The Struggle (1931)

Directed by D.W. Griffith
Starring Hal Skelly, Zita Johann, Charlotte Wynters
Produced by D.W. Griffith Productions 

It's the early 1920s and Jimmie is in love with Florrie.  There's only one problem: Jimmie enjoys drinking.  Florrie does not approve so right then and there, Jimmie resolves to never drink again.

Flash forward a few years. Jimmie and Florrie are married and have a child. He has apparently managed to remain sober.  One day, Jimmy's coworker is laid off and the husband decides to have a drink with him. And another. And another.

Jimmy's alcoholism is back now stronger than ever and threatens to destroy his entire family.  Can Jimmie pull out of the tailspin his life has become? Or will he continue to live as the most stereotypical drunk that has ever graced the silver screen?


I hated this movie.  There is literally almost nothing this film does well.

First, it starts with this pointless jumping through time.  Seemingly the only point of these scenes is to make jokes about stuff from history that the audience knows the result of.  So we get one scene with people expounding upon how Woodrow Wilson would be a terrible President because he's a college professor, immediately followed by someone commenting in the early 1920s that they should keep all of their money in stocks because by 1930 they'll be rich.  Get it? Wilson was actually a good President! And the stock market crash happened in 1929 so that woman would have no money!  Isn't that great stuff?

We then get into the main story which revolves around Jimmy's alcoholism.  This basically means it's an hour of Hal Skelly as Jimmie, stumbling around and slurring his words.  There is no moderation in his performance.  He's either sober or completely hammered.

Fortunately, he has Florrie to support him. And by "support him," I mean she alternates between blank stares and repeating "Jimmie! Oh, Jimmie! Jimmie!" ad nauseum.

The film is shot by Griffith as though he recording a play.  He's making a talkie, but it still looks and feels like a silent from 12 years earlier.  Hell, his own Broken Blossoms was more compelling than this.

Griffith used to have an ear and an eye for melodrama, but he also used to have actors like Richard Barthelmess and Lillian Gish helping him out.  No one is going to confuse anyone involved with this for actors of that character.

Griffith's work has always had a bit of self-importance, but it seems like his career has been a decade-long slow decline to this absolute nadir.  The only thing that may help this film is adding a laugh track and trying to make it a comedy.

Which is a damn shame.  This was Griffith's last feature.  I wanted to see him go out on top.

* out of *****

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Abraham Lincoln (1930)

Directed by D.W. Griffith

Starring Walter Huston, Una Merkel and William L. Thorne 

Produced by D.W. Griffith Productions

In a small, nondescript log cabin in Kentucky, a small child is born. We see him grow up and fall in love only to lose her to disease in her 20s. He courts an ambitious woman and runs unsuccessfully for the U.S. Senate.

But with the country teetering on the brink of a civil war, his party turns to him to be its Presidential candidate. Can he win the White House? Will he lead his country through its most difficult hours? Does he fight vampires? And should he give up going to the theater?

Abraham Lincoln follows the life of one of our most famous Presidents from his log cabin birth to his assassination. It's well-acted and well-directed. So what's it missing?

Every major detail of his life. 

We see nothing of his Presidential election. No Gettysburg address. The Emancipation Proclamation, the Lincoln Douglas debates... all given only the most cursory of treatments. 

There are plenty of good biopics out there that play as a highlight reel of a person's life. Others focus on a less consequential event as a way of humanizing and illuminating a public persona. Griffith tries to do both here. He chooses to move throughout Lincoln's entire life over the course of 90 minutes, but focuses on the smaller moments in between the larger actions. It just never quite works. 

We meet an early love of young Abe's, but the next scene is at her deathbed. We don't spend enough time with her to care or even to feel the impact of her death on the rest of Abe's life. Similarly, Lincoln declares throughout that the Union must be preserved. Yet none of the smaller moments give the viewer any better understanding of why the future President believes this. 

Where the film actually takes off is in its second half when Lincoln has become President (in an election that happens entirely off-screen). We see his Cabinet, certain they will be able to steamroll an inexperienced politician, surprised by his resolve. There's the wonderful image of a vast bank of telegraph operators providing the President with his only sense of how the war proceeds through accounts shaded by the overconfidence of his commanders in the field. There's genuine tension in these scenes despite the fact that we know how it all turns out. 

