The Griffith Project Volume 1: Films Produced in 1907–1908 9780851707471, 9781838710743, 9781838718985

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THE GRIFFITH PROJECT VOLUME 1 FILMS PRODUCED IN 1907-1908

THE GRIFFITH PROJECT VOLUME 1 FILMS PRODUCED IN 1907-1908

IN MEMORY OF ANGELO R. HUMOUDA

THE GRIFFITH PROJECT VOLUME 1

Films Produced in 1907-1908

GENERAL EDITOR

Paolo Cherchi Usai

CONTRIBUTORS

Eileen Bowser, Cooper C. Graham, Tom Gunning, Steven Higgins, J.B. Kaufman, Richard Koszarski, Patrick Loughney, David Mayer Russell Merritt, Scott Simmon ASSISTANT EDITOR

Cynthia Rowell

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A BFI book published by Palgrave Macmillan

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First published in 1999 by the British Film Institute 21 Stephen St, London W1P 2LN 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 1999 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 978-0-85170-747-1 eISBN 978-1-83871-897-8 ePDF 978-1-83871-898-5

CONTENTS

Foreword Notes on Contributors Note on Layout

vii viii

1. Professional Jealousy 2. Falsely Accused! 3. Rescued from an Eagle's Nest 4. Classmates 5. Cupid's Pranks 6. The Princess in the Vase 7. The Yellow Peril 8. Her First Adventure 9. Caught by Wireless 10. Old Isaacs, the Pawnbroker 11. A Famous Escape 12. King of the Cannibal Islands 13. The Music Master 14. Hulda's Lovers 15. The King's Messenger 16. The Sculptor's Nightmare 17. When Knights Were Bold 18. Mixed Babies 19. 'Ostler Joe 20. The Invisible Fluid 21. The Man in the Box 22. The Outlaw 23. At the French Ball 24. At the Crossroads of Life 25. The Kentuckian 26. The Stage Rustler 27. The Adventures of Dollie 28. The Black Viper 29. The Fight for Freedom 30. The Redman and the Child 31. The Bandit's Waterloo 32. A Calamitous Elopement 33. The Tavern-Keeper's Daughter

1 3 6 8 10 12 15 17 19 21 23 25 27 29 31 33 35 31 39 44 46 48 51 53 55 51 59 61 63 65 67 69 71

X

34. Deceived Slumming Party 35. The Greaser's Gauntlet 36. The Man and the Woman 37. For Love of Gold 38. The Fatal Hour 39. Balked at the Altar 40. For a Wife's Honor 41. The Girl and the Outlaw 42. Monday Morning in a Coney Island Police Court 43. The Red Girl 44. Behind the Scenes 45.TheHeartofOYama 46. Betrayed by a Handprint 47. Where the Breakers Roar 48. A Smoked Husband 49. The Zulu's Heart 50. The Vaquero's Vow 51. Father Gets in the Game 52. The Barbarian, Ingomar 53. The Planter's Wife 54. The Devil 55. The Stolen Jewels 56. Mr. Jones at the Ball 57. Romance of a Jewess 58. The Call of the Wild 59. Concealing a Burglar 60. A Woman's Way 61. Taming of the Shrew 62. After Many Years 63. The Pirate's Gold 64. The Guerrilla 65. The Song of the Shirt 66. The Curtain Pole 67. Mrs. Jones Entertains 68. The Ingrate 69. The Feud and the Turkey

73 75 78 80 82 84 86 88 91 93 96 99 102 105 107 110 113 115 117 122 124 127 130 132 135 137 139 141 143 146 148 150 152 154 156 158

70. The Reckoning 71. The Valet's Wife 72. The Clubman and the Tramp 73. Money Mad 74. One Touch of Nature 75. An Awful Moment 76. The Test of Friendship 77. The Helping Hand 78. The Maniac Cook 79. The Christmas Burglars 80. A Wreath in Time 81. The Honor of Thieves 82. A Rural Elopement

160 162 164 166 168 171 174 176 178 180 183 185 188

83. The Joneses Have Amateur Theatricals 84. The Sacrifice 85. The Criminal Hypnotist 86. Edgar Allen Poe 87. Mr. Jones Has a Card Party 88. The Roue's Heart 89. The Welcome Burglar 90. The Hindoo Dagger

