mountains: Indians fighting. Exterior: Great Brother and party about to shoot arrows. Exterior – mountains: Great Brother and party on. Exterior of caves: Indians on. Exterior – mountains: Indians on. Exterior of caves: Great Brother and party in cave. Interior cave: Great Brother’s party entering. Interior cave: Men entering Exterior – rocks: Apaches entering. Sub-title: The stranger girl determines to risk death to follow her lover. Exterior of girl’s home: Girl comes out of her house. Exterior of caves: Apaches on. Interior of cave: Great Brother shooting arrow. Exterior of caves: Apache nearing entrance to cave. Exterior – mountains: Girl walking. Interior of cave: Great Brother and party fighting Exterior of caves: Apaches fighting. Interior of cave: Great Brother and party fighting. Exterior of cave: Apaches fighting. Interior of cave: Great Brother and party fighting.

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Exterior – rocks: Girl walking. Sub-title: The Death Song. Interior of cave: The Great Brother and party watching entrance of cave. Exterior: Girl standing close to rock. Exterior of caves: Apache ready to shoot arrow into cave. Exterior of cave: Bodies of Apaches; girl on. Interior cave: Great Brother and party watching entrance to cave. Exterior of cave: Apaches around the cave. Interior of cave: Great Brother and party watching entrance to cave. Exterior of cave: Two Indians carrying off another Indian. Interior of cave: Men re-entering cave. Sub-title: The stranger girl goes for aid in place of the slain messenger. Exterior of cave: Indians leaving Exterior – rocks: The girl comes on. Exterior – girl running. Interior cave: Men re-entering cave. Exterior – cliff: Girl at top of cliff – man falls over. Foot of cliff: Man lying at foot of cliff. Cliff: Girl standing at top of cliff. Interior of cave: Great Brother looking towards entrance to cave. Exterior of cave: Apaches lying in front of cave. Bank of river: Girl on. Village: People in background – girl on, running. Street in village: Girl on, running. Interior of cave: Great Brother being struck with arrows. Street in village: Indians running. Village: Indians beating on drum, calling other Indians. Bank of river: Girl on, followed by relief party. Exterior cave: Apaches around entrance to cave. Interior of cave: Great Brother and party watching entrance to cave. Exterior of cave: Apaches in front of cave. Interior of cave: Great Brother and party watching entrance to cave. Exterior of cave: Apache nearing entrance to cave. Interior of cave: Great Brother and party ready to strike. Exterior of cave: Apaches around entrance to cave.

Exterior – mountains: Relief party on their way. Exterior – Indians fighting Exterior – Indians fighting Sub-title: The Great Brother’s friend captured by the Apaches Exterior: Indians running. Exterior: Several Indians standing around. Exterior among rocks: Indians on carrying captive. Sub-title: The Great Brother rejects the ceremonial wedding blanket and his own happiness until his friend is free and his mission accomplished. Exterior of girl’s home: Girl standing with Great Brother; others in background. Exterior of girl’s home: Great Brother leaving. Sub-title: The War Captain determines to give aid. Exterior of girl’s home: Girl standing before her home; others in background. Exterior among rocks: The captive lying on rock; Indians around him. Exterior: Great Brother running. Sub-title: The stranger girl before the [t]oy image of the Sky God prays for the Great Brother’s success. Exterior of girl’s home: Girl before altar. Sub-title: Sweet Offering – “God of All Trues, feathers from the wings of life, honey and meal and a sheath of corn” Exterior of girl’s home: Girl preparing offering to Sky God. Exterior girl’s home: Girl at altar. Exterior – rocks: Torturing captive. Exterior: Great Brother on. Exterior – rocks; [sic] Indians standing near rocks. Exterior – Great Brother and friend on. Exterior – rocks: Indians standing near rocks, talking. Village: Indians dancing – people in background. Exterior: Great Brother and friend on. Exterior – Soldiers on. Exterior – Indians running on. Exterior – Indians ready to fight. Exterior – Indians on. Sub-title: The Great Brother leads in the Pueblos’ final struggle against the Apaches for peace.

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Exterior: Indians on. Exterior – girl’s home: Girl at altar, praying. Exterior: Indians fighting. Exterior: Indians fighting. Exterior: Indians fighting Exterior: Indians fighting Exterior girl’s home: Girl before altar. Sub-title: The Great Brother winning peace for his tribe, now determines to find the precious sky stone before he returns. Exterior – Indians assembled, peace being declared. Sub-title: The stranger girl hears the warriors’ triumphant return. Village: Warriors returning. Exterior of girl’s home: Girl before altar Village: Warriors returning Village: Warriors returning Exterior of girl’s home: Girl before altar. Village: Warriors returning Exterior of girl’s home: Girl listening Sub-title: She learns the Great Brother is not with them. Exterior of girl’s home: Girl out – warriors passing. Exterior of girl’s home: The altar – girl on. Sub-title: Through years of days and nights alone on his holy mission. Exterior – rocks: Great Brother and friend on. Exterior – girl’s home: The altar – girl on. Exterior – the Great Brother in search of the sky stone. Sub-title: The stranger girl finds the sky stone of happiness at her own doorway. Exterior of girl’s home – girl before altar. Sub-title: Empty handed – The Song of Despair. Bank of river: The Great Brother on. Exterior of girl’s home – girl before altar Bank of river: Great Brother on. Exterior of girl’s home – the girl before altar. Bank of river: The Great Brother before altar. Exterior of girl’s home: The Great Brother and girl on – she shows him the sky stone. Bank of river: Indians dancing. Trade-mark: [AB logo] Cutting continuity, Copyright Descriptive Material, Library of Congress, October 11, 1912, LU30

425 A CHANGE OF SPIRIT Eagle Title: A Change of Spirit Sub-Title: The narrow-minded father denies his daughter all associations except her chaperon. Hall scene: Father and daughter enter scene; chaperon enters; father leaves. Exterior of house: Father leaves. Hall scene: Daughter and chaperon talking; daughter leaves. Exterior of house: Daughter leaves house. Hall scene: Chaperon leaves. Exterior of house: Daughter on; chaperon comes on; they go off. Park: Man on; the two thieves enter. Park: Children playing in background; daughter and chaperon on. Park: Daughter and chaperon leave. Park: The thieves run off – leave man sitting on bench, who leaves later. Cliff: The two thieves come on; sit down and talk; daughter and chaperon on; walk to edge of cliff. Cliff: Daughter and chaperon (large figures) standing at edge. Cliff: Daughter and chaperon on; the two thieves look after them. Cliff: Daughter and chaperon (large figures) turn around; daughter leaves and looks back. Cliff: The two thieves and daughter and chaperon on; men talking. Cliff: (Large figures) Daughter and chaperon leave. Cliff: Daughter and chaperon pass the two thieves. Sub-Title: During her stroll in the park, she indulges in a little flirtation as a lark. Park: Children in background; daughter and chaperon sit down. Cliff: The two thieves on; the younger thief leaves. Park: The younger thief picks up the daughter’s book, which she has dropped, and returns it to her; in restoring the book, he cunningly takes her hand-bag. Daughter and chaperon leave. Sub-Title: He returns her purse and she, in the spirit of bravado, invites him in

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Exterior of house; [sic] Daughter and chaperon on; younger thief following returning purse; daughter invites him in; all enter house. Hall: The three people entering talking. Exterior house: Father returns; talks to man. Sub-Title [sic] Fearing her father, she hides him. Hall: Daughter, chaperon and younger thief all go upstairs. Exterior house: Father goes in; man leaves. Landing at head of stairs: Daughter, chaperon and younger thief on, go into room. Lower stairway: Father enters; stands. Room: Daughter, chaperon and younger thief enter; stand and talk. Stairway: Father goes up. Landing: Father on landing; knocks on door; listens. Room: Daughter, chaperon and younger thief hear knock; daughter puts hand to the door. Landing: Father knocking; turns around and walks down stairs. Room: Daughter, chaperon and younger thief talking. Stairway: Father down, walks off into another room. Room: Daughter, chaperon and younger thief in room; daughter opens door, goes out and looks. Landing: Daughter goes out, looks down stairs and back into the room. Room: Daughter enters the room; chaperon out; younger thief bids daughter good-bye. Landing: Younger thief and chaperon down stairs; younger thief leaves and chaperon walks off. Sub-Title: He has secured the key to the house. Exterior house: younger thief comes out. Room: daughter closes door. Cliff: The elder thief waiting; younger thief comes on; shows key; both men leave. Sub-Title: Their second accidental meeting. Park: Children in background; daughter comes on; sits down; younger thief on, sits down – talks to daughter – daughter leaves; younger thief sits down, thinking. Bedroom: Daughter comes in; walks toward bed. Park: Younger thief thinking; elder thief comes on; both men leave. Bedroom: Daughter getting undressed; chaperon

on; chaperon leaves bedroom. Room: Chaperon walks through room and goes out. Sub-Title: That night – To him an odious undertaking. Park: Younger thief on in evening clothes; elder thief on; stand by tree and talk. Exterior of house: Chaperon goes out. Stairway: Father goes down and goes out. Exterior of house: Father off. Park: The two thieves leave. Bedroom: Daughter ready for bed. Exterior of house: The two thieves come on; go in. Bedroom: Daughter looking at sheet of music. Stairway: The two thieves come in and go upstairs. Landing: The two thieves on landing; the elder thief goes in room. Room: Elder thief enters; younger thief follows him; go to window and look out. Bedroom: Daughter reading sheet of music; hears some one; goes toward curtain. Room: The two thieves look around room. Bedroom: Daughter sees them; takes up music and reads it again. Room: The two thieves looking around room. Bedroom: Daughter looks through curtain; turns light out: Insert of bedroom scene: Girl standing in room. Room: The two thieves looking around room; they hear noise. Bedroom: Girl runs to window. Room: The two thieves looking through curtain into bedroom. Bedroom: Daughter looks through curtain. Insert of bedroom scene: Girl looking through curtain. Room: The two thieves still looking. Insert of bedroom scene: Girl sees them. Bedroom: Daughter standing in room. Room: Men still looking. Bedroom: Daughter looking; goes to bed. Room: The elder thief goes toward door; the younger thief and he put masks over their faces and go into bedroom. Bedroom: The two thieves enter. Insert: Girl in bed. Bedroom: The two thieves looking around.

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Insert: The daughter in bed. Bedroom: The two thieves looking around – leave. Exterior house: Father enters house. Hall: Father in; goes up stairs. Landing: Father up; looks through keyhole – goes down. Stairway; [sic] father down; goes to telephone Police Station: Officer getting message. Hall: father talking over phone. Police station: Officer talking. Bedroom: The two thieves come in. Hall scene: father finished telephoning; goes up stairs. Bedroom: The elder thief goes over to the bed. Insert: Girl in bed; elder thief takes necklace from her neck. Police station: Officers leave. Bedroom: Elder thief out of door. Room: The two thieves go behind curtains; father comes on; goes into the bedroom. Bedroom: Father enters; daughter talking to him. Room: The two thieves looking through curtain. Bedroom: Father runs out. Room: Father goes out; the two thieves grab him. Bedroom: Daughter standing in room. Room: The elder thief choking the father. Bedroom. [sic] Daughter leaves. Room: Daughter on; the younger thief covers the elder thief with a gun, demanding him to release the father; the elder thief leaves; the younger thief leaves. Landing: The two thieves go down. Room: The daughter goes out. Landing: The younger thief on landing; daughter on; they talk; the younger thief goes down. Exterior of house: Police on. Hall: The two thieves down, both off. Exterior of house: The elder thief goes out; the younger thief goes out; both leave. Room: Daughter comes in; father leaves. Landing: Father comes out; goes down. Exterior of house: Police on; chaperon on; all go in. Hall: Father on; police and chaperon on; police leave; father goes upstairs. Exterior of house: Police leave.

Room: Father on; daughter leaves room. Sub-Title: The Change of Spirit. Park: The two thieves on; the elder thief leaves; the younger thief leaves. Park: The younger thief on; stands by tree, looking up. Bedroom: The daughter on; looks out of window. Park: The younger thief standing near tree, looking up; goes off. Bedroom: The daughter looking out of window; draws curtains. Trade-mark: [AB logo] Cutting continuity, Copyright Descriptive Material, Library of Congress, October 11, 1912, LU24

426 AN UNSEEN ENEMY Eagle Title: An Unseen Enemy Sub-title: The deceased doctor’s orphans tearfully view their father’s empty chair. Room: Two girls sitting near table. Room: Maid enters Room: Two girls standing near table Room: Girls enter Room: Girls enter Garden: Man enters on bicycle Room: Two girls sitting near table; man enters Sub-title: Their brother having disposed of a portion of the small estate, and it being after banking hours, places the money in the safe Room: Maid in room; girl and man enter. Room: Maid enters, looking backward Room: Man at safe – two girls watching him. Room: Maid at door listening. Room: Man and two girls in room talking. Exterior of house: Girl and man on porch. Room: Maid at door listening. Room: Maid enters. Room: Maid opening door and entering room. Interior of hotel: Clerk behind desk; two men and two women talking. Room: Maid telephoning. Interior hotel: Man telephoning Garden: Man and two girls on; he goes off on bicycle

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Interior of hotel: Clerk at desk – calls man. Sub-title: To get help, the slattern maid renews an old acquaintance Room: Maid telephoning Interior hotel: Man telephoning Room: Maid telephoning Interior of hotel: Man telephoning Room: Maid at table; has finished telephoning Sub-title: The younger sister’s boyish sweetheart about to leave for college Garden: The two girls talking to a young man Garden: Girl and young man enter Garden: Girl looking off Sub-title: No kiss Garden: Girl and young man talking. Garden: Girl looking off. Garden: Two girls walking Garden: Young man standing in garden Garden: Two girls standing in garden Garden: Young man standing in garden Interior of hotel: Man dozing in chair – another man goes out. Room: Girls enter Room: Girls opening door, enter Woods: Man hiding behind tree Room: Maid standing in room. Woods: Man behind tree Room: Maid at window Room: Girl standing at table – the other girl behind her Room: Maid at window Room: Girl standing at table – the other girl on other side of room. Woods: Man standing behind tree. Room: Girl’s [sic] standing near table Exterior of house: Maid at window. Room: Maid at window helping man in Room: The two girls standing in room. Room: Maid at window closing it – man standing in room. Sub-title: At his office some distance away Exterior of building: Man enters Office: Man reading a paper Room: Girls in room – one girl peeking through key-hole, the other girl standing at table. Office: The two men talking. Exterior of building: Man comes out of building room [sic]: Girls standing together – frightened. Office: Man at telephone

Room: Girl at telephone – the other girl on other side of room Room: Man at safe – maid watching him. Office – man at telephone Room: Two girls in room – one telephoning Sub-title: They silence the children while they work Insert: Stove-pipe hole – maid breaking covering away from hole and placing revolver through same. Room: Girls in room – one telephoning – they see revolver Office: Man telephoning Room: Girls in room – frightened Exterior of building – man comes out Room: Girls over in corner – frightened Insert: Girls hiding in fear Room: Man at safe; maid at door Exterior of building: Man calling some one in the distance Office: Two men enter – the brother at the telephone Room: Girls hiding in fear Office: Brother telephoning – the other man behind him. Insert: Girl creeping along Room: Two girls in room – frightened Office: Brother telephoning – man behind him. Room: Two girls frightened – one girl goes to telephone Office: Brother telephoning Room: Girls frightened – one girl at telephone Sub-title: The drink has its effect Room: The man and the maid at safe; maid with bottle in hand Room: Two girls in room – one telephoning Office: Brother telephoning Room: Two girls in room – one girl telephoning Office: Brother telephoning Room: One girl in corner of room, the other creeping away from table Office: Brother telephoning Room: Girls in corner Office: Brother at telephone [Offic]e: Brother and man talking excitedly Road: Automobile comes on Exterior of building – brother and man come out Road: Automobile standing there – brother and man enter

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Room: Girls hiding Room: Girls hiding Room: Man at safe; maid holding revolver through stove-pipe hole Road: Automobile comes down road Insert: Brother and two men in automobile Road: Automobile comes down road Room: Man at safe; maid has revolver Room: Girls standing at side of room Road: Automobile comes down road Room: Girls at side of room Room: Girls hiding in fear Road: Automobile coming down road Bridge – Automobile coming on Room – Girls hiding Bridge – opening – man on bridge End of bridge – automobile, men standing about, talking excitedly Sub-title: The younger sister’s nerve Room: Girls in fear – one girl walks over near stove-pipe hole Garden: Man comes on Room: Man at safe; maid with hand through stove-pipe hole Room: Girls on floor Garden: Man standing in garden Bridge: Man running Bridge – automobile off Exterior of house – man approaches Room: Girls on floor [Ext]erior of house: Man looking in window [R]oom: One girl standing up, the other on floor Room: Fire around safe Room: One girl standing, the other on floor Exterior of house: Man helping girl out of window Room: Fire around safe Park: Automobile comes on Exterior of house: Man and two girls on [Ext]erior of house: The maid and the man come out Exterior of house: Several men and the two girls talking excitedly Exterior of house: The maid and the man in front of house Exterior of house: Two girls and young man standing there Trade-mark: [AB logo] Cutting continuity, Copyright Descriptive Material, Library of Congress, October 16, 1912, LU38

427 TWO DAUGHTERS OF EVE Eagle Title: Two Daughters of Eve Sub-title: The one daughter and her family Room: The wife talking to child Sub-title: An afternoon of shopping Exterior of building: Automobile comes on – husband and wife get out [of car –] baby and chauffeur in car Stage door of theater: Man standing near door; man on chair near door, another man standing near him. Exterior building: Automobile in front of building; chauffeur in car. Exterior of building: Automobile in front of building; child getting out of car. Exterior of building: Child comes on – looks in window Sub-title: Matinee Day Stage door of theater: Man on chair stretching Interior of theater: Several people assembled Stage door of theater: Man on chair reading; child going in door Interior theater: Actors and actresses rehearsing Stage door of theater: Man on chair reading; child going in Exterior of building: Automobile in front of buiding; chauffeur in car Interior of theater: Actors and actresses rehearsing Exterior of building: Automobile in front of building; husband and wife talking to chauffeur Interior of theater: Actress with child on her knee; other actresses and actors talking to child Stage door of theater: Two men talking; the wife comes on Sub-title: The indignant mother – “How dare you contaminate my child with your touch ?” Interior of theater: Actress with child on her knee; others talking to it Stage door of theater: Man at door; man and chauffeur looking through doorway Interior of theater: Husband talking to actress – others in background Stage door: Two men talking

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Interior of theater: Actresses and Actors rehearsing Sub-title: The show girl vows vengeance Room: Two girls talking Sub-title: Later Room: The wife reading Sub-title: At the theatre – During the ballet of the “Dance of Death,” the show girl has her opportunity Interior of theater – the audience – the husband about to be seated Stage: Actresses on stage, dancing Theater: Audience – the husband talking to friend Stage: Actors and actresses on stage – play going on. Stage: Actresses on stage Stage: Actresses on stage; actress smiling at some one in audience Theater: Audience – the husband and his friend smiling Stage: Actresses on stage; actress smiling at some one in audience Stage: Play going on Stage: Actress[e]s on stage Theater: Audience – the husband smiling, his friend talking to him Room: the wife at table reading Stage: The play going on Theater: Audience – husband clapping Room: Wife at table reading Stage door: Men standing near door – one sitting on chair Interior of theater: Actress and man talking – several people in background Stage door: Men near door – lady coming out of door Room: Wife at table reading Room: Actress and husband enter Sub-title: The discovery Street: Lady, gentleman and chauffeur in car – man on sidewalk Garden: Waiter standing at table Street: Automobile at curb Garden: The husband and actress at table Exterior – chairs and bench near gate – wife comes on Garden: The husband and actress at table, talking

Exterior – fence in background: Wife looking off Garden: Husband and actress at table, talking Exterior – fence in background – wife looking off Street; [sic] Automobile at curb Sub-title: “I saw you” Room: Wife sitting at table Sub-title: The indignant wife refuses to accept his money, and battles alone Room: Girl enters room – mother and child follow. Room: Actress standing with hand on chair Room: Wife standing in room with child Room: Husband sitting in chair – actress talking to him Sub-title: Financial reverses Room: Husband reading letter Room: Wife enters with child Room: Actress looking at necklace Room: Husband enters room Sub-title: As a last resort she applies for a position in the chorus Stage door: Lady standing near door; man on chair, another man standing near him Interior theater; [sic] man and women in foreground talking; actors and actresses in background Room: Wife enters room Interior theater; [sic] Actress in foreground thinking – actors and actresses in background Sub-title: “These rightfully belong to [...]” Room: The wife standing in foreground Sub-title: “Now, may I kiss the baby?” Room: Wife and actress ent[er] Exterior of house: Actress comes out Street: The husband walking along Sub-title: “Let me think a minute” Room: The wife standing in room Insert: Fingers pointing to clock Insert: Clock Room: Wife sitting at table – husband standing near door Insert: Fingers pointing to clock Insert: Clock Room: Wife at table – husband standing near door Trade-Mark: [AB logo] Cutting continuity, Copyright Descriptive Material, Library of Congress, October 21, 1912, LU50

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428 FRIENDS Eagle Title: Friends Sub-title: The little orphan of Golden Creek Inn Room: Girl in room fixing her dress. Sub-title: Her sweetheart, Dandy Jack, to leave for other diggings Exterior of hotel: Man comes on on horse Interior of saloon: Men sitting around – another man enters Room: Girl in room – she goes out of room Landing: Girl comes out of room Interior of saloon: Men sitting around – man at bar drinking Interior of saloon: Girl on stairs; men sitting around – man at bar Insert: Girl on stairs calling to some one Interior of saloon: Men sitting around – girl on stairs talking to man at bar Insert: Girl standing on stairs Stairway: Girl comes up stairs Room: Girl enters room Interior of saloon: Men sitting around – man at bar drinking Room: Girl in room knocking on floor Interior saloon: Men sitting around – man looks up – beckons Insert: Girl knocking on floor Room: Girl in room – looking toward door Insert: Girl’s feet – knocking on floor Interior of saloon – men sitting around – man at bar, looks up Stairway: Man goes up stairs Room: Girl in room – looking out of door Landing: Man up, into the room Girl’s room: Man enter[s] Landing: Man’s leaves [sic] Stairway: Man goes down Interior of saloon: Man gets grip – leaves Ex[t]erior of saloon: Man comes out Room: girl crying Exterior of saloon: Man leaves on horse Room: Girl looking out of window Exterior – falls: Men washing gold Exterior – woods – Man arrives on horse River: Men talking Exterior – woods: Man arrives on horse