The film's denouement is Lincoln's assassination at Ford's theater and Griffith cannot pull off the same feat. The action proceeds slowly, clearly with the intention of building up suspense, but it doesn't work. We know the assassin is successful. Making it worse, Griffith actually already showed us this very moment in history in The Birth of a Nation and did so far more effectively. 

To the extent anything in the film's first half works, it's due in large part to Walter Huston. As Lincoln, he's believable as brawler, as a young man in love, as a patriot, as a President. He has a carefree personality that turns grave and somber when faced with matters of state. He handles the frenetic movement of the script perfectly. 

The only other issue worth mentioning is the obviousness of some of the script. It's filled with a lot of winking "you'll never amount to anything" dialogue which of course is meant to give the audience (which has the benefit of 20/20 historical hindsight) a brief chuckle. However, after the fifth time you use that device, it starts to lose its charm.

Ultimately, Abraham Lincoln is hampered by its approach. The film flits from inconsequential moment to inconsequential moment, providing just enough information to intrigue without providing any illumination on the man behind the myth. The result is a solid lead performance, a lot of wasted narrative energy and ultimately more questions than answers for the audience. 

**1/2 out of *****

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The Battle of the Sexes (1928)

Directed by D.W. Griffith
Starring Jean Hersholt, Phyllis Haver and Belle Bennett
Produced by Feature Productions

Businessman William Judson has done it again.

Splashed across the front page of the newspaper is his latest real estate deal, celebrating both the man and the sizable check he has coming.  His barber is suitably impressed as Judson arrives for his latest trim.

Unfortunately for Judson, the barber's not the only one taking note.  Gold digger Marie is sitting one chair over from the tycoon and begins hatching a scheme.  Working with her boyfriend Babe Winsor, Marie conspires to move into Judson's apartment building and seduce the man, taking him for all he's worth.

Her task will not be easy.  William is happily married and dotes over two teenage children.  That's not to say Marie has no hope.  As she's plotting a scheme to lure the target into her apartment as he passes by, she spies a mouse and shrieks.  The brave Judson bursts in to investigate, which is all it takes for Marie to sink her claws into him.

Soon, the husband and father is "working late" every night.  Life in the Judson abode is becoming strained.  The family matriarch takes the kids out to the new club where they run into the cheating couple. Mr. Judson moves out, his wife contemplates suicide and his daughter is desperate.

Can the girl bring her family back together again?  And will it take a... (*dramatic pause*) murder?

The Battle of the Sexes is one of the final films from D.W. Griffith, a true film pioneer whose work changed the way movies were made.  The Birth of a Nation.  Intolerance.  Broken Blossoms.  The man literally created the language of cinema and we still see his influence on the big screen today. 

He also seemed to lose his mojo in the 1920s. Way Down East. America. Sally of the Sawdust.  None of them are terrible, but they certainly seem a far cry from the ambition of his earlier work.

So where does The Battle of the Sexes fall?

Sadly, it's right down the middle.  It's an okay film, but certainly not great or even good.  Thought there are aspects of the old Griffith that peek through.

More than any other director of the silent era, Griffith told stories with strong women characters.  It takes a while to get going here, but when Judson's daughter Ruth finally emerges as our plucky heroine, she becomes the center of the story.  She's desperate to save her mother and bring back her father from his "sickness."

Even if that means killing the mistress.

Of course, when the moment comes and the gun is in her hand, she cannot pull the trigger.  She needs to act, but she's still a good person.  And her father's despicable actions cannot drive that out of her.

When it's Ruth's story, I like the film a lot.  Sadly, there's a lot of the tale that is William Judson and Marie's alone and that is where the cracks show.  There are pacing issues. One minute, the father has provided his wife a thoughtful gift, looking into her eyes to see the reaction as she opens it.  The next scene, he's falling for Marie.  There's no build to it.  We do not see a reason why he falls for her.  It just happens.

There are tonal problems as well.  Sometimes, the film does blend its comedy and pathos well, like when William buys a fat burning machine that provides us both a humorous and a pathetic image.  However, the last act of the movie wants to have a zaniness to it that is impossible when the emotions of Ruth are at the center of the situation and there's an attempted suicide hovering over the scene.

As to the acting, Sally O'Neil's Ruth was the only standout.  She a bit too cloyingly naive at the beginning, but her confusion and sadness upon seeing her father at the club are perfect.  So too are her panic as she prevents her mother's suicide and her turmoil when the moment comes to off Marie.  The rest of the actors here are fine in their roles.