190 191 193 195 197 199 201 203

Bibliography Index of Titles: 1907-1908

205 206

FOREWORD

D.W. Griffith worked as director, producer, writer, actor and supervisor in over 500 films made during the years from 1907 to 1931. Despite this impressive output, relatively few titles have been the specific objects of scholarly inquiry. Hence the simple yet ambitious aim of The Griffith Project, held in conjunction with the multi-year retrospective organized by the Pordenone Silent Film Festival: a systematic analysis of all the films in which Griffith was involved, from his debut as performer in Professional jealousy (1907) to The Struggle (1931), his last feature. An international team of specialists was given the task of discussing groups of consecutive films listed in their shooting order, and of providing a list of the archival sources available. Please note that it is the last day of shooting that determines the chronology and perimeter of each volume. Every entry is preceded by a plot synopsis taken from the actual viewing of the print, and by summaries or reviews published at the time of release. The primary source for filmographic information on the Biograph period is D. W. Griffith and the Olograph Company (Cooper C. Graham, Steven Higgins, Elaine Mancini, Joao 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 patiently revised the text and provided invaluable advice on various aspects of the overall project. Various contributors to The Griffith Project have added or amended information contained in the Scarecrow filmography, or submitted additional notes after the pre-publication of Volumes 1 and 2, presented at Pordenone in 1997 and 1998 in the form of program notes. 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), David Francis, 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. The Board of Directors of the Pordenone Silent Film Festival (Davide Turconi, David Robinson, Piera Patat, Livio Jacob, Lorenzo Codelli, Carlo Montanaro, Piero Colussi and Andrea Crozzoli) was instrumental in turning the Griffith retrospective into a unique opportunity to reassess the extraordinary contribution of D.W. Griffith to the art of film. A condensed version of the debate within the Pordenone team before the project started in October 1997 can be found in Griffithiana, Vol. XXI, Nos 62-63, May 1998, 4-37. Finally, we wish to thank the following staff members and students of the L. Jeffrey Selznick School of Film Preservation at George Eastman House for their help at the early stage of this project: Edward E. Stratmann, Philip C. Carli, Sabine Czylwik, Dave Herrera, Christopher Shannon, Jennifer Wu, and Greg Linnell. Paolo Cherchi Usai Rochester, April 1999

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: 1907-19U (1990), co-author (with Iris Barry) oiD.W. Griffith (1965), and editor o£ Biograph Bulletins 1908-1912 (1973). PAOLO CHERCHI USAI, senior curator of the Motion Picture Department at George Eastman House, is associate professor of film at the University of Rochester and Director of the L. Jeffrey Seknick School of Film Preservation, established in 1996. Co-founder of the Pordenone Silent Film Festival and Domitor (Society for Early Cinema Studies), 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). A revised and expanded version of his book Burning Passions: An Introduction to the Study of Silent Cinema (199>4) is forthcoming from BFI Publishing. COOPER C. GRAHAM graduated from the Law School of the University of Virginia and received his PhD. in cinema studies from New York University in 1984. He was a coauthor of D. W. Griffith and the Biograph Company (1984) and author oiLeni Riefenstahl and Olympia (1986). He has written several articles on German film for the Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television. He is presently researching film production of short subjects in the 1930s in the United States, and is a curator in the Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division at the Library of Congress. TOM GUNNING is professor of Art History 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 book on the films of Frit2 Lang is forthcoming from BFI Publishing. STEVEN M G G I N S is curator in the Department of Film and Video, The Museum of Modern Art, New York. J.B. KAUFMAN is an independent film historian who has written extensively on topics including Disney animation and the films of Blanche Sweet. He is co-author, with Russell Merritt, of Walt in Wonderland: The Silent Films of Walt Disney (1992) and of a second book on the Silly Symphonies. RICHARD KOSZARSKI is editor-in-chief of Film History: An International Journal His books include The Man You Loved to Hate: Erich von Stroheim and Hollywood (1983), and An Evenings Entertainment: The Age of the Silent Feature Picture (1990). He was the 1991 recipient of the Prix Jean Mitry from the Pordenone Silent Film Festival. Previously head of collections and exhibitions for the American Museum of the Moving Image, he now teaches film history at Rutgers University. PATRICK LOUGHNEY is head of the Moving Image Section of the Library of Congress Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound division.

viii .

THE GRIFFITH PROJECT: VOLUME 1

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 the author of numerous essays on nineteenth and early twentieth-century popular stage entertainments and links with early film. RUSSELL MERRITT teaches 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 Fims 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 and International Sales for Milestone Film and 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 has overseen restorations of Oscar Micheaux's Within Our Gates (1919) and Lois Weber's Where Are My Children? (1916). He is producer of The Library of Congress Video Collection and, for the National Film Preservation Foundation, Treasures of American Film Archives, a video set of rare films from seventeen U.S. archives. Currently he is visiting associate professor at the University of California, Davis, and is completing a book on the Western.

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