River: Men talking Sub-title: Dandy Jack meets his old chum Exterior – rocks: Men walking off Exterior – woods: Man on horse Exterior – men talking Woods: Man on horse Exterior – rocks: Men waving Sub-title: A little later – The chum comes to the inn Exterior of saloon: Men sitting around – man enters saloon. Interior of saloon: Men standing around – man enters, goes to bar Room: Girl looking at photograph Insert: Girl looking at photograph Room: Girl looking at photograph Landing: Girl comes out of room Saloon: Men standing around – one at bar – all tal[king] Insert: Girl on stairs Interior of saloon: Girl comes down stairs into saloon – men standing around Exterior of saloon: Girl comes out Interior of saloon: Men sitting around – man leaves Exterior of saloon – men sitting around – girl on Exterior – tent in background – Man standing in foreground – girl and man come on Exterior of saloon: Men sitting around – girl and man come on Interior of saloon: Men talking – ma[n] comes in Exterior of saloon: Girl goes in Interior of saloon: Girl comes in Insert: Stairway: Girl and man talking Room: Girl enters Sub-title: “Will you marry me?” Room: Girl at table looking at photograph Landing: Man on – knocks at door Room: Girl looking at photograph Landing – man on – goes to door Room: Girl at table – looking toward door Landing – man at door Room: Girl gets up – listens Landing: Man at door Room: Girl looking at photograph Insert: Photograph Room: Girl looking at photograph Landing: Man at door Room: Girl in room

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Landing: Man enters room Room: Man enters room – talks to girl Sub-title: “Boys, I’m going to get married” Interior saloon: Men sitting around – man comes down stairs Sub-title: He prepares to leave the camp for a few days. Room: Girl in room – man enters Insert: Man’s photograph Room: Girl looking at photograph – talking to man Landing: Man comes out of room Room: Girl looking out of door Interior of saloon: Men in saloon – man at bar Exterior of saloon: Men sitting around – man comes out with grip Exterior – woods: Man on horse Exterior of hotel: People standing around – man comes on on horse Interior of saloon: Men in saloon – man enters Sub-title: Hearing of Jack’s return, the chum postpones his trip Exterior – rocks: Men talking Interior of saloon: Men in saloon – standing at bar Sub-title: Not knowing who the successful suitor is, he wagers he can win her back Landing: Man on – knocks at door Room: Girl listening Landing: Man at door Room: Man enters Insert: Man’s photograph Room: Girl and man embracing – man looking at photograph Landing: Man comes out of room Interior of saloon: Men at bar, listening Landing: Man goes down stairs Interior of saloon: Men in saloon – man comes to bar Exterior of saloon: People sitting around – man on with grip Interior of saloon: Men in saloon – man enters Room: Girl looking at photograph Insert: Man’s photograph Room: Girl looking at photograph Interior of saloon: Men drinking Trade-Mark: [AB logo] Cutting continuity, Copyright Descriptive Material, Library of Congress, October 21, 1912, LU51

429 SO NEAR, YET SO FAR Eagle Title: So Near, Yet So Far Sub-title: His dream girl with the curls finds his frat pin Road: Girl in pony cart talking to young man Road: Girl in pony cart driving down road Road: Young man standing in road Road: Girl in pony cart looking off Road: Young man walks off Road: Road – exterior of gate – two men standing near wall Road – wall – exterior of gate: Sub-title: Near Road: Girl driving pony cart, coming down road Road – exterior of gate: Man opening gate – girl talking to him Sub-title: So Far Road – Exterior of gate: Young man coming down road Sub-title: Later – So near, but – Street: Girls walking across street Sub-title: The girl visits friends in another town Hall: Room: Lady standing in room Hall: Exterior of house: Room: The girl and lady in room talking Sub-title: The boy also visits the same place Street; [sic] Horse and wagon in distance Road: Two men coming down road Club: Several men in room talking, etc. Room: Girl and lady in room talking Hall: Sub-title: “Such Curls” Club: Several men in room, talking, drinking, etc. Bedroom: Club: Three men talking – others in background Road: Exterior of gate Exterior of house: Hall: Sub-title: The Frat Pin Bedroom: The lady and girl talking Room: Insert: Hand at clock

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Room: One man standing near clock in background; the other in foreground Bedroom: Girl sitting near table – the lady standing near chair Room: Man entering Bedroom: Girl and lady talking Room: Two men in room Hall: Man coming out of door Room: Hall: Room: Man on couch Bedroom: Girl looking at pin Sub-title: Next Morning – The turning back of the clocks upsets the household Room: Hall: Room: The lady standing in room Hall: Exterior of house: Hall: Room: Hall: Exterior of house: Exterior of house: Side view Room: Girl standing in room Sub-title: In his haste the husband has dropped his purse Hall: Exterior of house: Man standing near house Exterior of house: Exterior of house: The two crooks standing near house Sub-title: Repentance Room: Young man sleeping Hall: Sub-title: The crooks, posing as delivery boys, seize the opportunity Exterior of house: Side view Room: Exterior of house: Crook looking through window Room: Girl standing in room with purse in her hands Exterior of house: Crook looking in window Hall: Exterior of house: Crook standing near house, looking off Room: Hall: Girl standing in ha[l]l

Room: Y[o]ung man sitting in room Hall: Girl standing in hall near door Room: Young man sitting in room Room: Crook standing in room Hall: Girl standing in hall Room: Crook standing in room Hall: Girl opening door leading to room Room: Girl entering room – crook hiding behind table Insert: Crook hiding behind table Room: Crook behind table – girl in room Room: Young man standing in room Room: One crook near window – the other crook struggling with girl Room: Young man trying door Room: Girl and crook in room Room: Young man trying door Room: Two crooks and girl in room Room: Young man in room Exterior of house: side view Exterior of house: side view Room: Crook and girl in room Exterior of house: Man hanging out of window Room: Young man in room – girl crying Hall: Girl running through hall Exterior of house: Trade-Mark: [AB logo] Cutting continuity, Copyright Descriptive Material, Library of Congress, October 23, 1912, LU54

430 A FEUD IN THE KENTUCKY HILLS Eagle Title: A Feud in the Kentucky Hills Waterfalls: Sub-title: The psalm-singing dead shot of the hills Exterior of cabin: Woman inside; man standing in doorway, another sitting in doorway; man sitting on chair near cabin Sub-title: The psalm singer proposes to the little adopted daughter of the household Interior of cabin: Girl standing in foreground – woman in background Sub-title: The psalm singer’s younger brother returns from a long visit to the valley

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Field: Mountains in background Exterior of cabin: Man sitting on chair near cabin; girl in doorway Interior of cabin: Man standing in cabin with grip in hand – woman standing behind him Sub-title: Renewal of childhood’s affection Exterior of cabin: Man sitting on chair near door; girl in foreground; man coming out of door Road: Trees in background Exterior of cabin: Man standing near doorway; man sitting on chair near cabin Road: Trees in background Exterior of cabin: Man standing near cabin – two men about to enter Field: Two men talking Exterior of cabin: Chair near door Road: Team of oxen pulling wagon; two men talking to occupants of wagon Exterior of cabin: Girl and man standing near cabin – another man in background Exterior: Team of oxen pulling wagon – man talking to occupants of wagon Exterior of cabin: Two men in foreground talking – others in background Exterior: Team of oxen pulling wagon – three men talking to occupants of wagon Exterior of cabin: Men in foreground shooting – others in background Exterior: Team of oxen pulling wagon – man in foreground with gun in hand to run Exterior of cabin: Man on ground – another bending over him Field: Man calling to two other men who are running Sub-title: For peace the younger brother will leave Exterior of cabin: Girl and man coming out of cabin Sub-title: The father in the reawakened feud Field: Trees and mountains in background Exterior of cabin: Man and girl sitting down Interior of cabin: Sub-title: Their excuse to exterminate the family enemy Exterior of cabin: Several men with guns standing about Interior of cabin: The father, three men and the girl in cabin

Exterior of cabin: Girl in foreground – man coming out of door Exterior of cabin: Man sitting in foreground – man standing near cabin Field – mountains in background: Men coming through field Exterior of cabin: Several men standing around cabin with guns – woman in doorway Field: Trees and mountains in background – showing fence Field – stone wall – men in background Field – showing fence – men in background Field – stone wall – men in background shooting Filed – mountains in background – men shooting Stone wall: Men behind wall shooting Sub-title: The little family at bay Field: Mountains in background – men shooting Exterior of cabin – men in distance shooting – woman near cabin Interior of cabin – man sitting on chair – women entering Stone wall: Men behind wall shooting Stone wall: Men behind wall shooting Interior of cabin: Old man chair – girl looking out of window – man behind them Field – stone wall – men behind wall shooting Stone wall: Men behind shooting Field – stone wall – shooting Stone wall: Men behind wall shooting Stone wall – men behind it shooting Field – wall – men shooting Stone wall: Men behind it shooting Field – wall – men running – others shooting Stone wall – men behind it shooting Interior of cabin: Girl at window, woman behind her – old man in chair Stone wall: Men behind wall – several dead Interior of cabin – girl at window – woman behind her – man in chair Exterior of cabin – shooting in distance Field: Shooting in distance Exterior of cabin: Shooting in distance – woman standing outside of cabin Interior of cabin – man in cabin – woman in doorway Stone wall: Several men dead – one man shooting

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Interior of cabin: Girl at window – woman behind her – man in chair Stone wall: Several men dead – one man about to shoot – the other looking off Interior of cabin: Girl at window – woman behind her – man in chair Sub-title: The psalm singer’s sacrifice – “I’ll hold them here while you save the women” Stone wall: Men behind it – two in foreground about to shoot Field – showing stone wall – shooting Field – stone wall: Men shooting Exterior of cabin: Shooting in distance – man creeping toward cabin Interior of cabin – girl near window – man in chair, woman standing near him. Interior of cabin: Girl and woman in room Exterior of cabin: Girl and woman in room Exterior of cabin: Man coming through window Stone wall: Several men dead – one man shooting Exterior of cabin: Young man, girl and woman helping old man out of window Stone wall: Several men dead Field: Mountains in distance Stone wall: Shooting in distance Field: Mountains in distance – old man walking Exterior of cabin: Shooting in distance Field: Mountains in distance – woman running Exterior of cabin: Shooting in distance Stone wall: Several men dead – man about to shoot Field: Trees in background Stone wall: Several men dead – man about to shoot Field – mountains in background: Girl walking through field Stone wall in foreground – several men dead – men walking in background Field: Mountains and trees in background Exterior of cabin: Woman on ground – several men standing around body Sub-title: “Look, the peaceful valleys” The Valleys Trade-mark: [AB logo] Cutting continuity, Copyright Descriptive Material, Library of Congress, October 30, 1912, LU65

431 IN THE AISLES OF THE WILD Eagle Title: In the Aisles of the Wild Exterior of cabin: Girl on chair near window; man in doorway – girl standing near cabin Interior of cabin: Girl entering Exterior: Mountains in distance – Man coming on Exterior of cabin: Girl standing near cabin Interior of cabin: Gir [sic] sitting down – man entering Exterior of cabin: Girl standing near cabin – man in background Sub-title: A woman’s whim to arouse jealousy Interior of cabin: Girl standing near chair – man talking to her Exterior of cabin: Girl sitting on bench near cabin Interior of cabin: Girl and man talking Exterior of cabin: Man and girl talking Sub-title: Through pique she accepts the other suitor Interior of cabin: Girl and man talking Exterior of cabin: Girl standing near cabin Interior of cabin: Girl and man talking Exterior of cabin: Girl looking in window Sub-title: After their marriage – The Husband leaves on a Hunting Trip Interior of cabin: Man and woman standing near table talking Exterior of cabin: Man coming out of cabin Interior of cabin: Woman standing in doorway Sub-title: The old lover revisits Exterior: Body of water – man in canoe Exterior of cabin: […] Interior of cabin: Girl in doorway Exterior of cabin: Man coming on Interior of cabin: Girl standing near door Exterior of cabin: Man passes cabin Interior of cabin: Girl standing in doorway Exterior of cabin: Man walking Exterior: Man hiding canoe Exterior of cabin: […] Interior of cabin: Woman standing near table Sub-title: “Come with me and right the mistake you have made” Exterior of cabin: Man standing near cabin

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Interior of cabin: Woman standing near table – man in doorway Exterior of cabin: Man coming out of cabin Interior of cabin: woman standing near door Sub-title: His canoe stolen by the Indians Exterior of cabin: [...] Exterior of cabin: Man standing near cabin Interior of cabin: Woman standing in cabin Exterior of cabin: Man standing near cabin Interior of cabin: Woman standing in cabin – man in doorway Exterior: Man standing on rocks Interior of cabin: Man and woman in cabin talking Exterior of cabin: Man coming out of cabin Exterior: Man sitting on ground Exterior of cabin: [...] Interior of cabin: Woman standing in cabin Exterior of cabin: [...] Interior of cabin: Woman standing in cabin near door Exterior of cabin: Girl coming out Exterior of cabin[:] [...] Interior of cabin: woman doing up bundle Exterior of cabin: Woman coming out Road: Man standing in road Exterior – trees: [...] Exterior: Man sitting on bench near cabin Exterior – body of water[:] [...] Sub-title: The husband losing his pack, returns Exterior of cabin: Man on bench – girl standing over him Exterior – body of water: Man looking for canoe – woman near him Exterior of cabin: Two men and girl talking Exterior – body of water: Woman holding man’s arm Exterior of cabin: […] Interior of cabin: Man comes in Exterior of cabin: Man goes out Exterior: Man and woman talking Exterior – woods: […] Exterior – woods: [...] Exterior of cabin[:] [...] Exterior – woods – mountains in background: [...] Exterior: Man walking Sub-title: Provisions low, he goes in search of game

Exterior – woods: Woman sitting on ground – man standing near her Sub-title: Weak from hunger Woods: Man walking Exterior of cabin: [...] Woods: Man standing near tree Sub-title: “There is food enough for one only” Exterior: Woman on ground Exterior – woods: Man standing near tree Exterior: Mountains in background Woods: [...] Exterior: Man on ground Exterior: Man near tree – one on ground Exterior: Man on ground Woods: [...] Exterior: Woman standing with gun in hand Exterior – mountains in background Exterior: Man on ground with gun in hand Exterior – mountains in background Exterior: Man shooting Exterior – mountains in background Woods: Dead body of man on ground Sub-title: Weary of the long wait she goes to find him Woods: Woman with gun and bundle about to walk off Woods: Two men near tree Exterior of cabin: Girl standing near cabin Woods: Woman looking off Woods[:] Three men talking Woods: Body of dead man on ground Sub-title: In the deserted woods famine delivers justice Woods: Body of dead man Exterior – mountains in background Woods: Body of dead man on ground – woman lying near him Exterior of cabin: Man on bench near cabin; girl looking out of window Interior of cabin: Girl standing near window Exterior of cabin: Two men talking Woods: Bodies of dead man and woman – wolf near them Interior of cabin: Girl standing near window Exterior of cabin: Man sitting on bench near cabin Trade-mark: [AB logo] Cutting continuity, Copyright Descriptive Material, Library of Congress, October 30, 1912, LU68

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432 THE ONE SHE LOVED Eagle Title: The One She Loved Sub-title: The Dawn Street: Man looking up street Sub-title: Later – The Sweet Noontime Room: Baby in cradle – man and woman standing near it Exterior of house – garden Sub-title: At the young author’s studio workshop – The romantic stenographer Studio: Girl taking off her hat Exterior of studio: Interior of studio: Girl reading book Room: Baby in cradle – mother standing nearby – nurse sitting on chair Exterior of house – garden Street: Man and woman walking down street Exterior of house: Woman standing on lower step Street – gate: Man and woman standing on sidewalk near gate Interior of studio: Author dictating to stenographer Street: Two woman and man talking Exterior of house – side view Sitting room: Exterior of house: Side view Interior of studio: Author dictating to stenographer Exterior of studio: Man coming out of door Sub-title: The return of the smelling-salts – Jealousy aroused Street – gate: Exterior of house: Garden: Street – gate: Man standing near gate Exterior of house – garden: Woman walking through garden Interior of studio: Girl reading book Exterior scene – pole in foreground Exterior of studio: Sub-title: The stenographer’s sympathetic aid causes more jealousy Interior of studio: Author dictating to stenographer Exterior of studio: Sub-title: “If I could only make him care”

Interior of studio: Man standing near table – girl talking to him Exterior: Woman walking Interior of studio: Man reading – girl standing near him Exterior of studio: Woman about to enter Interior of studio: Man helping stenographer who has sprained her ankle Exterior scene – pole in foreground: Interior of studio: Man talking to stenographer Room: Baby in cradle – nurse standing near cradle Sub-title: Hurt beyond forgiveness, she determines to go away Room: Baby in cradle Exterior of house – side view Room: Mother with baby standing near cradle Room: The mother holding baby Room: The mother holding baby Interior of studio: Man talking to stenographer Room: The mother with baby in her arms leaving room Exterior of house – garden: Street: Two men walking down street Interior of studio: Man talking to stenographer Street: Woman with baby coming out of gate – two men talking to her Interior of studio: Man reading book Exterior of studio: People walking in a distance Exterior of house – side view: Sub-title: The wife in her sorrow is proffered shelter Exterior of house: Man walking toward house Sitting-room: Woman reading Room: Note in cradle Letter: I leave here forever with the one I love Exterior of house – garden Street: Exterior of house – side view: Exterior of house: Sitting-room: The mother holding baby – man moving chair toward her Exterior of house: Man standing at window about to shoot Sitting-room: The mother in chair – man with baby on his lap Exterior of house: Man looking through window Sitting-room: The mother with baby on her lap – man talking to her

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Exterior of house: Man at window about to shoot Sitting-room: The mother on chair – man near her Exterior of house: Man standing near window Sitting-room: The mother sitting on chair Exterior – side view of house: Man and woman standing near fence Sitting-room: The man and his wife talking – baby near them Letter (In torn condition) I leave here forever with the one I love Trade-mark: [AB logo] Cutting continuity, Copyright Descriptive Material, Library of Congress, October 30, 1912, LU74

433 THE PAINTED LADY Eagle Title: The Painted Lady Sub-title: Dad’s Favorite – The elder daughter follows her father’s precepts Room: Girl standing in room – man standing near her Hall: Girl coming into hall Bedroom: Girl before dressing table, powdering Grounds where lawn party is held: Several people standing around, etc. Sub-title: “Oh, you must paint and powder to be attractive” Bedroom: Girl looking in mirror – other girl standing behind her Hallway: Bedroom: Girl standing near dressing table Exterior of house: Girl coming down steps Grounds where lawn part is held: Several people standing around, etc. Exterior of house: Girl coming down steps Sub-title: Unpopular Grounds where lawn party is held: Girl in foreground with several men talking to her Sub-title: The Plotters Exterior: In background: Entrance to grounds where lawn party is held – several people around gate Entrance to grounds where lawn party is held: Man at gate – several people about to enter

Exterior – entrance to grounds in background: Two men in foreground talking Entrance to grounds: Man at gate – man looking through gate into grounds – several people in background Sub-title: The stranger gains the goods [sic] graces of the minister Grounds where lawn party is held: Several people talking, etc. Grounds: Young lady talking to man – several men and girls near tables Garden: Grounds where lawn party is held: Men and boys in foreground – people sitting at table in background Garden: Girl sitting on bench Sub-title: Her First Sweetheart Exterior of house – steps Sub-title: The Clandestine Meeting Bedroom: Girl standing in room putting on scarf Garden: Room: Girl standing near window Exterior of house: Girl climbing out of window Garden: Man leaning on fence Sub-title: Later –, She confides in him regarding her father’s business affairs Garden: Man standing near fence Exterior of house: Man coming down steps Garden: Man and girl in garden, talking Exterior of house – side view Exterior of house – steps Exterior of [h]ouse – si[d]e view Bedroom: Garden: Exterior of house – side view Bedroom: Girl standing in room Room: Man coming in through window Hall: Girl coming down stairs Room: Man standing in room Hall: Girl standing near door Room: Man standing in room Sub-title: She attempts to save her father’s wealth from the unknown intruder Hall: Girl standing on stairs Room: Man at safe Hall: Girl standing near door Room: Man at safe – girl standing in doorway Hall: Girl standing in doorway

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Room: Girl standing near door with gun in hand – man lying across table, dead Hall: Girl coming down stairs Room: Man lying across table, dead – girl standing near him Sub-title: Shattered Hall: Girl coming out of room Sub-title: Afterwards – The Imaginary Meeting Room: Girl standing in room – woman sitting in background Exterior of house – steps Garden: Room: Woman sitting in background Garden: Girl standing near fence Sub-title: Tempted – “I look so pale” Room: Girl resting in chair–woman in background Exterior of house – woman standing on steps Room: Girl standing near dresser, powder puff in her hand Exterior of house – steps Sub-title: The Last Meeting Garden: Exterior of house – steps Garden: Girl resting on fence Exterior of house – steps Garden: Girl lying across fence – man standing over her Trade-mark: [AB logo] Cutting continuity, Copyright Descriptive Material, Library of Congress, October 30, 1912, LU72

434 THE MUSKETEERS OF PIG ALLEY Eagle Title: The Musketeers of Pig Alley Sub-title: New York’s other side – The poor musician goes away to improve his fortune Room: Young man and girl talking Hallway: Woman and girl standing in hallway Room: Woman in chair – girl going out of door Sub-title: Later – the little lady meets “Snapper Kid” the chief of the musketeers Room: Woman in chair – girl doing up bundle Hallway: Woman going up stairs – men in hallway talking

Street: Several people in street Hallway: Men in hallway, near foot of stairs Room: woman in chair Sub-title: Alone Hallway: Room: Woman in chair Sub-title: The musician returning with replenished purse, meets the musketeers in Pig Alley The alley: Several people in alley Street: Several people in street Hallway Room: Girl in chair Hallway: Man on floor – another man bending over him – another man near foot of stairs Saloon: Man entering Hallway: Man on floor Room: Girl in chair Hallway: Man on floor, crawling to door Room: Girl in doorway, helping man into room Sub-title: The musician determined to recover his stolen money Room: Youn[g] man and girl talking Saloon: Man behind bar Room: Girl at door Saloon: Man behind bar – man standing near bar with grip in hand The Alley: Several people in alley Sub-title: A friend tries to cheer the little lady Room: Girl standing near machine Hallway: Girl coming out of door Sub-title: The little lady [a]t the gangster’s ball Ball room: Several people standing around and sitting on chairs Room: People at tables drinking – man enters room Ball room: People dancing – others standing around Room: Young man and girl at table Ball room: People dancing – others standing around Sub-title: Fear of the Big Boss forces them to settle the fight outside Room: Two men standing near table talking Ball room: People dancing – others standing around Exterior of dance hall: Men standing in doorway Room: Man standing at table