Which is a good way to leave The Battle of the Sexes.  It's not bad.  It's not good.  It's fine.  You won't mind watching it, but you won't remember it in a year or even a month.  And if that sounds like damning with faint praise?  Well, it is.

**1/2 out of *****

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Sally of the Sawdust (1925)

Directed by D.W. Griffith
Starring W.C. Fields, Carol Dempster and Alfred Lunt
Produced by Paramount Pictures

Sally is a circus performer who was raised believing that fellow carny "Professor Eustace McGargle" is her father. The two work together both on stage and off, protecting one another as they run afoul of both "rubes" and the law.

Of course, the professor isn't really her pop. Her mother was the daughter of Judge Foster who kicked her to the curb because she married a circus performer. After, giving birth to Sally, the woman died, entrusting her young child to McGargle.

McGargle is an honorable man (at least when it comes to Sally) and doesn't want the circus life for the girl. So the pair jump a train and ride to Green Meadows to try to reunite the girl with her grandparents. Unfortunately, while Judge Foster has regret, he still is deeply suspicious of circus folk. McGargle decides to keep Sally's parentage a secret.

Complicating matters, Sally falls for young socialite Peyton Lennox. His father is a friend of the Fosters do the judge contrives to have the carnies arrested.

Will love win out in the end?  And will the secret of Sally's birth come out?

Sally of the Sawdust is silly, melodramatic and maudlin, but totally worth people's time for one reason:

W. C. Fields.

This is my first exposure to the vaudeville legend besides the parodies of the character you see in other movies and entertainment. But the man is a star. He commands the screen. His physical abilities and comic timing are great, but in the quiet moments of the film, he is brilliant. His every facial tic tells you exactly what he's thinking, but there's a subtlety to his craft.

As Sally, Carol Dempster is good. Her facial expressions and mannerisms are so different from other stars of the era. She also goes from goofy and comedic to dramatic and heartbroken as well as most. That said, she does occasionally contort her face a little too much. And, while the extras in the movie may love her dancing, I thought she looked she was having a seizure.

The rest of the cast is straight out of central casting and they work well enough. The one exception was Judge Foster's wife. There managed to be both too much of her and not enough of her. The camera lingers on her grief for uncomfortable stretches of the film. These scenes could have been edited down, but she's clearly the best actor besides Field in the film and could have had some other moments to shine. We never get a sense of how her relationship with the judge has evolved since the death of their daughter.

There are a number of great comedic moments throughout Sally of the Sawdust. in particular, I loved the big fight scene early on where some rubes who lost their money to McGargle come demanding their cash back. Soon, the entire circus, elephants and all, is engaged in the donnybrook. Fields physicality and facial expressions are perfect throughout.

I have not mentioned D.W. Griffith and that's because he is largely anonymous in the film. It's hard to draw much distinction between his direction here and the efforts of William Beaudine in Little Annie Rooney. The only real directorial flourish is the occasional close-up of the man Foster charged with following the carnies, but that's more distracting than purposeful.  The rest of Hollywood has caught up to Griffith and he has no more tricks up his sleeve.

I didn't talk about the romance.  That's because there's not much to it.  Lennox and Sally see each other, they fall in love and then... Lennox is sent away by his father until the last frames.

There are elements that don't work (what happened to the criminals that kidnapped McGargle?), but Dempster and especially Fields propel the movie along with comic energy and pathos.

***1/2 out of *****

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America (1924)

Directed by D.W. Griffith

Starring Neil Hamilton, Carol Dempster, Lionel Barrymore

Produced by D.W. Griffith Productions 

Nathan Holden, a farmer and courier, is enamored of two things: his involvement with the revolutionaries in the nascent Sons of Liberty movement opposing Great Britain in the 1700s, and his infatuation with Nancy Montague, a rich woman he encountered on one of his mail runs to Virginia.  Unfortunately for Nathan, the Montagues are loyalists through and through, and the patriarch of the Montagues hates rebels.

Holden delivers a dispatch to the Virginia legislature and sees Nancy again.  They share a moment before Justice Montague enflames the crowd in the legislature with his Tory views.  Nancy leaves with her father and Holden returns to Lexington.  