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Street: Man at stand – man walking down street Hallway: Saloon: Man behind bar – man enters door Room: Two men at table drinking – another standing near table talking to them Ball room: People standing around, talking Saloon: Man behind bar – men standing at bar Street: Man sitting on step outside of store Sub-title: The gangsters’ feudal war Exterior of dance hall: Man standing in doorway Cellar: Street: Man sitting o[n] step outside of store Saloon: The alley: Musician in foreground – other man standing around Cellar The alley: Several men standing around Saloon: Man behind bar – other men standing at bar Street: Exterior of saloon The alley: Gangsters talking – man in background Cellar – door open Alley way: Cellar: Men entering […]or Alley way: Men standing near wall The alley: Cellar: The alley: Men shooting Cellar: The musician standing near [d]oor The alley: Several men on ground Cellar: Man standing near door The alley: Policemen arresting gangsters Room: Girl sitt[…]m Hallway: Room: Girl and man talking Hallway: Man standing near door Room: Girl and young man in room – man enters door Hallway: Man in doorway Sub-title: One good turn deserves another Room: Man and girl talking – man enters Sub-title: Links in the system Hallway: Policema[…]g in hallway Room: Young man holding arms out to girl Trade-mark: [AB logo] Cutting continuity, Copyright Descriptive Material, Library of Congress, November 4, 1912, LU90

435 HEREDITY Eagle Title: Heredity Sub-title: The renegade white man at the edge of the Indian village Woods – exterior of cabin India[n] village: Indians standing around, walking, talking, etc. Woods – exterior of cabin: Man looking off Woods: Several Indians in woods Exterior – woods Exterior: Indian girls talking Woods: Man standing near tree, looking off Woods: Indian girls talking Woods: Man standing near tree looking off Sub-title: Mother Love the same the world over Exterior of tepee: Indian woman sitting near tepee – Indian man in background Woods: Man standing near tree, looking off Exterior of tepee: Indian woman sitting near tepee – Indian girl standing near her Woods: Man standing near tree Exterior of tepee: Indian woman sitting near tepee – Indian man standing near her Woods – Exterior of cabin: Interior of cabin: Man coming in cabin Sub-title: Later – [Their baby] Interior of cabin: Man and woman looking at baby Sub-title: The boy now grown – The father and son feel their racial difference Interior of cabin: Woman sitting in cabin Exterior of cabin: Man coming out of cabin Exterior of tepee: Indian man talking to Indian woman Indian village: Indian boys at games, etc. Sub-title: Angered at the boy’s unwillingness to go with him on the trading trip Woods – exterior of cabin: Sub-title: The start Exterior of cabin: Horses and wagon in background – boy standing near cabin Sub-title: Ashamed of them Village: Several people talking, etc. Village – exterior of cabin: Girls talking Village: – the horses and wagon – Indian boy and man talking

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Village: E[x]terior of cabin – two men talking Village: The horses and wagon – people in village – the Indian wife and boy in corner Woods: Indians walking Village: People laughing and talking Woods: Indians with horses – man driving wagon enters scene Sub-title: After the crooked deal Woods: Horses and wagon coming on Sub-title: Bad whisky and broken guns Woods: Indians talking – horses in background Woods: Horses and wagon on scene Sub-title: To avenge their wrongs Woods: Several Indians talking – horses in background Woods: The Indian wife and boy walking – horses and wagon in background Woods: Indians walking through woods Woods: Horses and wagon being driven by man – the Indian wife and boy walking beside wagon Woods: Indian in woods Woods: Man in wagon – Indian wife and boy standing nearby Woods: Indians shooting Woods: Horses and wagon in distance Woods: Indians shooting Woods: Horses and wagon in distance Woods: Indians in distance Exterior of tepee: Indian standing near tepee – Indian coming out of tepee Woods[:] Indians fighting [...] Woods: Indian walking with gun in hand Woods: Horses and wagon in distance Exterior: Wagon in background – box in foreground – men standing between wagon and box Woods: Indians fighting Sub-title: The boy fe[e]ls the call of the blood in the war-cry Exterior: Wagon in [b]ackground – man behind box, shooting – Indian wif[e] and boy near him Exterior – woods: Indians fighting[.] Exteri[or]: Wagon in backgro[und] [...]ting – boy standing wit[...] Woods: Indians fighting Exterior – wagon in background – man shooting – boy standing up looking off – women on ground near him Woods: Indians fighting – wagon in background

Exterior: Wagon in background – man behind box shooting – boy near him [W]oods: Indians fighting Exterior – Wagon in background – one man lying over box – another man beh[i]nd box with gun in hand – woman near him – boy sho[...]ting Woods: Indian comes on Exterior: Wagon in background [...]on ground – [...]n and boy behind bo[x] Exterior – woods: Two Indians standing in woods Exterior: Wagon in background – Indians fighting Exterior – wagon in background – man behind box – woman and boy near him Exterior – Woods: Indians fighting Exterior – wagon in background: Man behind box – woman leaning over him – boy near them – another man on ground Woods: Indians fighting Woods: Trees in background Wo[ods]: [...] Exterior: Wagon in background: Man on ground; another man on ground behind box – woman and boy near him Sub-title: Blood of our Blood Indian village: Tepees in background – Indian men in foreground Exterior of tepee: Indian woman sitting near tepee [Indi]an village – tepees [...] background: The [Indi]an wo[…] and boy talking to other Indians Trade-mark: [AB logo] Cutting continuity, Copyright Descriptive Material, Library of Congress, November 4, 1912, LU89

436 GOLD AND GLITTER Eagle Title: Gold and Glitter Sub-title: Called to the lumber regions, the wife writes a memory message Room: Man packing case – woman standing nearby reading letter Letter: going away. Remember, dear, that all I have in the world is your love and trust. Your wife

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Exterior of house – porch Room: Street: Two girls walking down street Street – fence Sub-title: In the lumber country – Guarded by the two old brothers’ love. Their hope Exterior of cabin: Girl and man sitting near cabin. Man standing behind them. Woods: Man in path – his wife and family nearby Exterior of cabin: Man and girl sitting near cabin – man standing behind them. Woods: Man, wife and family going through woods Exterior of cabin: Man and girl sitting near cabin – man standing behind them Woods: Exterior of cabin: Girl standing near cabin – man behind her Woods: Two men standing in woods Exterior of cabin: Young man and girl talking Forest: Men working in lumber camp Sub-title: The husband’s destination Exterior: Two men in canoe Forest: Men at work in lumber camp Exterior of cabin: Girl sitting near cabin – man in background Forest: Exterior of cabin: Girl sitting near cabin Forest: Man standing in forest Exterior of cabin: Girl sitting near cabin Forest – lumber camp: Men at work Sub-title: The Next Day Exterior of cabin: Two men talking – girl standing near them Forest: Man walking through forest Exterior of cabin: Forest: Man standing in forest Sub-title: Man’s way – The forgotten message Woods: Man walking through woods Room: Woman sitting at table reading Woods: Man standing in woods reading letter Letter – (Torn) Remember, dear, that all I have in the world is your love and trust. Your wife Exterior of cabin: Girl standing near cabin Woods: Man standing in woods Exterior of cabin Woods: Exterior of cabin: Man walking off

Woods – tree in foreground Woods: Woods: Man with arms about girl Woods: Man standing in woods, looking off Woods: Man with arm about girl Woods: Sub-title: In a moment of weakness, he induces her to g[o] away with him Woods: Man with gun in hand – girl near him Exterior of cabin River: Canoe – man coming on scene Forest: Several men talking River: Girl and man in canoe Forest: Men talking Exterior – river: River: Girl and man in canoe Sub-title: To Intercept Exterior – river: Man in canoe – several men on shore River: Two people in canoe River: Two people in canoe River: Two people in canoe River: Girl and man in canoe River: Men in canoe River: Girl and man in canoe Woods: Several men coming on scene River: Two people in canoe Woods: Several men coming through woods River – shore: Canoe pulled up on shoe [sic] – two men coming toward shore in canoe Exterior – old timbers on ground Woods: Men running through woods Exterior – old timbers on ground: Man and girl behind timbers Woods: Timbers on ground in background – man and girl behind timbers Exterior: Man and [g]irl behind timbers – man shooting Exterior: Man and girl behind timbers in background – shooting Woods: Man in foreground with gun in hand – another man behind him Exterior: Girl and man behind timbers Woods: Man in foreground with gun in hand – another man behind him Exterior: Girl and man behind timbers Exterior – woods: Man in foreground shooting – another man behind him Exterior: Girl and man behind timbers

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Woods: Man in foreground with gun in hand – man behind him Exterior – woods: Man and girl standing near old timbers – several men standing near them Woods: Exterior – woods: Several men standing around another man River – shore: Canoe pulled up on shore Letter – torn: Remember, dear, that all I have in the world is your love and trust. Your wife Sub-title: Some time later – The lesson learned Exterior – road – fence Exterior of house – porch Room: Woman sitting in chair – baby in cradle Exterior of cabin – Man talking to girl – another man standing near them Trade[-mark]: [AB logo] Cutting continuity, Copyright Descriptive Material, Library of Congress, November 13, 1912, LU109

437 MY BABY Eagle Title: My Baby Sub-title: A Double Wedding takes two children away from the old man Room: Several people in room – bridal parties, guests. Exterior of house – fence: Bridal parties coming out of gate Sub-title: “I will never leave you, daddy” Room: Old man in room – girl coming toward him Sub-title: Her picture as a baby Room: Man sitting near table looking at picture – girl standing nearby Road – fence and gate Room: Girl embracing old man – both looking at picture Road – fence and gate – Young man standing near gate Room: Old man sitting near table with picture in hand – girl standing near him looking toward window Road – fence gate: Young man standing near gate Room: Old man sitting near table

Road – fence gate: Young man and girl standing near gate Room: Old man sitting at table, reading Sub-title: After marriage Room: Young man standing in room Sub-title: The son-in-law refuses to take the father Gate and fence Sitting-room Sub-titled: Angered, he denies them the house Gate – fence: Room: Man standing at table packing bag Room: Sitting-room: Old man sitting at table – bag on table Sub-title: Two years later – A Lonely Old Man Sitting-room: Old man standing in room Room: (Scene starts dark) The mother playing with baby in crib – man enters room Sub-title: The Plot – Her baby out for an airing Room: The husband and wife in room – another lady holding baby Exterior of house: Room: Lady and gentleman in room Sub-title: “Whose baby?” Road – fence and gate: Lady standing at gate with baby in her arms Road: Man walking along road Road: Lady with baby in her arms standing near gate – old man leaning against fence Road: Young man and girl standing in road Road – fence gate: Lady with baby in her arms talking to old man Room: Exterior of house: Sub-title: That night – Heart hungry, he longs for another sight of the baby Room: Old man looking toward window Road – gate and fence Exterior of house – side view Room: Baby sleeping – the man and wife standing over crib looking at baby Exterior of house: Old man looking in window Room: Baby sleeping: The man and wife leaning over crib looking at baby Room: Baby sleeping – man and wife leaning over crib looking at baby Dining-room: Several men standing around table Exterior of house: Old man looking in window

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Exterior of house: Old man looking in window Room: Baby asleep in crib Exterior of house: Old man looking in window Sub-title: Tempted Exterior of house: Old man standing near window Room: Baby asleep in crib – old man entering room through window Dining-room: The family at dinner Room: Baby asleep in crib – old man looking through keyhole Room: Baby asleep in crib – old man bending over baby Room: Baby asleep in crib – old man standing near crib Exterior of house: Old man leaving room through window Sub-title: Burglars! Room: Man opening door – baby asleep in crib Road: Gate – fence Room: Baby asleep in crib – woman standing near door Exterior of house: Exterior of house – side view Room: Room: Baby asleep in crib – the mother bending over crib Sub-title: The next night – “I wonder if it looks like its mother” Room: Old man looking at picture on table Road: Gate – fence: Room: Baby asleep in crib – the mother and father bending over crib Dining-room: Two men standing near table – two men at side of room – woman entering room Exterior of house – side view Room: Baby asleep in crib Exterior: Old man looking in window Room: Baby asleep in crib – old man entering room through window Dinning-room: The family at dinner Room: The baby asleep in crib – old man bending over crib with photograph in hand Dining-room: The family at dinner Room: Baby asleep in crib – old man standing near crib with picture in his hand Dining-room: Family at dinner – woman standing near door

Room: Baby asleep in crib – old man standing in room Dining-room: Several men and the two women standing near table – the husband going toward door Room: Baby asleep in crib – man enters room Exterior of house: Two men coming out of house Exterior of house – side view Room: Baby asleep in crib – two women near door – man standing near crib – man climbing out of window Exterior of house: Room: Baby in crib – old man standing near crib – two ladies and two men standing in room Trade-mark: [AB logo] Cutting continuity, Copyright Descriptive Material, Library of Congress, November 16, 1912, LU119

438 THE INFORMER A Story of the Civil War Eagle Title: The Informer A Story of the Civil War Sub-title: Called to war, he leaves his sweetheart in his brother’s care Exterior: Two men talking to girl Exterior of house: Girl and young man walking down road Exterior: Man standing in foreground, looking off Street: House in background – several people standing in street, talking, etc. Sub-title: The parting at the trysting-place Exterior – river in background Street – house in background: Men and women in street, talking, etc. Exterior – trees in background Exterior – river in background: Girl sitting on bench – two other girls standing near her Sub-title: Later – He allows her to think her lover is dead Exterior of house – porch: Sub-title: The lover [c]aught between the enemy’s lines in his own neighborhood Exterior: Trees in background

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Exterior: Trees in background – road in foreground Exterior: River in background – trees in foreground Exterior – trees in background: Man climbing up bank Exterior: River in background – trees in foreground Exterior – trees in background: Man climbing up bank Exterior – river in background: Soldier on guard Exterior – trees in background Exterior – soldier running Exterior – soldier running Exterior – river in background: Soldier waving arm Room: Man at door – girl looking toward window Exterior: Fence in foreground Exterior – corn field Exterior: Two soldiers in foreground, running – other soldiers in background – running Exterior – corn field: Young soldier running through corn field Exterior: fence in foreground: Soldiers in background, running Exterior – corn field: Young soldier on ground Exterior – corn field Exterior – corn field Exterior – another view of corn field Exterior – field – road: Exterior – corn field Room: Man talking to girl Exterior of house – porch: Room: Man talking to girl – his arm around her Exterior of house: Young soldier on porch – hand on door Room: Man and girl in room looking toward door Sub-title: The Confederates at the village Road – exterior of building: Men and women standing near building – several men on horseback coming toward them Room: Young man in chair – girl standing near him – another man behind her Sub-title: She forbids the false bother the house Exterior: Colored boy with basket on arm Room: Young man in chair Exterior: Man in foreground, looking toward house Exterior:

Exterior: Colored boy with basket on arm Exterior: Man in foreground, pointing toward house Exterior: Colored boy in foreground with basket on arm Exterior Sub-title: They seek safety in the old negro’s quarters Room: woman standing near door; man in chair – old negress and girl standing near chair Exterior: Road in foreground: Woman walking toward road Exterior of cabin: Room: Woman standing in room: negress helping young man into room Sub-title: The Informer Exterior of building: Several soldiers sitting on porch Exterior Exterior of building: Man in foreground; several soldiers on porch Sub-title: “I’ll tell ma massa capt’n ‘bout dis” Exterior: Colored boy in foreground Exterior of building: Several soldiers in front of building Exterior – road – fence in foreground Road: Man running – soldiers behind him Room: Young man sitting near table – girl, woman and negress standing near him Road: Soldiers running Exterior: Trees in background – road in foreground Exterior – trees and house in background Exterior – girl about to run Exterior: Soldiers running toward house Exterior – field Exterior of building: Two soldiers in foreground – other soldiers and horses in background Exterior of cabin: Room: Young man near table – woman looking toward window – negress standing near door Exterior of cabin: Girl in doorway with revolver in hand Exterior of cabin: Exterior of cabin: Girl standing near cabin with revolver in hand Exterior: Logs on ground – soldier in foreground pointing off other soldiers behind him Exterior of cabin: Girl with revolver in hand

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Exterior: Logs on ground – soldier in foreground – two other soldiers standing behind him Exterior of cabin: Girl shooting Exterior: Cabin in background – girl standing near cabin; soldiers in foreground Exterior of building: Three soldiers in foreground – horses and soldiers in background Exterior – cabin in background – soldiers in foreground – fighting Exterior of building: Man standing near building – soldiers on horseback, about to depart Room: Young man sitting near table – girl near window – woman standing behind her – negress at door Exterior: Logs on ground – soldiers about to shoot Exterior – road: Soldiers on horseback coming down road Room: Young man at table – negress standing near table – woman standing near window – girl at door Exterior: Cabin in background – soldiers in foreground Exterior – road: Soldiers on horseback coming down road Insert: Girl with revolver in hand – young man in chair – woman with hand on his arm Exterior – road: soldiers on horseback coming down road Exterior – cabin in background: Soldiers in foreground Room: Girl shooting – young man in corner of room, woman standing over him – negress near door Exterior – cabin in background – soldiers in foreground Room: Man in chair in corner – woman standing near him – negress near door – girl shooting Exterior: soldiers in for[e]ground – fighting Exterior of cabin: Room: Girl near table – man in corner of room in chair – woman standing near him – negress at door Exterior: Exterior of cabin: Soldiers forcing door Exterior: Man in for[e]ground of picture Exterior of cabin: Soldiers forcing door Room: Girl at table – Young man in corner of room in chair – woman near him – negress at door

Road: Soldiers on horseback coming down road Exterior of cabin: soldiers forcing door Room: Girl at table – young man, woman and negress in corner of room Exterior – soldiers on horseback Room: Soldiers taking young man out of room; the girl, woman and negress in room Exterior: Soldiers on horseback Exterior of cabin: Soldiers standing in front of cabin Room: Woman and girl in room Exterior: Cabin in background – soldiers running – fighting Exterior: Man running Exterior: Soldiers fighting Room: Girl and woman standing near ta[bl]e [–] negress near them Exterior of cabin: Two soldiers assisting wounded soldier; others in background Sub-title: The War over Exterior of house: Exterior: River in background: Girl on bench – another girl standing near her Trade-mark: [AB logo] Cutting continuity, Copyright Descriptive Material, Library of Congress, November 23, 1912, LU131

439 BRUTALITY Eagle Title: Brutality Sub-title: The courtship Exterior – fence: Two girls swinging on gate Exterior – stone wall: Exterior – fence: Girl swinging on gate Exterior – stone wall: Man standing near wall Exterior – fence: Girl swinging on gate Exterior – stone wall: Man standing near wall, looking off Exterior – fence: Girl swinging on gate Exterior – stone wall: Man standing near wall, looking off Exterior – fence: Girl standing at gate Sub-title: The brutal spirit asserts itself Exterior – stone wall: Sub-title: “But I would not hurt you, dear” Sub-title: After the wedding

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Room: Kitchen: Room: Man in doorway Kitchen: Girl standing near table Sub-title: The honeymoon over Room: Man and girl at table, eating Exterior of house – street: Room: Girl standing in room Sub-title: Later Exterior of saloon: Room: Girl standing near table Sub-title: The young wife’s painful awakening Sub-title: As time goes on Room: Man and girl sitting at table Sub-title: Brutality in full control Exterior of saloon: Man standing near saloon Room: Exterior of building – street: Room: Girl sitting at table Kitchen: Man entering Room: Girl sitting near table Kitchen: Man standing near table Room: Girl standing near table Kitchen: Man standing in kitchen Room: Girl standing in room with hat in her hands Kitchen: Man standing in room Room: Girl standing near table – man entering room Sub-title: Tickets to the show Room: Man reading paper Sub-title: At the vaudeville theater Theater: People in seats – man standing in aisle – people coming down aisle Sub-title: The last act on the bill – An adaptation from “Oliver Twist” The stage in the theater: Theater: People in seats The stage in the theater – woman emb[…] Theater: People in seats The stage in the theater: Man and woman in foreground – man in background Theater: People in seats The stage at the theater: Two men and woman on stage Theater: People in seats The stage at the theater: Two men on stage Theater: People in seats The stage at the theater: Two men and woman on stage

[Theater: People in seats] The stage at the theater: Woman and man in foreground – man in background Theater: People in seats The stage at the theater: Theater: People in seats The stage at the theater: Man sitting on chair – woman at his feet Theatre: People in seats The stage at the theater: Man on chair – woman on floor at his feet Theater: People in seats Sub-title: The promise Room: Sub-title: Afterwards – The promise kept Exterior of saloon: Exterior of house – street: Room: Lady sitting in chair with baby on her lap Trade-mark: [AB logo] Cutting continuity, Copyright Descriptive Material, Library of Congress, November 29, 1912, LU144

440 THE UNWELCOME GUEST Eagle Title: The Unwelcome Guest Sub-title: The miserly wife’s savings-bank in an old vest beneath the false bottom of the trunk Room: Lady sitting in chair, reading Insert: Lady taking false bottom from trunk Room: Lady putting money in trunk Sub-title: The wife dies and the hiding-place of the money remains a secret Room: Lady lying in bed – several people at her bedside Sub-title: The workhouse girl in the home of the son Room: Lady talking to two girls – boy standing near window Kitchen: Room: Man with letter in his hand – lady, two girls and a boy standing nearby Letter: Mr. Robert Flint: Your mother died Thursday. After paying funeral expenses there is nothing left and unless you can take care of your father he will have to go to the poorhouse. Yours respectfully, Joshua Tobin, Selectman

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Room: Two men talking Exterior of house: Sub-title: The old man leaves with his sole possessions in the old trunk Exterior of house – road: Horse and carriage in foreground Sub-title: They take him in to avoid scandal Room: Girl opening door – lady sitting near table – boy and girl reading – girl sitting on steps Sub-title: “Granddad can wait” Dining-room: Family about to sit down to dinner Kitchen: Girl in doorway, entering kitchen Dining-room: Family at dinner, old man standing near-by Kitchen: Girl at stove, opening oven door Dining-room: Family at dinner Kitchen: Man sitting in foreground – girl in background Dining-room: Family at dinner Kitchen: Old man sitting in foreground, girl talking to him Dining-room: Family at dinner Kitchen: Man sitting in foreground – girl standing near-by Dining-room: Family at dinner Kitchen: Old man sitting in foreground, girl standing near him, holding pie Dining-room: Family at dinner Sub-title: Satisfied Dining-room: Family finished eating, leaving table Sub-title: Their turn Dining-room: Lady walking toward kitchen, old man entering room – girl at table Insert: Table – old man and girl at table – empty dishes Dining-room: Old man and girl at table Sub-title: “Come, get to work” Kitchen: Exterior of house: Lady standing near house, old man coming down steps Kitchen: Girl washing dishes Farm: Lady talking to old man Kitchen: Girl washing dishes Farm: Old man working on farm – lady standing near him Kitchen: Girl sweeping Farm: Old man working on farm

Farm: Farm: Girl and old man working on farm Farm: Lady standing in foreground Sub-title: “Carry this in” Farm: Old man and girl working – girl and boy walking toward them Kitchen: Sub-title: The last straw Dining- room: Family leaving table Bedroom: Old man coming upstairs Room: Man entering room Dining-room: Girl standing at foot of stairs Bedroom: Girl coming up stairs Room: Man sitting in foreground Bedroom: Girl standing near door Room: Old man sitting in foreground Bedroom: Girl standing near door Room: Old man sitting in foreground, girl entering room Sub-title: They run away Room: Old man and girl standing in foreground, talking Exterior of house – side view Room: Old man and girl standing at window Kitchen: Lady sitting in foreground, sleeping Bedroom: Old man and girl coming out of other room, walking toward stairs Dining-room: Exterior of house: Exterior of house – side view: Trunk on ground Insert: Trunk, girl taking things from trunk Exterior of house – side view: Girl taking things from trunk, old man standing near-by Dining-room: Road: Old man and girl coming across road Dining-room: Lady standing near table Sub-title: Next morning – The old home to be sold, he comes to take a last view of it Exterior of house: Exterior of house: Old man and girl sitting near house Exterior of house: Several people standing around auctioneer Exterior of house: Old man and girl standing near house Exterior of house: Several people standing around auctioneer Sub-title: Later – Smiling Visitors Exterior of house:

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Room: Old man sitting at table in foreground, girl standing in background Exterior of house: Room: Old man sitting at table in foreground – girl standing near-by Trade-mark: [AB logo] Cutting continuity, Copyright Descriptive Material, Library of Congress, March 10, 1913, LU456

441 THE NEW YORK HAT Eagle Title: The New York Hat Sub-title: A dying mother’s strange trust Room: Woman in bed; man and woman standing behind bed; man and girl standing alongside of bed Sub-title: The bequest Room – minister’s study Letter: My Beloved Pastor: My husband worked me to death, but I have managed to save a little sum. Take it and from time to time buy my daughter the bits of finery she has always been denied. Let no one know. Mary Harding Sub-title: Afterwards – “Daddy, can’t I have a new hat?” Man sitting at table – girl standing a short distance from him Room: Girl looking in mirror Room: Man sitting at table – girl talking to him Room: Girl looking in mirror Exterior of house – fence – gate: Exterior – Man in distance, walking down street Sub-title: The village sensation Store: Interior: Women in store – woman in foreground, looking at hat Exterior of house: Man standing on porch Interior of store: Woman in foreground with hat in her hand – other women in store Exterior of store – the show window Exterior of store: Three girls standing in front of store window Exterior of store: Girl and minister looking in window Sub-title: The minister recalls his trust Exterior of store: Minister looking in window Interior of store: Several women in store

Exterior of store: Window: Woman taking hat from window Interior of store: Several women in store – minister standing in foreground Room: Interior of store: Several women in store – minister leaving with hat-box in his hand Exterior of store: Sub-title: The gossips speculate Interior of store: Several women in store, looking toward door Room: Girl sitting in chair near table, asleep Exterior of house – fence – gate: Room: Girl taking cover from hat-box Exterior of house – porch Room: Girl putting hat on Sub-title: Sunday morning – She attempts to explain Room: Man with hat in hand, walking toward door Exterior of house – fence – gate: Man coming out of gate Room: Girl standing before mirror, putting on hat Exterior of house – fence – gate: Street: People walking down street Exterior of church: Several people entering church – others standing near church Sub-title: After church – Mary and the minister linked in a scandal Exterior of church: Several people coming out of church Sub-title: The gossip reaches the father Exterior of house – street: Man walking down street Exterior of church: Minister leaving church Room: Exterior of house – fence – gate: Girl entering gate Room: Man sitting in chair Sub-title: He seeks reparation from the minister Exterior of house – fence – gate: Room: Girl standing near chair Exterior of house – fence – gate: Street: People walking down street Exterior – fence: Sub-title: The church board investigates Exterior: Several people talking Exterior – fence: Girl standing near fence

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Exterior – Several people standing in foreground Exterior – fence: Girl standing near fence Exterior of church: Man leaving church Exterior – fence: Several people standing in foreground, talking Exterior of house – porch: Girl at door Minister’s study: Minister sitting near table, reading Exterior of house – porch: Minister’s study: Minister bending over girl, talking to her. Exterior of house – porch: Several people on porch Minister’s study: Minister talking to girl Exterior of house – porch: Minister’s study: Minister, girl and several other people in room Letter: My Beloved Pastor: My husband worked me to death, but I have managed to save a little sum. Take it, and from time to time buy my daughter the bits of finery she has always been denied. Let no one know. Mary Harding. Exterior of house – porch: Several people on porch Sub-title: An unexpected trust Minister’s study: Minister talking to girl – her father standing nearby Trade-mark: [AB logo] Cutting continuity, Copyright Descriptive Material, Library of Congress, December 5, 1912, LU151

442 MY HERO Eagle Title: My Hero A Modern Version of “Babes In the Wood” Sub-title: The torture – Strong in mind, but weak in body, Indian Charlie fails in the test of the hero Exterior: Several Indians torturing one of their tribe Exterior: River in background – trees in foreground Indian village: Several Indians in foreground – tepees in background Sub-title: He swears to redeem his honor through war

Exterior: River in background – Indian standing in foreground, looking off Sub-title: At the nearby settlement – Love and stern parents Interior of cabin: Girl standing near table Interior of cabin: Two men in foreground drinking – boy with arms full of wood Exterior of cabin: Boy standing near cabin Village: Woman walking in background Interior of cabin: Girl sitting in cabin Settlement: Boy at cabin door – people in background Interior of cabin: Girl standing in cabin looking toward door Settlement: Boy standing near cabin – girl opening cabin door Interior of cabin: Settlement: Girl and boy embracing Exterior: Indian standing in foreground Sub-title: Indian Charlie befriended Exterior of cabin: Interior of cabin: Two men talking – boy entering Exterior of cabin: Indian standing near cabin Exterior of cabin – insert: Indian and boy talking Exterior of cabin: Indian and boy looking off Interior of cabin: Man sitting at table – another man standing near him Sub-title: To fulfill his oath Indian Charlie incites a massacre Indian village: Indians standing in foreground Interior of cabin: Lady offering girl sandwich Indian village: Indians in foreground talking Interior of cabin: Man talking to girl Interior of cabin: Three men standing in cabin Exterior of cabin: Boy standing near cabin door Sub-title: Tired of his fancied wrongs, the boy determines to leave the settlement Exterior of cabin: Interior of cabin: Man sitting in cabin, asleep – girl sitting in cabin, dozing Exterior of cabin: Boy standing at door Interior of cabin: Man asleep in cabin – girl standing near him Exterior of cabin: boy standing near cabin Interior of cabin: Man asleep in cabin Sub-title: Charlie’s redemption begins Exterior: Interior of cabin: Man tied to column in center of room – girl and boy in corner of room

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Exterior of cabin: Boy and girl coming out of cabin Interior of cabin: Man tied to column in center of room – woman standing near him Exterior: Fighting in background Exterior: Indians massacring whites Exterior: Fighting in background Exterior: Indians massacring whites Exterior: Girl and boy walking along road Sub-title: Indian Charlie separates the party Exterior: Several Indians in foreground Interior of cabin: Man talking to woman Exterior of cabin: Man coming out of door Exterior: Indians standing in foreground – dead bodies on ground Interior of cabin: Two men sitting in cabin Exterior of cabin: Sub-title: The warning – The quarrel is forgotten in thoughts of the children’s safety Exterior of cabin: Interior of cabin: Three men in foreground talking – man standing behind them Settlement: Man standing in foreground calling to men who are running toward him Exterior – water-falls in background: Exterior – river in background: Indians crawling up bank Exterior: Girl and boy coming on scene Exterior: Several Indians standing near trees – one Indian pointing off Cliffs: Girl and boy climbing cliffs Exterior – water-falls in background: Indian coming on scene Exterior – cliffs: Cliffs: Indians climbing cliffs Exterior – river in background: Several men coming along road Exterior: Log on ground in foreground Exterior – cliffs: Exterior – tree in foreground Exterior: Indian crawling through grass Exterior: Tree in foreground: Girl and boy coming on Exterior: Indians coming on scene Exterior; [sic] Tree in foreground: Girl and boy hiding from Indians Exterior: Indians in foreground Exterior: Tree in foreground: Girl and boy hiding behind tree

Exterior: Exterior – woods: Exterior: Men walking through grass Sub-title: Charlie rejoins the party Exterior: Indians walking through grass Exterior – tree in foreground: Exterior: Indians in foreground – looking off Exterior: Tree in foreground: Several Indians – they have captured the girl and boy Exterior: Men walking through grass – guns in their hands Exterior – tree in foreground: Girl and boy at foot of tree, asleep Sub-title: Home Again – “My Hero” Settlement: People walking about Interior of cabin: Woman in doorway Trade-mark: [AB logo] Cutting continuity, Copyright Descriptive Material, Library of Congress, December 10, 1912, LU162

443 THE BURGLAR’S DILEMMA Eagle Title: The Burglar’s Dilemma – The Abuse of the Third Degree Sub-title: The Phenomenal Success of the Brother’s Play Arouses the Other’s Jealousy Room: Two brothers sitting in room Sub-title: The young author’s friends pay tribute Room: Man standing in room Room: One man reading newspaper – the other man with book in his hand – man standing in doorway Room: Three ladies in room, reading paper Room: Man with paper in his hand, another man talking to him – another man sitting near them with book in his hand Room: Three ladies in room, looking toward door Room: Man sitting with book in hand – man standing near him – man standing near door, lady entering room Room: Man holding door open – lady in doorway Sub-title: Ostracized Room: Man standing in room Room: Man in background – three ladies and gentleman drinking

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Room: Man standing near door Room: Several people drinking Room: Man sitting in chair Room: Several people drinking Room: Man standing near door Room: Several people in room, talking, etc. Room: Man sitting in room Room: Room: Two men sitting in room Exterior of house: Sub-title: In the shadows – The burglar’s unwilling tool Room: Young man sitting near table Exterior of house – steps: Room: Two men sitting in room Exterior of house: Room: Man on floor – another man bending over him Exterior of house: Room: Man on flo[o]r – another man bending over him Room: Man in doorway Exterior of house: Two men standing near house Room: Man in room, closing door Room: Man on floor Room: Man standing near curtains Exterior of house: Room: Man on floor – young man in background Exterior – street: Policeman crossing street Room: Man on floor – young man standing near bookcase Exterior – street: Man standing in street – policeman standing near curb Room: Man on floor – young man near him Room: Man on floor – young man turning on light Exterior of house: Room: Man on floor – young man standing near door Room: Man standing in room Room: Man on floor – young man standing near table Room: Man standing in room Room: Man on floor – Young man climbing on bookcase – policeman in doorway Room – door open Room: Man on floor – policeman and young man standing nearby – man sitting near table

Room: Policeman telephoning Sub-title: Held on circumstantial evidence Room: Man on floor – policeman and young man standing nearby – man sitting at table Exterior of house: Room: Room: Man on floor – policeman and young man standing nearby – man sitting at table – policeman in doorway Room: Detective bringing young man into room Room: Man on floor – policeman standing near him – man standing near table Sub-title: Under the third degree Room: Detectives talking to young man – man in doorway entering room Room: Man on floor – policeman standing nearby – man entering room Room: Man sitting in room Room: Man on floor: Detective and policeman with young man bending over body on floor – another policeman and detective nearby Room: Man standing in room Room: Man on floor – young man bending over body – policeman and detective holding him – another policeman and detective standing nearby Room: Man standing in room – man pushing young man into room Room: Man on floor – two policemen standing nearby – man in doorway Room: Man standing in room – two detectives putting young man under third degree Room: Man on floor – doctor and two policemen working over him Room: Two detectives putting young man under third degree Room: Man standing in room Room: Two detectives putting young man under third degree Room: Man standing in room Room: Detectives putting young man under third degree Room: Man standing in room Room: Detectives putting young man under third degree – man standing in background Exterior of house: Room: Two men standing in room Room: Man entering room Room: Man standing in doorway

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Room: Man sitting at table – man in doorway Sub-title: Later – The power broken Exterior of building: Trade-mark: [AB logo] Cutting continuity, Copyright Descriptive Material, Library of Congress, December 13, 1912, LU169

444 A CRY FOR HELP Eagle title: A Cry for Help Sub-title: The young graduate physician loses his charity patient Room: Woman lying in bed, sick – man standing near bed Sub-title: A sport of circumstance – Held up as an evil example Exterior – park: Tramp sitting on bench in foreground Exterior – park: Several people standing in park Exterior – park: Vacant bench in foreground – people sitting on bench in background – people standing near fence in background Sub-title: After the funeral – The ungrateful husband blames his poverty for the physician’s apparent neglect Bedroom: Sub-title: A round of charity patients Hallway: Man coming down stairs Exterior of house: steps leading to door Sub-title: All roads the same Exterior – house in background Exterior – street: Man walking along street Sub-title: Crazed by his fancied wrongs Bedroom: Man sitting in room Bedroom: Exterior of house: Sub-title: Another patient gratis Exterior of house – steps leading to door Hallway: Head of stairs: Maid coming up stairs Room: Maid opening door Sub-title: Gratitude – “I wish I could stay forever” Room: Man sitting on chair – another man standing near him Exterior of house – steps leading to door

Hallway: Maid coming down stairs Exterior of house: Man standing at door Hallway: Head of stairway: Maid coming up stairs Room: Man at table in foreground, […] and maid standing in background – man standing in doorway Room: Maid opening door Room: Man sitting at table in foreground – man standing in background Room: Man sitting on chair near door Insert: Man near door with revolver in his hand Room: Two men talking in foreground – maid standing in background Insert: Man near door with revolver in his hand Room: Man in foreground – man standing in doorway Insert: Man at door, about to shoot Room: Two men shaking hands Room: Man sitting on chair near door Hallway: Maid coming down stairs Room: Man standing in foreground – man in doorway in background Hallway: Man and maid standing at foot of stairs Exterior of house: steps leading to door Room: Two men standing in foreground talking Head of stairway: Maid coming out of room going toward stairs Room: Two men struggling Exterior of house: Man going down steps Hallway: Maid coming down stairs Room: Two men struggling Exterior of house: Man standing at door Room: Two men struggling Room: Man coming into room Room: Man in room, going toward adjoining room Room: Man leading against door Exterior of house: Man at door Room: Man leading against door Exterior of house – side view: Room: Man at window Exterior of house – side view: Man at window – another man standing on ground below window Room: Man standing in room Room: Man at window Room: Man in room going toward adjoining room Room: Man leaning against door

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Exterior of house: Man about to place ladder against house Exterior of house – gate, stone wall: Policeman coming along street on horseback […] Gate – stone wall: Policeman on horseback Room: Man forcing door Room: Man leaning against door Sub-title: A Tramp’s word Exterior of house: Man climbing ladder which has been placed against side of house Room: Man forcing door Room: Man leaning against door Room: Man forcing door Room: Man leaning against door Exterior: Room: Two men struggling Hallway: Maid lying on stairs in faint Exterior of house: steps leading to door: Hallway: Maid telephoning Exterior of house: Policeman at door Hallway: Head of stairway: Policeman coming up stairs Room: Policeman entering room Room: Two holding another man – policeman in doorway Subtitle: Afterwards – Circumstances alter cases Exterior of house – grounds: Gardener at work Trade-mark: [AB logo] Cutting continuity, Copyright Descriptive Material, Library of Congress, December 18, 1912, LU185

445 THE GOD WITHIN Eagle Title: The God Within Sub-title: The Promise Exterior: Girl and man talking Sub-title: Afterwards – Deserted – The sad result of a broken promise Village: Several men sitting around on barrels, etc. Cliffs: Village: Several people in background; man sitting on barrel in foreground; another man standing in foreground Exterior of shack: Man in doorway – woman passing

Bedroom: Lady opening door – lady in doorway Sub-title: The wife – Called “The Saint” of the mining-camp Village: Men sitting outside of house – other people in background Saloon: Men drinking Bedroom: Lady sitting on chair Exterior of house: Men standing in doorway – man knocking at door Bedroom: Lady sitting on chair – man entering room Sub-title: The man stills the god within Exterior of house: Men standing in doorway; Man coming out of house Village: Several men sitting on stoop – people in background Bedroom: Woman standing in room, looking toward door Exterior of shack: Bedroom: Man entering Sub-title: He tries to forget in other parts Village – exterior of houses: Men sitting in foreground – others in background Interior of saloon: Several men in saloon – man entering Sub-title: Later – A little life never to be lived Bedroom: Woman in bed – man and woman standing in room, talking Exterior – village: Several men sitting on stoop – people in background Exterior of shack: Bedroom: Woman lying in bed – another woman standing in room Exterior of shack: Man coming out of shack Sub-title: A motherless baby Bedroom: Woman and baby lying in bed Exterior of shack: Man coming out of shack Village: Men sitting on stoop – man sitting on barrel – several people in background Bedroom: Woman and baby in bed – man kneeling at bedside Sub-title: No sustenance in the camp, the doctor decides to save the baby Village: Men sitting on stoop – man sitting on barrel – men walking down street Exterior of shack: [...] Bedroom: Woman and baby in bed – man kneeling near bed – man entering room.

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Bedroom: Woman lying in bed – another woman standing in room Bedroom: Woman and baby in bed – two men standing in room talking Village: Men sitting on stoop – man sitting on barrel – people in background Exterior of house – the saloon: Men in saloon Bedroom: Woman opening door – man entering with baby in his arms – woman in bed Sub-title: The baby awakens the sleeping god within the woman’s breast Bedroom: Woman and baby lying in bed – man standing near bed Interior of saloon: Several men at table playing cards Sub-title: Afterwards – The baby’s surroundings distress the father Exterior of house – saloon: Man playing banjo – men dancing Bedroom: Woman standing in background – woman sitting in foreground with baby on her lap – man entering room Exterior of house – saloon: Men in saloon dancing, etc. – Man coming out of house. Sub-title: For the sake of the child, she consents to go to the father’s home Bedroom: Woman in background – woman sitting in foreground with baby on her lap – man entering room Exterior of house – saloon: Men in saloon – man coming out of house Village – exterior of house: Several men standing in foreground, talking Exterior of shack: Interior of shack: Man holding door open, woman entering Exterior of shack: Man coming out of shack Interior of shack: Woman sitting in chair, baby in her lap Sub-title: The god awakened Interior of saloon: Man standing in foreground – several other men in saloon Village – exterior of houses: Man sitting in foreground – several people in background Sub-title: The return Village – exterior of house: Men sitting on stoop – people in background Saloon – exterior of house: Men in saloon Bedroom: Woman standing in room – man

closing door Exterior of house – saloon: Men in saloon – man coming out of house Village – exterior of house: Men sitting on stoop – people in background Exterior of shack: [...] Sub-title: The eternal lullaby – Controlled in full by the god within Interior of shack: Woman sitting on chair with baby in her lap Exterior of shack: Man standing near door of shack Interior of shack: Woman sitting on chair with baby on her lap – man entering room Exterior of shack: Man walking toward shack Interior of shack: Woman sitting on chair with baby on her lap – man talking to her – man standing behind them Exterior of shack: Several men standing near shack Interior of shack: Woman sitting on chair with baby in her lap – two men standing nearby Trademark: [AB logo] Cutting continuity, Copyright Descriptive Material, Library of Congress, December 21, 1912, LU191

446 THREE FRIENDS Eagle Title: Three Friends Sub-title: The friends at the factory Interior of shoe factory: Men at work Exterior of factory-gate: Men coming out of factory Exterior of cafe: Man sitting on bench Sub-title: Bachelors – They swear never to separate Interior of cafe: Men standing at bar – man standing near table Sub-title: The usurper Exterior of cafe: Exterior of house – fence: Two girls standing at gate Sub-title: The next night – meeti[n]g time Exterior of cafe: Man sitting on bench Interior of cafe: Two men standing at bar – man entering – waiter standing near bar

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Exterior of house – fence: Bridge – river: Interior of cafe: Two men at table – several men near bar Bridge – river: Man and girl standing on bridge Interior of cafe: Two men at table – men standing at bar Canal: [...]: Two men at table – men standing at bar Exterior of cafe: Man coming out of cafe – man s[i]tting on bench Exterior – bridge in distance: Girl and man talking Sub-title: A break in the bachelors’ club Exterior of house – fence: Sub-title: After the wedding. His two friends depart for another shop Interior of shoe factory: Men at work Exterior of factory – gate: Two men coming out with suit cases – two men driving horse and cart in background Sub-title: Some time later – The Baby Room: Lady and man talking to baby Road – gate – fence: Room: Lady talking to baby Sub-title: The breach widened – Returning as foreman, [...] is further incensed at his new happiness Interior of shoe factory: Men and girls at work Road – gate – fence: Room: Lady standing in room Road – gate – fence: Sub-title: Seeking another job Interior of factory: Men at work Interior of factory: Men at work Interior of factory: Men at work – man in foreground telephoning – another man standi[n]g near him Interior of factory: Men at work – man in foreground telephoning Interior of factory: Men at work – man in foreground telephoning – man standing near him Exterior of factory – sign on door – “Man wanted” Road – gate – fence: Room: Lady standing at table Sub-title: Later – desperate straits Room:

Room: Lady standing in room Exterior of cafe: Man on bench Interior of cafe: Two men standing at bar – man leaning on table Exterior of cafe: Man on bench Interior of cafe: Two men standing at table – men standing at bar Room: Sub-title: All doors closed, they decide to go the long road together [...] [“...] [J]im [fired him”] Interior of cafe: Two men sitting at table, man standing near table talking to them – men standing at bar Room: Man standing in room Interior of cafe: Two men standing at table talking – two men standing at bar Exterior of cafe: Man sitting on bench Roo[m]: Man standing in room Street: Two men walking along street Room: Man and woman standing in room [Interior of factory]: [...] Sub-title: Reorganized Room: Man sitting near table with baby on his lap – woman standing behind him – two other men standing near table Trade-mark: [AB logo] Cutting continuity, Copyright Descriptive Material, Library of Congress, December 27, 1912, LP218

447 THE TELEPHONE GIRL AND THE LADY Eagle Title: The Telephone Girl and the Lady Sub-title: The lady Room: Telephone in foreground Letter: JULIUS JORGENSON & SON Jewelers & Silversmiths New York, N.Y. Mrs. Alfred S. Van Marsh, Homestead Villa, Beachwood, L.I. Dear Madam: The jewels left for resetting are waiti[n]g your convenience. Will you kindly call at o[u]r warerooms. JULIUS JO[R]GENSON & SON [...]. -K. F.J.[...]. Sub-title: T[he] Girl – At t[h]e c[e]ntral of[f]ice

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Central office: [G]irl at switc[h]board Room: Lady standing near tel[e]phone Central Office: Two girls a[t] switc[h]board Room: Lady telephoning Central office: Two girls at switchboard Jewelry store: Men behind counters – customers in st[o]re Room: Lady telephoning Jewelry store: Men behind counters – customer in store – man in foreground telephoning Room: Lady standing in room – telephone in her hand Hallway: Lady in doorway Exterior of [h]ouse: Automobile at curb – chauffeur in car Sub-title: [N]oon hour – T[h]inkin[g] of the store, the father favors [th]e groceryman’s [su]it Street: Two men in foreground, talking – others in backgroun[d] [S]ub-title: [B]ut the [g]irl, [th]e sergeant on the beat Central office: Girl a[t] [s]witchboard Exterior of [c]entral office: Street – exterior of house: Kitchen: Girl standing near table Street – exterior of house: Kitchen; Two men […] Street – exterior of house: Sub-title: Coveting the store for his daughter, the father is insistent Kitchen: Man talkin[g] to girl Street – exterior of store: M[a]n standing on sidewalk – Two men standing in front of store [E]xteri[o]r of jewelry store: Man looking in window Sub-title: Watchful eyes Exterior of jewelry store: [M]an looking in window Interior of jewelry store: Men behind counters – customer[s] in store Exterior of jewelry store: Man looking in window Interior of jewelry store: Men behind counters – lady in store Exterior of jewelry store: Man looking in window Exterior of jewelry store: Automobile at curb – chauffeur in car; lady walking toward automobile Exterior of jewelry store: Boy placing bicycle against side of house

Exterior of jewelry store: Man walking along sidewalk Exterior of jewelry s[t]ore: Kitchen: Man and two girls sitting at table Street – exterior of house: Exterior – street: [H]ouse in background – people walkin[g] alon[g] street – two men d[r]iving horse and wagon Street: Lady getting out of au[t]omobile – man walking toward her Exterior of central office: Interior of central office: Girl at switchboard Street: Groceryman taking lady’s order – people in background Street: House in background – automobile going down street S[tree]t: Exterior of house: Exterior of house: Exterior of house: Automobile at curb – chauffe[u]r in car Exterior of house: Man standing near tree, holding bicycle Room: Telephone in for[e]ground Sub-title: The [g]ift Room: Lady with package and letter in her hand, talking to maid Central office: Girl at switchboard, another girl takin[g] off her hat Exterior of house: Automobile at curb – chauffeur in car Room: Lady standing near telephone Exterior of house: Girl and man talking Street: Man standing on sidewal[k][…] Central Office: Girl at switchboard Hallway: Masked man standing in hall Central office: Girl at switchboard Letter: HOMESTEAD VILLA Beachwood, [L].I. My dear Miss [H]armon: I am asking you to accept this token in appreciation of your promptness and painstaking efforts to please. Sincerely, Mrs. Alfred S. Van Marsh Room: Lady sitting near telephone, reading Central office: Girl at switchboard – looking at piece of jewelry Insert: Hand holding jewel case – showing necklace

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Interior of central office: Girl at switchboard, looking at necklace Room: Lady telephoning [Interior of central] office: Girl at switchboard, looking at necklace Room: Lady telephoning Interior of central office: Girl looking at necklace Room: Lady at telephone – burglar entering room I[n]terior of central office: Girl looking at necklace Room: Lady standin[g] in foreground – burglar near her Interior of central office: Girl at switchboard Room: Lady telephoning – burglar standing near her Interior of central office: Girl at switchboard Room: Lady standing in room, burglar near her Interior of central office: Girl at switchboard Sub-title: “Where Are the Jewels?” Room: Lady sitting in chair, burglar near her Interior of central office: Girl at switchboard Police station: Man behind desk – policeman standing near desk Interior of central office: Girl at switchboard Police station: Man behind desk, telephoning; policeman standing at desk Interior of central office: Girl at switchboard Sub-title: The riot call prevents an answer Police station: Man behind desk – several men in room Interior of central office: Girl at switchboard Exterior of central office Street: Exterior of central office: Girl calling to some one in distance Street: Policeman on horseback Room: Lady in chair – burglar standing over her Street: Girl and policeman on horseback Room: Burglar talking to lady Street: Girl and policeman on horseback coming down street Street: Girl and policeman on horseback coming down street Room: Burglar talking to lady Street – exterior of building Room: Lady in chair – burglar standing near her Street: Girl and policeman on horseback

Room: Burglar in foreground – lady in background Road: Girl and policeman on horseback Room: Lady in fore[ground –] […] Street: Man and lady on sidewalk – girl and policeman on horseback Room: Lady sitting in foreground – burglar standing near her Hallway: Burglar coming out of room Room: Lady standing near door Hallway: Policeman and burglar struggling – girl entering Sub-title: Another gift Street: Lady and groceryman, girl a[n]d policeman in foreground – other people in background Trade-mark: [AB logo] Cutting continuity, Copyright Descriptive Material, Library of Congress, January 3, 1913, LU240

448 OIL AND WATER Eagle Title: Oil and Water Sub-title: The staid young idealist – Off for the passing show Room: Man sitting in room, reading Exterior of house: Automobile at door Sub-title: At the theater – The public’s new sensation Interior of theater: People in seats – man coming down aisle Insert of Program: For this season’s Offering The Management of The Olympic Theater Presents Mlle. Genova in The Dance of the Fleeting Hours (A Dramatic Symbolism) Interior of theater – the stage: The Stage: Dancer sitting in chair – another dancer standing before her Stage: Dance in progress Stage: Dancer sit[t]ing in chair Stage: Dance in progress Stage: Dancer sitting in chair Insert of program: Stage: Dance in progress Insert of program:

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Stage: Dancer sitting in chair Insert of hour glass: Stage: Dancer sitting in chair Interior of theater: Audience in seats Stage: Dancer sitting in chair Interior of theater: Audience viewing dance Stage: Dancer sitting in chair Insert of program: Stage: Dance in progress Stage: Dancer sitting in chair Stage: Dance in progress Insert of program: Stage: Dancer sitting in chair – “Old Age” standing beside her Stage: Dance in progress Stage: Dancer sitting in chair – “Old Age” standing nearby Insert of hour glass[:] Stage: Dancer sitting in chair – “Old Age” standing nearby Insert of program: Stage: Dance in progress Stage: Dancer in chair – “Old Age” standing nearby Stage: Dance in progress Stage: Dancer si[tting] [...] [O]ld Age” standing nearby Stage: Dance in progress Stage: Dancer sitting in chair – “Old Age” standing nearby Interior of theater: Audience viewing dance Stage: Dance in progress Stage: Dancer sitting in chair – “Old Age” standing nearby Interior of theater: Audience viewing dance Stage: Dancer sitting in chair – “Old Age” standing nearby Stage: Dance in progress Insert of program: Stage: Dancer sitting in chair – “Old Age” standing nearby Stage: Dance in progress Stage: Dancer sitting in chair – “Old Age” nearby Stage: Dance in [...] Stage: Dancer sitting in chair – “Old Age” nearby Stage: Dance in progress Stage: Dancer sitting in chair – “Old Age” nearby Stage: Dance in progress Interior of theater: Audience viewing dance

Insert of program: Stage: Dancers lying on floor – man standing in center Interior of theater: Audience viewing dance Sub-title: After the performance – A good actress on and off Theater – behind the scenes: Several people standing around, talking, etc Sub-title: The proposal – The idealist sees in the dancer the living goddess of the dance Restaurant: Cabaret [perfor]mance in progress Sub-title: His wife Room: Man standing near table Sub-title: As years pass by – Repressed by her surroundings the actress feels the need of the old excitement Room: Hallway: Lady standing in doorway Room: Two men reading Hallway: Room: Two men in room, looking toward door Ro[o]m: Lady in doorway Room: Man standing near door – man standing in foreground looking toward door Room: Lady sitting near table Sub-title: Old associations revived – They talk of the latest dance Hallway: Maid at door – ladies entering Room: Lady sitting in foreground – maid in background – lady entering room Hallway: Room: Three ladies talking, etc. Hallway: Room: Three ladies talking Hallway: Man standing in hallway, looking into room Room: Three ladies dancing – man in doorway Hallway: Lady standing in hallway, laughing – another lady in doorway Room: Man standing in foreground – lady in doorway Sub-title: The Break – The actress surrenders all claims to their child Room: Hallway: Maid and child standing in hallway Room: Man standing in foreground Hallway: Lady kissing child – man in doorway – two maids standing nearby Exterior of house: Automobile in front of door

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Hallway: Lady talking to man – maid standing nearby with baby Room: Man in doorway Sub-title: Once [mor]e the public’s favorite Theater – stage – curtain down: Interior of theater: audience viewing play Stage: Actress in foreground – others in background Theater: Audience viewing play Stage: Stage: Actress in foreground, singing, dancing Interior of theat[er] [...]ewing play Sub-title: Meanwhile Room: Two men reading Stage: Actress in forgeground, singing, dancing Stage: Organ-grinder playing organ – c[ou]ple walks off Room: Man in foreground reading – man with arm about child sitting at table, reading [H]allway: Stage: Organ-grinder playin[g] organ – girl pushing baby carriage – man standing near her Hallway: Exterior of house: Stage: Actress in foreground, singing and dancing Stage: Organ-grinder playing organ – man standing in foreground, another man behind him – girl in background [...] [coming down street] Stage: Organ-grinder playing organ – other men on stage Interior of theater: Audience viewing play Stage: Organ-grinder playing organ – man dancing Street: Child running Room: Two men reading Theater – behind the scenes Exterior of theater: Man talking to girl – man sitting on steps – people coming out Exterior of building – street: Exterior of building Room: Two men reading Hallway: Bedroom: Hal[lway]: Room: Lady in doorway Bedroom: Hallway: Man and lady in hallway

Sub-title: “My ways are not your ways” [...] [child – man in door][...]y Hallway: Man and lady standing in hallway – lady in doorway Exterior of [h]ouse: Lady on porch Room: Child standing on chair – man standing in room Restaurant: Lady and gentleman at table – men in room Sub-title: Oil and water – Each in its own element Room: Lady, gentleman, child, and maid listening to gentleman who is reading to them Stage: Dance in progress Stage: Actress in foreground, dancing and singing Interior of theater: Audience viewing play Stage: Actress in foreground, singing and dancing Room: Lady, gentleman, child and maid listening to gentleman who is reading to them Trade-mark: [AB logo] Cutting continuity, Copyright Descriptive Material, Library of Congress, January 31, 1913, LU329

449 AN ADVENTURE IN THE AUTUMN WOODS Eagle Title: An adventure in the Autumn woods Sub-title: Summoned on a business deal, granddad promises the girl the money he make make [sic] Interior of cabin: Old man reading letter – another man sitting on chair nearby Exterior of cabin: Old man talking to girl Interior of cabin: Man si[tt]ing at table Sub-title: At the trading post Trading post: [...] [s]everal men in bac[kground] Interior of cabin: Man lighting pipe Exterior of cabin: Girl in doorway Woods: Woods: Woods: Bear in foreground Woods: River in background Sub-title: A reason for granddad’s promise Woods:

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Woods: Girl running Woods: Man on with gun Woods: Girl standing near tree Woods: [...] Woods: Girl standing near tree Woods: Man on, looking off Woods: Girl hiding behind tree Exterior of cabin: Interior of cabin: Man smoking – girl in doorway Sub-title: Watchful eyes – Granddad completes the deal Exterior of building: Two men in foreground – the other men in background Sub-title: Intercepted Woods: Large tree in foreground Interior of cabin: Man smoking, girl talking to him Woods: Two men attacking old man Sub-title: [...] Interior of cabin: Man smoking – girl standing near him Exterior of cabin: Man standing near cabin Woods: Woods: Man on ground Sub-title: For the girl’s sake, granddad makes a desperate effort to recover the gold Woods: Two men on ground asleep Woods: Woods: Woods: (Insert) Tops of trees Woods: Man with gun in his hand, girl near him, looking off (Insert) Tops of trees Woods: Woods: Man with gun in his hand, girl standing near him, pointing off Woods: Girl coming on scene Woods: Man in foreground, looking off Woods: Old man walking through woods Woods: Man and girl talking Woods: Old man on ground Woods: Man and girl talking Woods: Old man on ground Woods: Two men on ground asleep Sub-title: Tracked Woods: Exterior of cabin: Interior of cabin: Man in doorway, carrying old man

Woods: Two men in distance Interior of cabin: Old man in bed – girl and man standing over him Sub-title: Off for the doctor – As [a] caution the father takes the gold Exterior of cabin: Man in doorway, gun in his hand Interior of cabin: Old man in bed – girl closing door Woods: Interior of cabin: Old man in bed, girl standing over him Sub-title: Later – The girl confides in the strangers Exterior of cabin: Interior of cabin: Old man in bed – girl near him – two men entering cabin Exterior of cabin: Girl coming out of cabin, bucket in her hand Interior of cabin: Old man in bed – man standing near him Exterior of cabin: Sub-title: Learning the father has the gold they wait his return Interior of cabin: Old man in bed – two men standing nearby Interior of cabin: Girl opening door in floor, coming up ladder Interior of cabin: Old man in bed – another man standing at head of bed – the other man standing in room, near door Interior of cabin – upper room: Girl holding trap door, looking down into lower room Interior of ca[bin]: […] in bed – man standing at head [...] other man with gun in hand, about to strike [...] Interior of cabin: Upper room: Girl looking through trap door down into lower room Interior of cabin: Old [...] [t]wo men standing nearby Interior of cabin – upper room: Girl sitting on floor Interior of cabin: Old man in bed – man sitting in chair at head of bed – the other man sitting near bed Interior of cabin – upper room: Girl looking through trap door into lower room Woods – river in background Interior of cabin – upper room: Girl sitting on floor

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Exterior of cabin: Girl climbing out of window Sub-title: The doctor called away Exterior of building – road: Man walking down road Woods: Exterior of building – road: Man walking down road in distance Interior of cabin: Old man in bed – man sitting a head of bed – another man sitting near table Woods: Woods – river in background: Men on ground, asleep Woods: Girl in background, running Woods: Men on ground, asleep – one man sitting up, listening Woods: Large tree in foreground Woods: Two men getting up from ground Woods: Girl standing near tree – calling Woods: Two men in foreground, calling Woods: Girl standing near tree, calling Woods: Three men going through woods Exterior of cabin: Sub-title: A delicate situation Interior of cabin: Old man in bed – man sitting at head of bed – another man sitting at table Woods: Interior of cabin: Old man in bed – two men standing nearby Insert: Man sitting at head of bed – man on floor Insert: Two men lying on floor Insert: Man sitting at head of bed – his hand to his chin Insert: Two men lying on floor Insert: Man sitting at head of bed – looking toward floor Insert: Two men on floor Insert: Man sitting at head of bed – his hand to his chin Insert: Two men lying on floor Insert: Man sitting at head of bed, his hand to his chin Woods: Men coming through woods Insert: Man sitting at head of bed Insert: Two men on floor Interior of cabin: Old man in bed – man sitting at head of bed – two men lying on floor Exterior of cabin: Woods: Man on, gun in hand

Exterior of cabin: Man in foreground, shooting – other men behind him Woods: Man lying on ground Sub-title: In safe keeping until – Interior of cabin: Three men at table in foreground, counting money – girl and young man in background Trade-mark: [AB logo] Cutting continuity, Copyright Descriptive Material, Library of Congress, January 10, 1913, LU256

450 THE TENDER-HEARTED BOY Eagle Title: The Tender-Hearted Boy Sub-title: The boy promises always to care for his mother Room: Lady and boy drying dishes Sub-title: Neighbors Road: Old man and girl coming down road Room: Lady sitting on boy’s lap, both looking out of window Road: Old man and girl coming down road Room: Lady sitting on boy’s lap, both looking out of window Bedroom: Sub-title: The neighbor journeys on Bedroom: Old man in bed, doctor standing over him – man and girl standing nearby Sub-title: Another home – The boy will give his savings to support the girl Room: Man opening door Sub-title: Later – his last cent for his mother Room: Lady sitting at table, hand to her head – girl standing near window Road: Two children walking do[w]n road Exterior of store: Man looking in window – two men in background Interior of store: Butcher in foreground – boy entering shop – boy behind counter Sub-title: “No credit now, for that customer” Interior of butcher shop: Butcher talking to some one in distance – boy behind counter Exterior of store: Street: Man walking down street Sub-title: The crafty old beggar woman Room: Old woman standing near bed

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Exterior of house: Sub-title: “I’m starvin’, boy” Exterior of house – street: Exterior of house: Old lady walking toward house Exterior of house – street: Boy walking down street Interior of butcher shop: Butcher in foreground – boy waiting on customer at back of store Sub-title: No credit from the butcher and his promised savings with his mother, the boy decides to pay out of his week’s salary Exterior of store – street: Two boys coming down street [Exterior of house – street:...] Room: Old lady sitting near table Exterior of house – street: Sub-title: The next day Room: Lady sweeping – girl standing behind chair Exterior of house – street: Room: Lady with broom in her hand – girl looking out of window Exterior of house – fence: Boy standing at fence Room: Girl looking out of window Sub-title: Another play on his sympathies Exterior of house – street: Exterior of store – stree[t]: Ma[n g]oing down street Interior of butcher shop: Boy [...], butcher talking to him [Exterior of store: ...another...] Sub-title: “No credit in this shop” Interior of butcher shop: Sub-title: At the noon hour he will get the money from his mother Exterior of store: Butcher talking to man Interior of butcher shop: Boy behind counter Exterior of store; [sic] Butcher talking to man Interior of butcher store: Butcher entering, boy talking to him Exterior of house – fence: Old lady walking toward fence Interior of butcher shop: Butcher talking to boy Exterior of butcher shop: Butcher coming out of shop Street: Butcher running [...] who is talking to another man [...]

[...] title: Exterior of house – street: Room: Girl reading Exterior of house – street: Butcher running down the street Room: Boy talking to girl, both looking toward window Interior of closet: Boy entering closet Exterior of house: Butcher pointing toward house, talking to policeman Room: Girl standing in room Interior of closet: Boy in closet Room: Butcher talking to girl Interior of closet: Boy in closet Sub-title: Hearing the st[ory] the mother pays out of the boy’s o[wn sa]vings Room: Butcher talking [...] girl standing nearby Room: Butcher talking to lady – girl standing nearby – boy coming out of closet Exterior of house – fence: Policeman standing near fence Room: Lady standing in room – boy looking out of window – girl looking at him Sub-title: Later Room: Old lady sitting at table Room: Lady standing in foreground, her hand to her head – girl standing near her Room: Old lady at table, reading letter Exterior of house – street: Man walking down street Room: Old lady lying on bed Sub-title: The rent [collector’s discovery] Letter: All my life I have [looked for one] kind heart. I leave all my money to the butcher boy’s mother to make [a man] of [him.] The bank books are under [...]tress. Sarah Hoane Sub-title: The Lesson – Even unintentional wrong causes suffering Room: Boy talking to his [m]oth[e]r – girl standing nearby Exterior of house – street: Policeman and man walking toward house Room: Girl and lady standing in center of room – boy standing near window Interior of closet: Boy entering closet Room: Lady and girl standing in room Interior of closet: Boy in closet Room: Policeman and man talking to girl and lady

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Interior of closet: Boy in closet Room: Policeman and man [talking to girl] and lady Interior of closet: [Boy...] Ro[om:] Man [r]eading letter to girl and lady – policeman standing nearby Interior of closet: Boy coming out of closet Room: Girl and lady talking to policeman and man – boy coming out of closet Letter: All my life I have looked for one kind heart. I leave all my money to the butcher boy’s mother to make a man of him. The bank books are under the head of my mattress. Sarah Hoane Sub-title: Afterwards Street: People in distance coming down street Trade-mark: [AB logo] Cutting continuity, Copyright Descriptive Material, Library of Congress, January 18, 1913, LU285

451 A CHANCE DECEPTION Eagle Title: A Chance Deception Sub-title: The wife dreams of her untold joy. The jealous husband sees only a flirtation Cafe: People at tables Sub-title: While the Raffles sees a necklace Cafe: Two people at table, waiter taking order Cafe: People at tables – lady and gentleman at table in foreground Cafe: Lady and gentleman at table in foreground – lady looking at menu card – man looking off Cafe: People at tables – lady and gentleman at table in foreground Cafe: Lady and gentleman at table in foreground – lady looking at menu card – man looking off Cafe: People at tables – lady and gentleman at table in foreground Cafe: Lady and gentleman at table in foreground – lady and gentleman standing in background Café: People at tables – lady and gentleman at table in foreground

Cafe: Lady and gentleman at table in foreground – waiter serving drinks Cafe: People at tables – lady and gentleman at table in foreground Cafe: Lady and gentleman at table in foreground Cafe: People at tables – lady and gentleman at table in foreground Cafe: People at tables Cafe: Lady and gentleman at table in foreground – people at table in background Cafe: People at tables Exterior of house: Room: Sub-title: The address verified Exterior of house: Sub-title: “Am I too old, dear?” Room: Man sitting in chair – lady standing near him Room: Sub-title: The next night – The wife attempts to tell him of her secret Room: Lady and gentleman standing in room, talking Hallway: Man coming out of door Hallway: Man coming down stairs Exterior of house: Sub-title: The husband refuses to give up his life Room: Lady sitting near table Exterior of house: Room: Lady sitting near table – Exterior of house: Room: Office: Man at desk in foreground – man at desk in background Room: Lady sitting in room – baby’s shirt in her hands Office: Man telephoning – man at desk in background Room: Lady telephoning Office: Man telephoning – man at desk in background Room: Lady telephoning Sub-title: Suspicious of his wife’s unconcern he determines to return Office: Man telephoning – man at desk in background Sub-titled: His suspicions confirmed Exterior of building:

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Street: Houses in distance – man walking along the street Exterior of house: Man entering house Street: Houses in distance – man standing near tree Hallway: Room: Lady standing near door Hallway: Man going up stairs Hallway – head of stairs: Man going up stairs Room: Man entering room Hallway: Room: Man standing in room Hallway: Man standing at foot of stairs Room: Man going through drawer Interior of closet: Man entering closet Room: Hallway: Man going up stairs Room: Lady at door, basket in her hand Interior of closet: Man in closet Hallway: Head of stairs – man coming up stairs Room: Lady standing in room Interior of closet: Man in closet Room: Lady and gentleman in room Sub-title: The Raffle passes as her lover Interior of closet: Man in closet, taking off his hat Room: Lady standing in foreground – man in background looking toward closet – man coming out of closet Hallway: Man coming out of door Street: Houses in distance Exterior of house: Man coming down steps Sub-title: Aphasia – The result of the terrible injustice Room: Lady sitting in chair – man standing near her Hallway: Lady coming out of room Street: Lady standing near tree Hallway: Lady coming down stairs Street: Lady and man standing near tree Exterior of house: Lady coming down steps Street: Lady and man standing near tree, looking off Exterior of house: Lady standing near steps Room: Street: Policeman standing in foreground – lady coming down street Street: Lady walking down street – policeman walking near her

Room: Man standing in foreground, his coat on his arm Police station: Matron at desk, telephoning Room: Man sitting at table in foreground – lady standing near him, her hand on his shoulder Police station: Matron talking to lady, two policemen standing nearby Sub-title: The bound of womanhood – “If our love were [sic] so broken” Room: Man sitting near table – lady sitting on floor near him Room: Man standing in room Police station: Matron talking to lady, doctor nearby – several policemen in room Hallway: Maid standing in hallway Hallway: head of stairs: Maid going down stairs Room: Man sitting in room – man entering room Hallway – head of stairs: Lady in doorway Room: Lady sitting in chair, man talking to her – doctor standing nearby Sub-title: Her desire fulfilled Room: Lady standing near table Trade-mark: [AB logo] Cutting continuity, Copyright Descriptive Material, Library of Congress, February 18, 1913, LU390

452 FATE Eagle Title: Fate Sub-title: The brutal family – Sim Sloane and his beloved son, the reprobates of the village Interior of cabin: Two men talking Sub-title: Granddad’s new supply of powder Interior of shack: Girl in room, bending toward floor Interior of shack: Table in foreground Interior of shack: Girl standing in room, little dog near-by Interior of shack: Old man in foreground, basket in his hand Sub-title: Where love rules Interior of shack: Girl sitting on floor Interior of shack: Man standing at table, basket on table

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Insert of basket: Girl putting dog in basket Interior of shack: Old man and girl standing at table – basket on table Insert of basket: Little dog and kitten in basket Interior of shack: Girl and old man at table – basket on table Exterior of shack: Man walking toward shack Interior of shack: Two men sitting in foreground – man in doorway, entering room Sub-title: Sim goes hunting Exterior of shack: Exterior: Trees in background Interior of cabin: Girl and old man at table – basket on table Exterior of cabin: Girl coming out of cabin Exterior: Man laying in foreground Exterior of shack: Girl standing near shack, looking off Interior of cabin: Man standing at table, looking at contents of basket Exterior: Man lying on ground Exterior of shack: Interior of cabin: Basket containing kitten and puppy in foreground Sub-title: Granddad bids Sim rest awhile Interior of cabin: Man sitting in foreground, another man standing over him – girl standing near-by Exterior of cabin: Man coming out of cabin Sub-title: Sim’s ingratitude Interior of cabin: Man sitting in foreground Exterior of shack: Girl coming out of shack Exterior: Man chopping log Exterior of cabin: Interior of cabin: Man standing in foreground Exterior of shack: Man coming out of shack – men coming in background Interior of shack: Girl standing in room, dog in her arms Sub-title: Sim, the hero Street: Man walking down street Interior of saloon: Several men in saloon, drinking, etc. Exterior of shack: Man coming out of shack Sub-title: Truth will out – Incited by ridicule and drink, Sim swears to get even Exterior of building – road: Several men standing in road, talking, etc. Interior of saloon: Men talking, etc.

Exterior of saloon – road: Several men in road, talking, etc. Sub-title: School Time Interior of cabin: Two girls in room – kitten and puppy on floor Interior of cabin: Little girl walking across room Interior of cabin: Kitten on floor Interior of cabin: Two girls standing near chair – puppy near chair Exterior of cabin: Interior of cabin: Puppy and kitten on floor Exterior of cabin: Man standing near cabin Interior of cabin: Kitten on floor Interior of saloon: Several men in saloon, talking, etc. Sub-title: No one at home, Sim plots his revenge Interior of cabin: Man coming into room Interior of cabin: Man in doorway, entering room Exterior of school house: Several children standing near school house – several children in background Sub-title: The beloved son is hungry Exterior of cabin: Man coming out of cabin Sub-title: No school to-day Exterior of school house: Teacher standing near school house – children standing near him – others in background Interior of cabin: Man in room about to light trail of leaves leading to keg of powder Interior of house: Man standing in doorway Exterior of cabin: Man standing in doorway Interior of cabin: Trail of leaves burning Exterior of cabin: Interior of cabin: Child standing in doorway Insert of burning leaves leading to keg of powder Interior of cabin: Two girls sitting on bench Insert of burning leaves leading to keg of powder Interior of cabin: Two girls sitting on bench Exterior of cabin: Interior of cabin: Two girls on bench, one reading Insert of burning leaves leading to powder Interior of cabin: Two girls sitting on bench – man standing in background Sub-title: The wind of fate

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Insert of burning leaves leading to keg of powder Interior of cabin: Man talking to two girls Exterior of cabin: Two girls coming out of cabin Interior of cabin: Man standing in room Exterior of cabin: Two girls standing near cabin Interior of cabin: Man standing in room, looking toward door Insert of burning leaves leading toward keg of powder Interior of cabin: Man standing in room, looking toward door Insert of burning leaves leading to keg of powder Interior of cabin: Man standing in foreground Insert of burning leaves leading toward keg of powder Interior of cabin: Man sitting in foreground eating Sub-title: Sim’s hour of triumph Exterior – road: Man coming along road Insert of burning leaves leading toward keg of powder Interior of cabin: Man sitting in foreground Exterior – trees in background: Man walking across field Insert of burning leaves leading to keg of powder Interior of cabin: Man sitting in foreground Insert of burning leaves leading to keg of powder Exterior of cabin: Interior of cabin: Man sitting in foreground Interior of cabin: Trail of leaves burning Interior of cabin: Explosion of keg of powder Exterior – trees in background Exterior of cabin: Exterior: Explosion of cabin Exterior – trees in background[:] Two girls walking across field Exterior: Explosion of cabin Exterior: Man standing in foreground Exterior: Two girls standing in foreground Exterior – trees in background Exterior: Man standing in foreground Exterior: Cabin burning Exterior – two girls on ground in foreground Exterior: Cabin burning – man standing near cabin

Exterior: Man standing in foreground Exterior: Cabin burning – man in foreground Sub-title: Fate’s vengeance Exterior: Man lying in foreground Exterior: Cabin burning: Old man and two girls in foreground Exterior: Man lying on ground – another man standing over him Exterior: Cabin burning – Old man and two girls in foreground Trade-mark: [AB logo] Cutting continuity, Copyright Descriptive Material, Library of Congress, March 18, 1913, LP490

453 A FATHER’S LESSON Eagle Title: A Father’s Lesson Sub-title: A household of love – The father goes out for the evening Room: Man standing in background – boy sitting at table reading – lady sitting in chair, little girl talking to her. Exterior of stores: Room: Two children playing with blocks – lady sewing Street: Man picking up tools Room: Boy standing near table – lady sitting in foreground embracing little girl Exterior of store: Exterior of saloon: Room: Lady standing near stove – boy standing near her – girl standing near table Sub-title: A few hours later – His one failing Exterior of saloon: Street: Two boys on ground – horse and wagon in distance Street: Man picking up tools Sub-title: His two natures – A household of fear Room: Lady near stove – two children playing Bedroom: Boy sitting on chair near bed – girl sitting on chair in foreground Room: Lady near stove – man sitting near table Bedroom: Boy sitting on chair near bed – girl sitting on chair in foreground Room: Man sitting at table, reading

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Bedroom: Boy sitting on chest – lady undressing little girl Room: Man sitting at table – shaking fist Sub-title: The sick neighbor Room: Lady sitting in chair – sick, another lady attending her Bedroom: Lady sitting in chair – children at her side saying prayers Room: Man sitting at table, reading Bedroom: Lady sitting in chair – children praying Sub-title: His sleep of more importance – The father refuses to care for the children Room: Man sitting at table Room: Lady in chair – sick Bedroom: Two children standing in bed Room: Man sitting at table, reading Bedroom: Children standing in bed Room: Man sitting at table, reading Room: Children standing in bed Room: Man standing in room, looking toward other room Bedroom: Room: Man sitting near table Bedroom: Little girl in bed – boy standing near door Room: Lady in chair, sick – two ladies attending her Sub-title: A heartless, soldier chieftain Bedroom: Girl sitting on bed – boy standing nearby, sword in hand Room: Man sitting near table Sub-title: “Now, will you marry me?” Bedroom: Boy standing near chest, sword in hand Insert: Interior of chest – little girl in chest Bedroom: Boy standing over chest, listening Insert: Interior of chest – little girl in chest Bedroom: Boy standing over chest, listening Insert: Interior of chest – little girl in chest Bedroom: Boy standing over chest, listening Room: Man sitting near table Sub-title: The spring-lock – an end of makebelieve Bedroom: Boy standing near chest Insert: Interior of chest – little girl in chest Bedroom: Boy leaning on chest Insert: Little girl in chest Room: Man sitting at table, asleep Bedroom: Little boy leaning on chest Insert: Man at table – asleep

Insert: Little girl in chest Bedroom: Little boy leaning on chest Room: Man asleep at table Insert: Little girl in chest Sub-title: Angered at the interruption, the father refuses to listen Room: Man at table, asleep – little boy in background Interior of closet: Room: Man locking closet door Interior of closet – little boy in closet Room: Man standing in room, looking toward closet Interior of closet: Little boy in closet Room: Man standing near closet Interior of closet: Little boy in closet Insert: Little girl in chest Sub-title: Determined to sleep Room: Man sitting at table Interior of closet: Little boy in closet Sub-title: The child’s insistence arouses the father Room: Man sitting at table Interior of closet: Little boy in closet Room: Man opening closet door, little boy coming out of closet Insert: Little girl in chest Room: Man talking to little boy, boy pointing to other room Bedroom: Insert: Man placing key in key-hole of chest Room: Man and little boy in room Insert: Little girl in chest Bedroom: Little boy standing in foreground – man at chest, listening Room: Bedroom: Little boy standing in foreground – man standing near chest Insert: Little girl in chest Bedroom: Little boy standing in foreground – man trying to open chest Room: Smoke in room Bedroom: Little boy standing in foreground Insert: Little girl in chest Room: Room afire Exterior of house: Bedroom: Little boy standing near chest Insert: Little girl in chest Bedroom: Little boy standing near chest, listening Insert: Little girl in chest

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Room: Room afire Street: House in background Bedroom: Little boy kneeling before chest Insert: Little girl in chest Room: Lady in chair, sick – another lady talking to her – lady in background Room: Room afire Exterior of hardware store: Bedroom: Little boy kneeling before chest Insert: Little girl in chest Room: Room afire Street: Men crossing street in background Bedroom: Boy at chest Insert: Little girl in chest Room: Room afire Exterior of stores: Insert: Little girl in chest Street: Policeman talking to man – another man nearby Bedroom: Little boy kneeling before chest Insert: Little girl in chest Bedroom: Boy standing in foreground – Man standing near chest which is now open – little girl in chest Room: Policeman putting out fire Room: Sick lady in chair, cup in her hand – two ladies near her Bedroom: Man at window with little girl – boy standing nearby Sub-title: The lesson Room: Policeman taking cloth from table Room: Sick lady in chair, cup in her hand – two ladies near her Sub-title: The dawn of a better day Room: Man with little girl on his lap – little boy standing nearby Trade-mark: [AB logo] Cutting continuity, Copyright Descriptive Material, Library of Congress, February 8, 1913, LU360

454 A MISAPPROPRIATED TURKEY Eagle Title: A Misappropriated Turkey Sub-title: A perverted mind – Expelled from the union, the striker attempts to reinstate himself

Room: Man sitting at table Letter: Ben Lang: Remember your promise. This infernal machine explodes at one o’clock. It should then be in the possession of the owner of the United Iron Works. If the league will not listen, take the matter into your own hands. A Friend. Insert: Man sewing turkey after stuffing it with clock Room: Man sewing turkey after stuffing it with clock Street: Man walking down street Sub-title: A fatherless family – Love makes plenty Kitchen: Boy sitting near stove – lady drying dishes Exterior of house: Man sweeping steps Sub-title: Ragamuffins – Off to celebrate the holiday Kitchen: Lady dressing child – boy in background blowing horn Sub-title: His presence resented, the league refuses to hear his proposition Exterior of building: Several men standing around, talking, etc. Room: Several man in room – two men in foreground talking Exterior of building: Several men standing around, talking, etc. Room: Several men in room Sub-title: Dazed by his friends’ attitude he loses heart Exterior of saloon: Interior of saloon: Man behind bar Exterior of house: Interior of saloon: Man sitting at table, asleep – turkey on table Exterior of saloon: Interior of saloon: Two men standing in saloon – body of turkey on table Street: Man walking down street Sub-title: Little feet far from home Street – exterior of saloon: People on street Interior of saloon: Two men behind bar – body of turkey on table Exterior of saloon: Ragamuffins standing outside of saloon Interior of saloon: Two men standing in saloon, one holding body of turkey

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Exterior of saloon: Ragamuffins standing outside of saloon Interior of saloon: Two men talking – one holding body of turkey Exterior of saloon: Ragamuffins standing outside of saloon Interior of saloon: Man standing in saloon, looking off Exterior of saloon: Ragamuffins in front of saloon – proprietor talking to them Interior of saloon: Man behind bar Street: Ragamuffins coming down street Street: People on street in distance Sub-title: Too late to reconsider Sub-title: Home Triumphant Street: Ragamuffins in foreground Kitchen: Lady standing in kitchen – ragamuf[f]in entering Exterior of saloon: Interior of saloon: Man behind bar Kitchen: Lady with several children standing near table – turkey on table – little girl sitting on chair in foreground Sub-title: “That machine is set for one o’clock” Interior of saloon: Two men talking Exterior of saloon – street: Policeman walking along street Kitchen: Lady lifting turkey from table – children around table – little girl on chair in foreground Exterior of building – street – houses in background Kitchen: Several children in kitchen – girl drying dishes Insert of clock: Kitchen: Lady cooking turkey – girl drying dishes – children sitting around Street: Man in distance on motor-cycle Prison: Street: Houses in background: Man in distance Kitchen: Girl taking dishes from closet – several children in kitchen Insert of clock: Kitchen: Girl setting table – several children in room Prison: Man behind bars Street: Houses in background – man on motorcycle in distance

Prison: Man behind bars Kitchen: Table set – boy sitting at table – several children in room Insert of clock: Kitchen: Lady busy at stove – table set – boy sitting at table – several children in room Street: Automobile coming down street Kitchen: Lady preparing meal – several children in room Insert of clock: Street: Automobile coming down street Prison: Man behind bars Sub-title: Injured Exterior: Automobile broken down – man standing near machine Kitchen: Lady standing near table – several children sitting at table Insert of clock: Street: Watering trough in foreground Kitchen: Lady and several children sitting at table Street: Man sitting on watering trough – boy talking to him Insert of clock: Kitchen: Lady and several children sitting at table Street: Man sitting on watering trough – his foot has been hurt Exterior of house: Kitchen: Lady and several children sitting at table Insert of clock: Kitchen: Lady standing near table – several children sitting at table – boy taking clock from mantel Street: Man sitting on watering trough in foreground Insert of clock: Street: Man standing near watering trough holding clock – several people running toward him Sub-title: A more fitting fate for a turkey Kitchen: Trade-mark: Cutting continuity, Copyright Descriptive Material, Library of Congress, January 24, 1913, LU294

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455 BROTHERS Eagle Title: Brothers Sub-title: The father’s favorite and the mother’s – Dumb grief mistaken for indifference Room: Lady lying in bed – three men and girl standing nearby Exterior of house: Man standing near door Room: Lady lying in bed – three men and girl standing nearby Exterior of house: Man standing near door Room: Lady lying in bed – three men and girl standing nearby another man entering room Exterior of house: Man in doorway Room: Lady lying in bed – three men and girl standing nearby Exterior of house: Man looking in window Room: Lady lying in bed – girl and man standing at head of bed – two men standing near bed talking Exterior of house: Girl standing near door Sub-title: The non-committal lady learns his true feelings Exterior – trees in background Exterior of buildings: Girl standing in foreground Room: Man sitting in room, reading – girl entering Sub-title: Later – The non-committal lady shows her sympathy Room: Man standing in room Exterior of house: Man standing near house – man coming out of house Room: Man entering room Exterior of house: Girl talking to two men Exterior: Trees in background Exterior of house: Two men looking off Exterior: Girl looking off Exterior of house: Man standing in foreground, looking off Exterior: Girl talking to man Exterior of house: Man standing near house, looking down Exterior: Logs in foreground Sub-title: The quarrel Exterior: Two men talking Sub-title: The father sides with his favorite

Room: Table, couch, etc., in room Exterior of house: Man coming out of house Room: Two men walking to table Exterior of house: Man sitting on bench near house Room: Two men at table Exterior of house: Man looking in window Room: Two men at table Exterior of house: Man coming out of house Sub-title: Another difference – In the presence of the favorite the unfortunate demands the rifle Exterior of house: Man standing near house, looking at rifle Exterior of house: Man walking toward house Room: Girl standing near stove – man standing in room Exterior of house: Man entering Room: Girl opening door, man entering Exterior of house: Man coming out of house Room: Girl in foreground, book in her hand – man entering Exterior of house: Man in doorway Sub-title: Unable to be at peace he determines to go away Exterior of house: Exterior of house: Room: Girl sitting in foreground, looking toward door Exterior of house: Man in doorway Room: Girl coming in room Room: Tree in foreground Sub-title: The neighbor hears the story of the accident Exterior of house: Man lying on ground Room: Man in doorway, helping another man into room Sub-title: Thoughts of a lady cause indecision Exterior: Man walking toward rock, bundle under his arm Sub-title: Off for the doctor Room: Man lying on couch – man standing over him Exterior of house: Man coming out of house Room: Man lying on couch Exterior of house: Room: Man lying on couch – man entering room

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Sub-title: The rifle – Believing his brother guilty of the father’s death, he swears to be avenged Exterior of house: Man coming out of house – gun in his hand Sub-title: Blaming himself he decides to return Exterior: Man sitting on ground Exterior of house: Room: Girl standing in room, man entering Exterior of house: Man in doorway, gun in his hand Room: Girl standing in room, looking toward door Exterior – trees in background: Man running Exterior of house: Man standing in foreground, looking toward house Room: Man on couch – man in doorway, entering room Exterior: Rock in foreground – trees in background Room: Man on couch; man standing over him Exterior of house: Man in doorway Room: Man on couch – man entering room Exterior of house: Room: Man on couch – man standing in room Exterior of house: Man standing near house – gun in his hands, pointed toward window Room: Man on couch – man standing in foreground Exterior: Logs in foreground Room: Man on couch – man standing in foreground – man in foorway [sic] with gun in his hand Exterior of house: Man walking toward house Room: Man sitting near table in foreground – man in doorway pointing gun at him Sub-title: Later – A matter of biscuits Room: Two men and girl standing in foreground – man in doorway Exterior of house: Man walking off – girl in doorway Room: Two men standing in foreground – girl in doorway Exterior of house: Man standing in doorway Trade-mark: [AB logo] Cutting continuity, Copyright Descriptive Material, Library of Congress, January 29, 1913, LU308

456 DRINK’S LURE Eagle Title: Drink’s Lure Sub-title: A neglected wife – Tired of futile promises Kitchen: Lady sitting on chair, little girl on her lap Sub-title: Salvation Anne – The good angel of the family Exterior of house: Lady on Porch Kitchen: Lady sitting near table, little girl on her lap Sub-title: Prospecting Exterior of house: Bedroom: Man reading Exterior of house: Man standing near tree looking at house, another man standing near him Sub-title: The husband seeks the better way Salvation Army headquarters: Meeting in progress Saloon: Two men at table in foreground – others in background Sub-title: After the meeting – A promise to stand by the good Salvation Army Headquarters: Meeting in progress Sub-title: The Struggle Kitchen: Bedroom: Kitchen: Man sitting at table, reading Bedroom: Little girl lying on bed – lady in foreground, hands clasped, looking toward other room Kitchen: Man sitting at table, paper in his hand Sub-title: The meeting of the ways Exterior of saloon: Two men standing near door of saloon Sub-title: The next morning Kitchen: Interior of saloon: Man behind bar – two men standing at bar – man at table in foreground Kitchen: Lady standing in foreground Letter: Dear wife; I cannot resist the temptation. I leave you and the baby to the care of the Salvation Army and Anne. Affectionately, John

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Interior of saloon: Man behind bar – two men standing at bar – man at table in foreground Insert: Lady holding baby Sub-title: The tool. Interior of saloon: Three men at table in foreground – man behind bar – two men standing at bar Sub-title: A way out of the difficulty Exterior of house: Two ladies on porch Kitchen: Lady sitting near table, holding baby Bedroom: Man reading Kitchen: Salvation Anne sitting at table, writing – Lady and baby standing near her Letter: My dear Mr. Edwards: I am sending you the housekeeper you requested. Anne Welch Exterior of house: Two ladies on porch Interior of saloon: Three men at table in foreground – two men at bar – man behind bar Kitchen: Little girl in chair in foreground – lady standing behind her Exterior of house: Interior of saloon: Man at table in foreground – men at table behind him – two men at bar – man behind bar Road: Lady and little girl walking down road Room: Man at safe Exterior of house: Lady and little girl coming toward house Room: Man standing in room Sub-title: The appointed hour Interior of saloon: Man at table in foreground – several other men in saloon Bedroom: Lady standing near bed – little girl sitting at dressing-table Room: Man sitting at desk Bedroom: Lady and little girl kneeling at bed, praying Bedroom: Exterior of house: Bedroom: Man reading Exterior of house: Three men standing near house Bedroom: Man reading Exterior of house: Man opening window – two other men standing nearby Bedroom: Man sitting in foreground, paper in his hand

Room: Man climbing in window Bedroom: Man walking toward door Room: Man in room, another man entering through window Exterior of house: Man standing near house Room: Two men standing in room Bedroom: Man standing at door, listening Insert: Man opening safe Exterior of house: Man standing near house Insert: Man opening safe Bedroom: Man standing at door, listening Insert: Man opening safe Exterior of house: Man standing near house Insert: Man opening safe Hall: Man coming down stairs Insert: Man telephoning Exterior of house: Man standing near house Courtroom: Man behind desk Insert: Man telephoning Room: Two men in room Hall: Man telephoning Room: Two men in room Insert: Man telephoning Courtroom: Man behind desk, telephoning Insert: Lady and little girl, sleeping Courtroom: Several policemen leaving courtroom Exterior of house: Man standing near house Room: Two men in room Bedroom: Lady and little girl sleeping Road: Policemen running down road Room: Two men in room Road: Policemen running down road Bedroom: Lady sleeping, little girl sitting up in bed Hall: Man telephoning – man peeking through curtains Bedroom: Lady asleep – little girl at door, listening Field: Policemen running across field Hall: Little girl walking down stairs Exterior of house: Man looking toward window Room: Man beating older man another man nearby – little girl entering room – man looking in window Exterior of house: Man looking toward window Room: Little girl bending over old man – two other men in room – man at window Bedroom: Lady sleeping

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Room: Old man on floor – man, little girl standing beside him, pointing revolver at two men in room Bedroom: Lady standing at door Exterior of house: Hall: Room: Old man standing in foreground – man, little girl beside him, holding two men at bay Hall: Policeman with prisoner Room: Old man in foreground – another man in room, little girl beside him Sub-title: Afterwards – Out of temptation Exterior of house: Trade-mark: [AB logo] Cutting continuity, Copyright Descriptive Material, Library of Congress, February 13, 1913, LU378

457 WHEN LOVE FORGIVES Eagle Title: When Love Forgives Sub-title: Pay-day Office: Man standing in foreground – man at desk near-by – girl at desk in background Exterior: Girl and young man walking Exterior: Girl and young man walking, arms about each other Exterior: Man standing in foreground, looking off Exterior of house: Girl going toward house Interior of saloon: Two men sitting at table in foreground – men in background Subtitle: Breeders of discontent Insert of three men sitting at table Room: Girl standing in room, holding picture in one hand Insert of three men at table Sub-title: Their questionable proposition rejected Interior of saloon: Two men sitting at table – one man leaving [table] – men in background Sub-title: Next Day Office: Man at desk in foreground – another man at desk near-by girl at desk in background Letter: My dear son: Foreclosure threatened. Can you help us? Affectionately, Your father Lumber yard: Men at work Office: Man holding bag, talking to girl Sub-title: Going to the bank

Lumber yard: Men at work Office: Girl standing at desk in foreground Lumber yard: Two men in carriage in background Exterior of house: Man standing in foreground – man standing near-by Exterior: Two men in carriage Sub-title: Jealousy – She thinks the letter was from another sweetheart Office: Girl standing at desk in foreground Lumber yard: Men at work. Exterior of building: Two men standing in foreground – boy standing near-by Road: Two men in carriage Exterior of building: Two men standing near building Lumber yard: Girl on horseback Road: Two men in carriage Road: Road: Girl on horseback Exterior of bank: Insert of man taking cartridges from revolver Exterior of bank: Horses and carriage in foreground – man standing near carriage taking cartridges from revolver Road: Two men standing in road, one pointing off Sub-title: A short cut Field: Girl on horseback coming through field Road: Two men in carriage Exterior: Trees in foreground: River: Girl on horseback crossing river Road: Two men in carriage, one holding bag Railroad crossing: Girl on horseback coming toward crossing Exterior: Two men in foreground, masked Road: Two men in carriage – one holding bag Exterior: Two masked men in foreground Road: Girl on horseback Road: Two men in carriage: Masked men nearby pointing revolver at them Road: Girl on horseback Road: Road: Girl on horseback Road: Two men standing in road Road: Girl on horseback Road: Two men standing in road Road: Two men in carriage – girl on horseback near-by Road: Two men standing in foreground Road: Two men and girl in carriage Exterior – fence in foreground:

308

Road: Carriage coming down road [Woods: Two men running through woods] Road: Carriage coming down road Woods: Two men standing in woods Road: Road: Two men and girl in carriage – horse behind them Road: Two men running down road Road: Two men and girl in carriage – horse behind them

Road: Two men running down road Road: Two men and girl in carriage – one man shooting – horse behind them Road: Man lying in road – man standing over him Road: Two men and girl in carriage Sub-title: Later – love forgives Bedroom: Girl lying in bed Trade-mark: [AB logo] Cutting continuity, Copyright Descriptive Material, Library of Congress, July 26, 1913, LU1001

THE GRIFFITH PROJECT: VOLUME 6

INDEX OF TITLES: 1912 Note: Release dates are given after each title. Numbers refer to program sequence.

ADVENTURE IN THE AUTUMN WOODS, AN

(16 January 1913) . . . . . . . . . . . . . .449

HEREDITY

(4 November 1912) . . . . . . . . . . . .435 HIS LESSON

(16 May 1912) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .407

BEAST AT BAY, A

(27 May 1912) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .409

HOME FOLKS

(6 June 1912) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .410

BROTHERS

(3 February 1913) . . . . . . . . . . . . . .455

IN THE AISLES OF THE WILD

(14 October 1912) . . . . . . . . . . . . .431

BRUTALITY

(2 December 1912) . . . . . . . . . . . . .439

INDIAN SUMMER, AN

(8 July 1912) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .416

BURGLAR’S DILEMMA, THE

(16 December 1912) . . . . . . . . . . . .443

INFORMER, THE

(21 November 1912) . . . . . . . . . . .438

CHANCE DECEPTION, A

(24 February 1913) . . . . . . . . . . . . .451

INNER CIRCLE, THE

(12 August 1912) . . . . . . . . . . . . . .424

CHANGE OF SPIRIT, A

(22 August 1912) . . . . . . . . . . . . . .425

IOLA’S PROMISE

(14 March 1912) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .396

CHILD’S REMORSE, A

(8 August 1912) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .423

JUST LIKE A WOMAN

(18 April 1912) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .402

CRY FOR HELP, A

(23 December 1912) . . . . . . . . . . . .444

LENA AND THE GEESE

(17 June 1912) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .412

DRINK’S LURE

(17 February 1913) . . . . . . . . . . . . .456

LESSER EVIL, THE

(29 April 1912) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .404

FATE

(22 March 1913) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .452

LODGING FOR THE NIGHT, A

(9 May 1912) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .406

FATE’S INTERCEPTION

(8 April 1912) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .400

MAN’S GENESIS

(11 July 1912) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .419

FATHER’S LESSON, A

(13 February 1913) . . . . . . . . . . . . .453

MAN’S LUST FOR GOLD

(1 July 1912) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .415

FEMALE OF THE SPECIES, THE

(15 April 1912) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .401

MASSACRE, THE

(7 November 1912, Europe; 26 February 1914, US) . . . . . . . . . .418

FEUD IN THE KENTUCKY HILLS, A

(3 October 1912) . . . . . . . . . . . . . .430 FRIENDS

MENDER OF NETS, THE

(23 September 1912) . . . . . . . . . . .428 GIRL AND HER TRUST, THE

(15 February 1912) . . . . . . . . . . . . .393 MISAPPROPRIATED TURKEY, A

(28 March 1912) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .398 GOD WITHIN, THE

(26 December 1912) . . . . . . . . . . . .445 GODDESS OF SAGEBRUSH GULCH, THE

(27 January 1913) . . . . . . . . . . . . . .454 MUSKETEERS OF PIG ALLEY, THE

(31 October 1912) . . . . . . . . . . . . .434 MY BABY

(25 March 1912) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .397 GOLD AND GLITTER

(14 November 1912) . . . . . . . . . . .437 MY HERO

(11 November 1912) . . . . . . . . . . .436 HEAVEN AVENGES

(12 December 1912) . . . . . . . . . . . .442 NARROW ROAD, THE

(18 July 1912) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .417

(1 August 1912) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .422 310

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NEW YORK HAT, THE

SPIRIT AWAKENED, THE

(5 December 1912) . . . . . . . . . . . . .441 OIL AND WATER

(6 February 1913) . . . . . . . . . . . . . .448

(20 June 1912) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .413 TELEPHONE GIRL AND THE LADY, THE

(6 January 1913) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .447

OLD ACTOR, THE

(6 May 1912) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .405 ONE IS BUSINESS; THE OTHER CRIME

TEMPORARY TRUCE, A

(10 June 1912) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .411 TENDER-HEARTED BOY, THE

(25 April 1912) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .403 ONE SHE LOVED, THE

(23 January 1913) . . . . . . . . . . . . . .450 THREE FRIENDS

(21 October 1912) . . . . . . . . . . . . .432 PAINTED LADY, THE

(2 January 1913) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .446 TWO DAUGHTERS OF EVE

(24 October 1912) . . . . . . . . . . . . .433 PUEBLO LEGEND, A

(19 September 1912) . . . . . . . . . . .427 UNDER BURNING SKIES

(29 August 1912) . . . . . . . . . . . . . .421 PUNISHMENT, THE

(22 February 1912) . . . . . . . . . . . . .394 UNSEEN ENEMY, AN

(4 April 1912) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .399 SANDS OF DEE, THE

(9 September 1912) . . . . . . . . . . . .426 UNWELCOME GUEST, THE

(22 July 1912) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .420 SCHOOL TEACHER AND THE WAIF, THE

(27 June 1912) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .414

(15 March 1913) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .440 WHEN KINGS WERE THE LAW

(20 May 1912) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .408 WHEN LOVE FORGIVES

(2 August 1913) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .457

SIREN OF IMPULSE, A

(4 March 1912) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .395 SO NEAR, YET SO FAR

(30 September 1912) . . . . . . . . . . .429

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CUMULATIVE INDEX OF TITLES: 1907–1912 Note: Release dates are given after each title. Numbers refer to program sequence: 1–90: Vol. 1, 1907–1908. 91–168: Vol. 2, January–June 1909. 169–233: Vol. 3, July–December 1909. 234–319: Vol. 4, 1910. 320–392: Vol. 5, 1911. 393–457: Vol. 6, 1912.

“1776” or, THE HESSIAN RENEGADES

(6 September 1909) . . . . . . . . . . . .181 ADVENTURE IN THE AUTUMN WOODS, AN

BANKER’S DAUGHTERS, THE

(20 October 1910) . . . . . . . . . . . . .293 BARBARIAN, INGOMAR, THE

(13 October 1908) . . . . . . . . . . . . . .52 BATTLE, THE

(16 January 1913) . . . . . . . . . . . . . .449 ADVENTURES OF BILLY, THE

(6 November 1911) . . . . . . . . . . . .370 BEAST AT BAY, A

(19 October 1911) . . . . . . . . . . . . .368 ADVENTURES OF DOLLIE, THE

(27 May 1912) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .409 BEHIND THE SCENES

(14 July 1908) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .27 AFTER MANY YEARS

(11 September 1908) . . . . . . . . . . . .44 BETRAYED BY A HANDPRINT

(3 November 1908) . . . . . . . . . . . . .62 “AND A LITTLE CHILD SHALL LEAD THEM”

(22 March 1909) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .115

(1 September 1908) . . . . . . . . . . . . .46 BETTER WAY, THE

(12 August 1909) . . . . . . . . . . . . . .173 BILLY’S STRATAGEM

(12 February 1912) . . . . . . . . . . . . .388

ARCADIAN MAID, AN

(1 August 1910) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .275

BLACK VIPER, THE

(21 July 1908) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .28

AS IN A LOOKING GLASS

(18 December 1911) . . . . . . . . . . . .378 AS IT IS IN LIFE

BLIND PRINCESS AND THE POET, THE

(4 April 1910) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .245 AS THE BELLS RANG OUT!

(17 August 1911) . . . . . . . . . . . . . .348 BLOT IN THE ’SCUTCHEON, A

(21 July 1910) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .273 AT THE ALTAR

(29 January 1912) . . . . . . . . . . . . . .387 BOBBY, THE COWARD

(25 February 1909) . . . . . . . . . . . . .106 AT THE CROSSROADS OF LIFE

(13 July 1911) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .351 BRAHMA DIAMOND, THE

(3 July 1908) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .24 AT THE FRENCH BALL

(4 February 1909) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .98 BROKEN CROSS, THE

(30 June 1908) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .23 AWAKENING, THE

(6 April 1911) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .328 BROKEN DOLL, THE

(30 September 1909) . . . . . . . . . . .188 AWFUL MOMENT, AN

(17 October 1910) . . . . . . . . . . . . .292 BROKEN LOCKET, THE

(18 December 1908) . . . . . . . . . . . . .75 BABY AND THE STORK, THE

(16 September 1909) . . . . . . . . . . .187 BROTHERS

(1 January 1912) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .382 BABY’S SHOE, A

(3 February 1913) . . . . . . . . . . . . . .455 BRUTALITY

(13 May 1909) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .136 BALKED AT THE ALTAR

(2 December 1912) . . . . . . . . . . . . .439 BURGLAR’S DILEMMA, THE

(25 August 1908) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .39 BANDIT’S WATERLOO, THE

(16 December 1912) . . . . . . . . . . . .443 BURGLAR’S MISTAKE, A

(4 August 1908) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .31

(25 March 1909) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .121 312

THE GRIFFITH PROJECT: VOLUME 6

CALAMITOUS ELOPEMENT, A

CONSCIENCE

(7 August 1908) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .32 CALL, THE

(9 March 1911) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .323 CONVERTS, THE

(20 January 1910) . . . . . . . . . . . . . .226 CALL OF THE WILD, THE

(14 March 1910) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .242 CONVICT’S SACRIFICE, A

(27 October 1908) . . . . . . . . . . . . . .58 CALL TO ARMS, THE

(26 July 1909) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .163 CORD OF LIFE, THE

(25 July 1910) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .274 CARDINAL’S CONSPIRACY, THE

(28 January 1909) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96 CORNER IN WHEAT, A

(12 July 1909) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .160 CAUGHT BY WIRELESS

(13 December 1909) . . . . . . . . . . . .216 COUNTRY CUPID, A

(21 March 1908) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .9 CHANCE DECEPTION, A

(24 July 1911) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .352 COUNTRY DOCTOR, THE

(24 February 1913) . . . . . . . . . . . . .451 CHANGE OF HEART, A

(8 July 1909) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .158 CRICKET ON THE HEARTH, THE

(14 October 1909) . . . . . . . . . . . . .194 CHANGE OF SPIRIT, A

(27 May 1909) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .142 CRIMINAL HYPNOTIST, THE

(22 August 1912) . . . . . . . . . . . . . .425 CHIEF’S DAUGHTER, THE

(18 January 1909) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .85 CROOKED ROAD, THE

(10 April 1911) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .329 CHILD OF THE GHETTO, A

(22 May 1911) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .341 CRY FOR HELP, A

(6 June 1910) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .260 CHILDREN’S FRIEND, THE

(23 December 1912) . . . . . . . . . . . .444 CUPID’S PRANKS

(13 September 1909) . . . . . . . . . . .186 CHILD’S FAITH, A

(Edison, 19 February 1908) . . . . . . . .5 CURTAIN POLE, THE

(14 July 1910) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .270 CHILD’S IMPULSE, A

(15 February 1909) . . . . . . . . . . . . . .66 DAN, THE DANDY

(27 June 1910) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .265 CHILD’S REMORSE, A

(18 September 1911) . . . . . . . . . . .359 DANCING GIRL OF BUTTE, THE

(8 August 1912) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .423 CHILD’S STRATAGEM, A

(6 January 1910) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .224 DAY AFTER, THE

(5 December 1910) . . . . . . . . . . . . .303 CHOOSING A HUSBAND

(30 December 1909) . . . . . . . . . . . .220 DEATH DISC, THE

(30 December 1909) . . . . . . . . . . . .222 CHRISTMAS BURGLARS, THE

(2 December 1909) . . . . . . . . . . . . .212 DECEIVED SLUMMING PARTY

(22 December 1908) . . . . . . . . . . . . .79 CLASSMATES

(31 July 1908) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .34 DECEPTION, THE

(1 February 1908) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .4 CLOISTER’S TOUCH, THE

(22 March 1909) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .105 DECREE OF DESTINY, A

(31 January 1910) . . . . . . . . . . . . . .230 CLUBMAN AND THE TRAMP, THE

(6 March 1911) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .317 DEVIL, THE

(27 November 1908) . . . . . . . . . . . .72 COMATA, THE SIOUX

(2 October 1908) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .54 DIAMOND STAR, THE

(9 September 1909) . . . . . . . . . . . .184 CONCEALING A BURGLAR

(20 February 1911) . . . . . . . . . . . . .315 DRINK’S LURE

(30 October 1908) . . . . . . . . . . . . . .59 CONFIDENCE

(17 February 1913) . . . . . . . . . . . . .456 DRIVE FOR A LIFE, THE

(15 April 1909) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .131

(22 April 1909) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .133 313

THE GRIFFITH PROJECT: VOLUME 6

DRUNKARD’S REFORMATION, A

FATHER GETS IN THE GAME

(1 April 1909) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .118 DUKE’S PLAN, THE

(10 October 1908) . . . . . . . . . . . . . .51 FATHER’S LESSON, A

(10 February 1910) . . . . . . . . . . . . .232 EAVESDROPPER, THE

(13 February 1913) . . . . . . . . . . . . .453 FEMALE OF THE SPECIES, THE

(3 May 1909) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .123 EDGAR ALLEN POE

(15 April 1912) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .401 FEUD AND THE TURKEY, THE

(8 February 1909) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .86 ELOPING WITH AUNTY

(8 December 1908) . . . . . . . . . . . . . .69 FEUD IN THE KENTUCKY HILLS, A

(24 May 1909) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .139 ENGLISHMAN AND THE GIRL, THE

(3 October 1912) . . . . . . . . . . . . . .430 FIGHT FOR FREEDOM, THE

(17 February 1910) . . . . . . . . . . . . .234 ENOCH ARDEN – PART ONE

(17 July 1908) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .29 FIGHTING BLOOD

(12 June 1911) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .336 ENOCH ARDEN – PART TWO

(29 June 1911) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .349 FINAL SETTLEMENT, THE

(15 June 1911) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .337 ERADICATING AUNTY

(28 February 1910) . . . . . . . . . . . . .236 FISHER FOLKS

(31 May 1909) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .143 ETERNAL MOTHER, THE

(16 February 1911) . . . . . . . . . . . . .320 FLASH OF LIGHT, A

(11 January 1912) . . . . . . . . . . . . . .362 EXAMINATION DAY AT SCHOOL

(18 July 1910) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .272 FOOLS OF FATE

(29 September 1910) . . . . . . . . . . .290 EXPIATION, THE

(7 October 1909) . . . . . . . . . . . . . .192 FOOL’S REVENGE, A

(21 October 1909) . . . . . . . . . . . . .197 FACE AT THE WINDOW, THE

(4 March 1909) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .108 FOR A WIFE’S HONOR

(16 June 1910) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .263 FADED LILLIES, THE

(28 August 1908) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .40 FOR HIS SON

(17 June 1909) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .151 FAILURE, THE

(22 January 1912) . . . . . . . . . . . . . .384 FOR LOVE OF GOLD

(7 December 1911) . . . . . . . . . . . . .376 FAIR EXCHANGE, A

(21 August 1908) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .37 FRENCH DUEL, THE

(23 September 1909) . . . . . . . . . . .190 FAITHFUL

(10 May 1909) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .125 FRIEND OF THE FAMILY, THE

(21 March 1910) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .243 FALSELY ACCUSED!

(15 July 1909) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .152 FRIENDS

(18 January 1908) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .2 FAMOUS ESCAPE, A

(23 September 1912) . . . . . . . . . . .428 FUGITIVE, THE

(7 April 1908) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .11 FASCINATING MRS. FRANCIS, THE

(7 November 1910) . . . . . . . . . . . .298 GETTING EVEN

(21 January 1909) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .93 FATAL HOUR, THE

(13 September 1909) . . . . . . . . . . .185 GIBSON GODDESS, THE

(18 August 1908) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .38 FATE

(1 November 1909) . . . . . . . . . . . .198 GIRL AND HER TRUST, THE

(22 March 1913) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .452 FATE’S INTERCEPTION

(28 March 1912) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .398 GIRL AND THE OUTLAW, THE

(8 April 1912) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .400 FATE’S TURNING

(8 September 1908) . . . . . . . . . . . . .41 GIRLS AND DADDY, THE

(23 January 1911) . . . . . . . . . . . . . .314

(1 February 1909) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .97 314

THE GRIFFITH PROJECT: VOLUME 6

GOD WITHIN, THE

HIS DUTY

(26 December 1912) . . . . . . . . . . . .445 GODDESS OF SAGEBRUSH GULCH, THE

(31 May 1909) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .149 HIS LAST BURGLARY

(25 March 1912) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .397 GOLD AND GLITTER

(21 February 1910) . . . . . . . . . . . . .235 HIS LESSON

(11 November 1912) . . . . . . . . . . .436 GOLD IS NOT ALL

(16 May 1912) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .407 HIS LOST LOVE

(28 March 1910) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .246 GOLD-SEEKERS, THE

(18 October 1909) . . . . . . . . . . . . .196 HIS MOTHER’S SCARF

(2 May 1910) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .253 GOLDEN LOUIS, THE

(24 April 1911) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .332 HIS SISTER-IN-LAW

(22 February 1909) . . . . . . . . . . . . .102 GOLDEN SUPPER, THE

(15 December 1910) . . . . . . . . . . . .302 HIS TRUST

(12 December 1910) . . . . . . . . . . . .304 GREASER’S GAUNTLET, THE

(16 January 1911) . . . . . . . . . . . . . .310 HIS TRUST FULFILLED

(11 August 1908) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .35 GUERRILLA, THE

(19 January 1911) . . . . . . . . . . . . . .311 HIS WARD’S LOVE

(13 November 1908) . . . . . . . . . . . .64 HEART BEATS OF LONG AGO

(15 February 1909) . . . . . . . . . . . .103 HIS WIFE’S MOTHER

(6 February 1911) . . . . . . . . . . . . . .318 HEART OF A SAVAGE, THE

(1 March 1909) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .101 HIS WIFE’S VISITOR

(2 March 1911) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .322 HEART OF AN OUTLAW, THE

(19 August 1909) . . . . . . . . . . . . . .174 HOME FOLKS

(not released) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .180 HEART OF O YAMA, THE

(6 June 1912) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .410 HONOR OF HIS FAMILY, THE

(18 September 1908) . . . . . . . . . . . .45 HEAVEN AVENGES

(24 January 1910) . . . . . . . . . . . . . .229 HONOR OF THIEVES, THE

(18 July 1912) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .417 HELPING HAND, THE

(11 January 1909) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .81 HOUSE WITH CLOSED SHUTTERS, THE

(29 December 1908) . . . . . . . . . . . . .77 HER AWAKENING

(8 August 1910) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .277 HOW SHE TRIUMPHED

(28 September 1911) . . . . . . . . . . .366 HER FATHER’S PRIDE

(27 April 1911) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .333 HULDA’S LOVERS

(4 August 1910) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .276 HER FIRST ADVENTURE

(22 April 1908) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .14 I DID IT, MAMMA

(18 March 1908) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .8 HER FIRST BISCUITS

(15 March 1909) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .109 ICONOCLAST, THE

(17 June 1909) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .138 HER SACRIFICE

(3 October 1910) . . . . . . . . . . . . . .289 IMPALEMENT, THE

(26 June 1911) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .346 HER TERRIBLE ORDEAL

(30 May 1910) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .258 IN A HEMPEN BAG

(10 January 1910) . . . . . . . . . . . . . .225 HEREDITY

(16 December 1909) . . . . . . . . . . . .215 IN LIFE’S CYCLE

(4 November 1912) . . . . . . . . . . . .435 HINDOO DAGGER, THE

(15 September 1910) . . . . . . . . . . .286 IN LITTLE ITALY

(18 February 1909) . . . . . . . . . . . . . .90 HIS DAUGHTER

(23 December 1909) . . . . . . . . . . . .219 IN OLD CALIFORNIA

(23 February 1911) . . . . . . . . . . . . .321

(10 March 1910) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .240 315

THE GRIFFITH PROJECT: VOLUME 6

IN OLD KENTUCKY

(20 September 1909) . . . . . . . . . . .183

JONESES HAVE AMATEUR THEATRICALS, THE

(18 February 1909) . . . . . . . . . . . . . .83

IN THE AISLES OF THE WILD

(14 October 1912) . . . . . . . . . . . . .431

JUST LIKE A WOMAN

(18 April 1912) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .402

IN THE BORDER STATES

(13 June 1910) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .262

KENTUCKIAN, THE

(7 July 1908) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .25

IN THE DAYS OF ’49

(8 May 1911) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .335

KING OF THE CANNIBAL ISLANDS

(15 April 1908) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .12

IN THE SEASON OF BUDS

(2 June 1910) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .259

KING’S MESSENGER, THE

(29 April 1908) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .15

IN THE WATCHES OF THE NIGHT

(25 October 1909) . . . . . . . . . . . . .200

KNIGHT OF THE ROAD, A

(20 April 1911) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .330

IN THE WINDOW RECESS

(29 November 1909) . . . . . . . . . . .211

LADY HELEN’S ESCAPADE

(19 April 1909) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .107

INDIAN BROTHERS, THE

(17 July 1911) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .345 INDIAN RUNNER’S ROMANCE, THE

LAST DEAL, THE

(27 January 1910) . . . . . . . . . . . . . .228 LAST DROP OF WATER, THE

(23 September 1909) . . . . . . . . . . .171 INDIAN SUMMER, AN

(27 July 1911) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .350 LEATHER STOCKING

(8 July 1912) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .416 INFORMER, THE

(27 September 1909) . . . . . . . . . . .191 LENA AND THE GEESE

(21 November 1912) . . . . . . . . . . .438 INGRATE, THE

(17 June 1912) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .412 LESSER EVIL, THE

(20 November 1908) . . . . . . . . . . . .68 INNER CIRCLE, THE

(29 April 1912) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .404 LESSON, THE

(12 August 1912) . . . . . . . . . . . . . .424 INVISIBLE FLUID, THE

(19 December 1910) . . . . . . . . . . . .306 LIGHT THAT CAME, THE

(16 June 1908) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .20 IOLA’S PROMISE

(11 November 1909) . . . . . . . . . . .203 LILY OF THE TENEMENTS, THE

(14 March 1912) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .396 ITALIAN BARBER, THE

(9 January 1911) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .309

(27 February 1911) . . . . . . . . . . . . .319 LINES OF WHITE ON A SULLEN SEA

(28 October 1909) . . . . . . . . . . . . .199

ITALIAN BLOOD

(9 October 1911) . . . . . . . . . . . . . .363

LITTLE ANGELS OF LUCK

(8 September 1910) . . . . . . . . . . . .284

JEALOUS HUSBAND, THE

(10 July 1911) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .344

LITTLE DARLING, THE

(2 September 1909) . . . . . . . . . . . .182

JEALOUSY AND THE MAN

(22 July 1909) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .161

LITTLE TEACHER, THE

(11 October 1909) . . . . . . . . . . . . .195

JILT, THE

(17 May 1909) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .137

LODGING FOR THE NIGHT, A

(9 May 1912) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .406

JONES AND HIS NEW NEIGHBORS

(29 March 1909) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .116 JONES AND THE LADY BOOK AGENT

LONEDALE OPERATOR, THE

(23 March 1911) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .326 LONELY VILLA, THE

(10 May 1909) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .100 JONES’ BURGLAR

(10 June 1909) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .150 LONG ROAD, THE

(9 August 1909) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .169

(26 October 1911) . . . . . . . . . . . . .369 316

THE GRIFFITH PROJECT: VOLUME 6

LOVE AMONG THE ROSES

MISAPPROPRIATED TURKEY, A

(9 May 1910) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .254 LOVE FINDS A WAY

(27 January 1913) . . . . . . . . . . . . . .454 MISER’S HEART, THE

(11 January 1909) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .91 LOVE IN THE HILLS

(20 November 1911) . . . . . . . . . . .375 MIXED BABIES

(30 October 1911) . . . . . . . . . . . . .371 LUCKY JIM

(12 June 1908) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .18 MODERN PRODIGAL, THE

(26 April 1909) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .128 LURE OF THE GOWN, THE

(29 August 1910) . . . . . . . . . . . . . .282 MOHAWK’S WAY, A

(15 March 1909) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .112 MADAME REX

(17 April 1911) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .331

(12 September 1910) . . . . . . . . . . .285 MONDAY MORNING IN A CONEY ISLAND POLICE COURT

(4 September 1908) . . . . . . . . . . . . .42

MAKING OF A MAN, THE

(5 October 1911) . . . . . . . . . . . . . .365

MONEY MAD

(4 December 1908) . . . . . . . . . . . . . .73

MAN, THE

(12 March 1910) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .241

MOUNTAINEER’S HONOR, THE

(25 November 1909) . . . . . . . . . . .209

MAN AND THE WOMAN, THE

(14 August 1908) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .36

MR. JONES AT THE BALL

(25 December 1908) . . . . . . . . . . . . .56

MAN IN THE BOX, THE

(19 June 1908) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .21

MR. JONES HAS A CARD PARTY

(21 January 1909) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .87

MAN’S GENESIS

(11 July 1912) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .419

MRS. JONES ENTERTAINS

(7 January 1909) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .67

MAN’S LUST FOR GOLD

(1 July 1912) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .415 MANIAC COOK, THE

MRS. JONES’ LOVER; OR, “I WANT MY HAT”

(4 January 1909) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .78 MARKED TIME-TABLE, THE

(19 August 1909) . . . . . . . . . . . . . .165 MUGGSY’S FIRST SWEETHEART

(23 June 1910) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .264 MASSACRE, THE

(7 November 1912, Europe; 26 February 1914, US) . . . . . . . . . .418 MEDICINE BOTTLE, THE

(30 June 1910) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .267 MUSIC MASTER, THE

(6 May 1908) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .13 MUSKETEERS OF PIG ALLEY, THE

(29 March 1909) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .110 MENDED LUTE, THE

(31 October 1912) . . . . . . . . . . . . .434 MY BABY

(5 August 1909) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .170 MENDER OF NETS, THE

(14 November 1912) . . . . . . . . . . .437 MY HERO

(15 February 1912) . . . . . . . . . . . . .393 MESSAGE, THE

(12 December 1912) . . . . . . . . . . . .442 NARROW ROAD, THE

(5 July 1909) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .157 MESSAGE OF THE VIOLIN, THE

(1 August 1912) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .422 NECKLACE, THE

(24 October 1910) . . . . . . . . . . . . .294 MEXICAN SWEETHEARTS, THE

(1 July 1909) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .155 NEW DRESS, THE

(24 June 1909) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .156 MIDNIGHT ADVENTURE, A

(15 May 1911) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .338 NEW TRICK, A

(18 November 1909) . . . . . . . . . . .205 MIDNIGHT CUPID, A

(10 June 1909) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .148 NEW YORK HAT, THE

(7 July 1910) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .268 MILLS OF THE GODS, THE

(5 December 1912) . . . . . . . . . . . . .441 NEWLYWEDS, THE

(30 August 1909) . . . . . . . . . . . . . .176

(3 March 1910) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .238 317

THE GRIFFITH PROJECT: VOLUME 6

NOTE IN THE SHOE, THE

PIRATE’S GOLD, THE

(6 May 1909) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .127 NURSING A VIPER

(6 November 1908) . . . . . . . . . . . . .63 PLAIN SONG, A

(4 November 1909) . . . . . . . . . . . .202 OATH AND THE MAN, THE

(28 November 1910) . . . . . . . . . . .301 PLANTER’S WIFE, THE

(22 September 1910) . . . . . . . . . . .287 “OH, UNCLE”

(20 October 1908) . . . . . . . . . . . . . .53 POLITICIAN’S LOVE STORY

(26 August 1909) . . . . . . . . . . . . . .177 OIL AND WATER

(22 February 1909) . . . . . . . . . . . . . .99 PRANKS

(6 February 1913) . . . . . . . . . . . . . .448 OLD ACTOR, THE

(30 August 1909) . . . . . . . . . . . . . .179 PRIMAL CALL, THE

(6 May 1912) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .405 OLD BOOKKEEPER, THE

(22 June 1911) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .343 PRINCESS IN THE VASE, THE

(18 January 1912) . . . . . . . . . . . . . .385 OLD CONFECTIONER’S MISTAKE, THE

(7 September 1911) . . . . . . . . . . . .364

(27 February 1908) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .6 PROFESSIONAL JEALOUSY

(4 January 1908) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1 PRUSSIAN SPY, THE

(1 March 1909) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .104

OLD ISAACS, THE PAWNBROKER

(28 March 1908) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .10

PUEBLO LEGEND, A

(29 August 1912) . . . . . . . . . . . . . .421

ON THE REEF

(17 January 1910) . . . . . . . . . . . . . .227

PUNISHMENT, THE

(4 April 1912) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .399

ONE BUSY HOUR

(6 May 1909) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .134 ONE IS BUSINESS; THE OTHER CRIME

PURGATION, THE

(4 July 190) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .266 RAMONA

(25 April 1912) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .403 ONE NIGHT, AND THEN—

(23 May 1910) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .255 RECKONING, THE

(14 February 1910) . . . . . . . . . . . . .233 ONE SHE LOVED, THE

(11 December 1908) . . . . . . . . . . . . .70 RED GIRL, THE

(21 October 1912) . . . . . . . . . . . . .432 ONE TOUCH OF NATURE

(15 September 1908) . . . . . . . . . . . .43 REDMAN AND THE CHILD, THE

(1 January 1909) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .74 OPEN GATE, THE

(28 July 1908) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .30 REDMAN’S VIEW, THE

(22 November 1909) . . . . . . . . . . .207 ’OSTLER JOE

(9 December 1909) . . . . . . . . . . . . .214 RENUNCIATION, THE

(9 June 1908) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .19 OUT FROM THE SHADOW

(19 July 1909) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .166 RESCUED FROM AN EAGLE’S NEST

(3 August 1911) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .353 OUTLAW, THE

(Edison, 16 January 1908) . . . . . . . . .3 RESTORATION, THE

(23 June 1908) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .22 OVER SILENT PATHS

(8 November 1909) . . . . . . . . . . . .204 RESURRECTION

(16 May 1910) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .257 PAINTED LADY, THE

(24 October 1912) . . . . . . . . . . . . .433

(20 May 1909) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .140 REVENUE MAN AND THE GIRL, THE

(25 September 1911) . . . . . . . . . . .361

PEACHBASKET HAT, THE

(24 June 1909) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .146 PIPPA PASSES or, THE SONG OF CONSCIENCE

RICH REVENGE, A

(7 April 1910) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .247 ROAD TO THE HEART, THE

(4 October 1909) . . . . . . . . . . . . . .189

(5 April 1909) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .122 318

THE GRIFFITH PROJECT: VOLUME 6

ROCKY ROAD, THE

SIREN OF IMPULSE, A

(3 January 1910) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .223 ROMANCE OF A JEWESS

(4 March 1912) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .395 SISTER’S LOVE, A

(23 October 1908) . . . . . . . . . . . . . .57 ROMANCE OF THE WESTERN HILLS, A

(11 April 1910) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .249

(8 February 1912) . . . . . . . . . . . . . .386 SLAVE, THE

(29 July 1909) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .168 SMILE OF A CHILD, A

(5 June 1911) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .342

ROMANY TRAGEDY, A

(29 May 1911) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .340

SMOKED HUSBAND, A

(25 September 1908) . . . . . . . . . . . .48

ROOT OF EVIL, THE

(18 March 1912) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .390

SO NEAR, YET SO FAR

(30 September 1912) . . . . . . . . . . .429

ROSE O’ SALEM-TOWN

(26 September 1910) . . . . . . . . . . .288

SONG OF THE SHIRT, THE

(17 November 1908) . . . . . . . . . . . .65

ROSE OF KENTUCKY, THE

(24 August 1911) . . . . . . . . . . . . . .356 ROUE’S HART, THE

SONG OF THE WILDWOOD FLUTE, THE

(8 March 1909) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .88 RUDE HOSTESS, A

(21 November 1910) . . . . . . . . . . .300 SON’S RETURN, THE

(8 April 1909) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .120 RULING PASSION, THE

(14 June 1909) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .147 SORROWFUL EXAMPLE, THE

(7 August 1911) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .355 RURAL ELOPEMENT, A

(14 January 1909) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .82

(14 August 1911) . . . . . . . . . . . . . .354 SORROWS OF THE UNFAITHFUL, THE

(22 August 1910) . . . . . . . . . . . . . .279

SACRIFICE, THE

(14 January 1909) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .84

SOUND SLEEPER, A

(12 April 1909) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .129

SALUTARY LESSON, A

(11 August 1910) . . . . . . . . . . . . . .278

SPANISH GYPSY, THE

(30 March 1911) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .327

SALVATION ARMY LASS, THE

(11 March 1909) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .111

SPIRIT AWAKENED, THE

(20 June 1912) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .413

SANDS OF DEE, THE

(22 July 1912) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .420

SQUAW’S LOVE, THE

(14 September 1911) . . . . . . . . . . .360

SAVED FROM HIMSELF

(11 December 1911) . . . . . . . . . . . .379 SCHNEIDER’S ANTI-NOISE CRUSADE

STAGE RUSTLER, THE

(10 July 1908) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .26 STOLEN JEWELS, THE

(8 April 1909) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .124 SCHOOL TEACHER AND THE WAIF, THE

(27 June 1912) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .414

(29 September 1908) . . . . . . . . . . . .55 STRANGE MEETING, A

(2 August 1909) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .164 STRING OF PEARLS, A

(7 March 1912) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .392

SCULPTOR’S NIGHTMARE, THE

(6 May 1908) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .16 SEALED ROOM, THE

STUFF HEROES ARE MADE OF, THE

(2 September 1909) . . . . . . . . . . . .178 SERIOUS SIXTEEN

(4 September 1911) . . . . . . . . . . . .357 SUICIDE CLUB, THE

(21 July 1910) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .271 SEVENTH DAY, THE

(3 May 1909) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .132 SUMMER IDYL, A

(26 August 1909) . . . . . . . . . . . . . .159 SIMPLE CHARITY

(5 September 1910) . . . . . . . . . . . .283 SUNBEAM, THE

(10 November 1910) . . . . . . . . . . .297

(26 February 1912) . . . . . . . . . . . . .391 319

THE GRIFFITH PROJECT: VOLUME 6

SUNSHINE SUE

THREAD OF DESTINY, THE

(14 November 1910) . . . . . . . . . . .299 SUNSHINE THROUGH THE DARK

(7 March 1910) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .239 THREE FRIENDS

(27 November 1911) . . . . . . . . . . .377 SWEET AND TWENTY

(2 January 1913) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .446 THREE SISTERS

(22 July 1909) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .167 SWEET REVENGE

(2 February 1911) . . . . . . . . . . . . . .313 THROUGH DARKENED VALES

(18 November 1909) . . . . . . . . . . .208 SWORDS AND HEARTS

(16 November 1911) . . . . . . . . . . .373 THROUGH THE BREAKERS

(28 August 1911) . . . . . . . . . . . . . .358 TALE OF THE WILDERNESS, A

(8 January 1912) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .381

(6 December 1909) . . . . . . . . . . . . .213 ’TIS AN ILL WIND THAT BLOWS NO GOOD

(29 April 1909) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .135

TAMING A HUSBAND

(24 February 1910) . . . . . . . . . . . . .237

TO SAVE HER SOUL

(27 December 1909) . . . . . . . . . . . .221

TAMING OF THE SHREW

(10 November 1908) . . . . . . . . . . . .61 TAVERN-KEEPER’S DAUGHTER, THE

TRAGIC LOVE

(11 February 1909) . . . . . . . . . . . . . .95 TRAIL OF BOOKS, THE

(24 July 1908) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .33 TEACHING DAD TO LIKE HER

(9 November 1911) . . . . . . . . . . . .372 TRANSFORMATION OF MIKE, THE

(20 March 1911) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .325 TELEPHONE GIRL AND THE LADY, THE

(6 January 1913) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .447

(1 February 1912) . . . . . . . . . . . . . .389 TRAP FOR SANTA CLAUS, A

(20 December 1909) . . . . . . . . . . . .218 TRICK THAT FAILED, THE

(29 November 1909) . . . . . . . . . . .210

TEMPORARY TRUCE, A

(10 June 1912) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .411

TROUBLESOME SATCHEL, A

(19 April 1909) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .130

TENDER-HEARTED BOY, THE

(23 January 1913) . . . . . . . . . . . . . .450

TRYING TO GET ARRESTED

(5 April 1909) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .117

TENDER HEARTS

(19 July 1909) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .162

TWIN BROTHERS

(26 April 1909) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .126

TERRIBLE DISCOVERY, A

(21 December 1911) . . . . . . . . . . . .380

TWISTED TRAIL, THE

(24 March 1910) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .244

TEST, THE

(16 December 1909) . . . . . . . . . . . .217

TWO BROTHERS, THE

(12 May 1910) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .256

TEST OF FRIENDSHIP, THE

(15 December 1908) . . . . . . . . . . . . .76 THAT CHINK AT GOLDEN GULCH

TWO DAUGHTERS OF EVE

(19 September 1912) . . . . . . . . . . .427 TWO LITTLE WAIFS

(10 October 1910) . . . . . . . . . . . . .291 THEY WOULD ELOPE

(31 October 1910) . . . . . . . . . . . . .295 TWO MEMORIES

(9 August 1909) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .175 THIEF AND THE GIRL, THE

(24 May 1909) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .145 TWO PATHS, THE

(6 July 1911) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .347 THOSE AWFUL HATS

(2 January 1911) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .312 TWO SIDES, THE

(25 January 1909) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .94 THOSE BOYS!

(1 May 1911) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .334 TWO WOMEN AND A MAN

(18 January 1909) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .92 THOU SHALT NOT

(15 November 1909) . . . . . . . . . . .206 UNCHANGING SEA, THE

(18 April 1910) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .250

(5 May 1910) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .252 320

UNDER BURNING SKIES

WHAT’S YOUR HURRY?

(22 February 1912) . . . . . . . . . . . . .394 UNEXPECTED HELP

(1 November 1909) . . . . . . . . . . . .201 WHAT THE DAISY SAID

(28 July 1910) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .248 UNSEEN ENEMY, AN

(11 July 1910) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .269 WHEN A MAN LOVES

(9 September 1912) . . . . . . . . . . . .426 UNVEILING, THE

(5 January 1911) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .305 WHEN KINGS WERE THE LAW

(16 October 1911) . . . . . . . . . . . . .367 UNWELCOME GUEST, THE

(20 May 1912) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .408 WHEN KNIGHTS WERE BOLD

(15 March 1913) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .440 USURER, THE

(20 May 1908) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .17 WHEN LOVE FORGIVES

(15 August 1910) . . . . . . . . . . . . . .280 VALET’S WIFE, THE

(2 August 1913) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .457 WHERE THE BREAKERS ROAR

(1 December 1908) . . . . . . . . . . . . . .71 VAQUERO’S VOW, THE

(22 September 1908) . . . . . . . . . . . .47 WHITE ROSE OF THE WILDS, THE

(16 October 1908) . . . . . . . . . . . . . .50 VICTIM OF JEALOUSY, A

(25 May 1911) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .339 WILFUL PEGGY

(9 June 1910) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .261 VIOLIN MAKER OF CREMONA, THE

(25 August 1910) . . . . . . . . . . . . . .281 WINNING BACK HIS LOVE

(7 June 1909) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .141 VOICE OF THE CHILD, THE

(26 December 1910) . . . . . . . . . . . .307 WINNING COAT, THE

(28 December 1911) . . . . . . . . . . . .383 VOICE OF THE VIOLIN, THE

(12 April 1909) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .119 WITH HER CARD

(18 March 1909) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .114 WAITER NO. 5

(16 August 1909) . . . . . . . . . . . . . .172 WOMAN FROM MELLON’S, THE

(3 November 1910) . . . . . . . . . . . .296 WANTED, A CHILD

(3 February 1910) . . . . . . . . . . . . . .231 WOMAN SCORNED, A

(30 September 1909) . . . . . . . . . . .193 WAS HE A COWARD?

(30 November 1911) . . . . . . . . . . .374 WOMAN’S WAY, A

(16 March 1911) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .324 WAS JUSTICE SERVED?

(24 November 1908) . . . . . . . . . . . .60 WOODEN LEG, THE

(21 June 1909) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .154 WAY OF MAN, THE

(8 March 1909) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .113 WREATH IN TIME, A

(28 June 1909) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .153 WAY OF THE WORLD, THE

(8 February 1909) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .80 WREATH OF ORANGE BLOSSOMS, A

(25 April 1910) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .251 WELCOME BURGLAR, THE

(30 January 1911) . . . . . . . . . . . . . .308 YELLOW PERIL, THE

(25 January 1909) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .89 WHAT DRINK DID

(7 March 1908) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .7 ZULU’S HEART, THE

(3 June 1909) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .144

(6 October 1908) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .49

WHAT SHALL WE DO WITH OUR OLD

(13 February 1911) . . . . . . . . . . . . .316

321