The Montagues travel to Lexington at the same time the British are preparing to attack.  Holden has a flirtatious and comical interlude with Nancy at her balcony that is interrupted by her father.  We get a lot of historical reenactments next Paul Revere's ride, the Battles of Concord and Lexington and the Battle of Bunker Hill.  During this, Holden accidentally shoots Justice Montague and Nancy's brother Charles sides with the rebels and is killed at Bunker Hill.

Lurking in the background of these events is Captain Walter Butler, a captain in the British army who works with the Indians to brutally torture and murder the revolutionaries.  Butler has designs on crushing the rebellion and installing himself as the new emperor of America.  He also wants Nancy to become his queen.  Will Holden and the revolutionaries succeed in repelling Butler and his men?  

In watching films, there are a lot of variables affecting me in different ways, but I basically have two levels of evaluation: is it entertaining and does it make me think?  A movie can be massively entertaining so I overlook its flaws.  Or a film can be so well-constructed, I find myself lost in the structure, ignoring how dull the actual plot may be.

This movie did not entertain me and it did not make me think.

The obvious point of comparison for America is Griffith's earlier work The Birth of a Nation.  Here, Griffith is using the exact same film techniques and structural elements that served him well in his repugnant masterpiece, but that's exactly the problem.  It's been nine years and there's no more tools in his tool box.  

Beyond that, this is a far sloppier film.  The first half is charitably a mess.  Holden is embroiled in the events of the American Revolution, but almost as though he is Forrest Gump being inserted at the periphery of the frame.  He walks into a room and there's Sam Adams and John Hancock.  Why?  Because we get to name-drop some people you may have heard of.  There are other scenes like Paul Revere's ride that are thrilling, but entirely disconnected from the main plot.  And then there are moments where we cut to historic moments for their own sake.  We see the signing of the Declaration of Independence.  Again, why?  Because we've all heard of that.  It has nothing to do with the characters and none of them even react to it anyway.

The second half plays more to Griffith's strengths and becomes a tale of a man trying to save the woman he loves and prove himself to her father.  Of course, Justice Montague will see the error of his ways (kind of hard not to when Captain Butler kills your brother for no good reason).  Of course Nathan and Nancy will get together (despite some of the Romeo and Juliet cues).  Griffith does some fine work in battle and chase sequences here, but none of it seems as inspired or passionate as essentially identical scenes in The Birth of a Nation.
The actors here are just okay with the exception of Lionel Barrymore.  His Captain Butler is over-the-top evil, which would normally bother me.  In the context of America though it works because he is the only character of any interest on the screen.  He has some dimension and always has more going on behind his eyes, which is an under-appreciated aspect of acting in the silent era.

There are moments that work.  Paul Revere's ride is a great short film that had no business being in the movie.  The moment where Nancy presents her dead brother to his father, but hides his rebel sympathies is moving.  And the final chase and rescue all work.

Unfortunately, Griffith appears to have lost his mojo here in America.  He goes back to a well he's visited several times to find it bone dry.  I am still interested in what else he has up his sleeve, but a lot of other directors are starting to lap him.  

** out of *****

Note: During Paul Revere's ride, Revere rides his horse up a small set of stairs.  The horse then turns to leave and falls, actor and all.  Guess the budget only called for one take?

Note 2: Neil Hamilton who plays Nathan is probably (definitely?) better known to modern audiences as Commissioner Gordon in the campy Batman television series.

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Orphans of the Storm (1921)

The guillotine awaits our heroine

Directed by D.W. Griffith

Starring Lillian Gish, Dorothy Gish, Joseph Schildkraut
Produced by D.W. Griffith Productions

In 18th century France, a family is torn apart when the husband is killed and their baby abducted.  The men leave the child on the steps of Notre Dame Cathedral, where she is found by Jean Girard.  Girard is bringing his own baby daughter to abandon.  However, upon seeing the baby lying in the snow, he returns home with both his own child Henriette and the found one Louise.  The Girards rais the girls as sisters, until the plague arrives, killing the parents and leaving Louise blind.

Henriette finds a doctor in Paris who can cure Louise, but the blind woman wants her sister's assurance that she will not leave Louise for a husband in the city.  Henriette makes the promise and the two set off for the city.  Their path crosses an aristocrat who falls for Henriette and he kidnaps her, leaving the blind Louise to fall into the clutches of the Frochards, a family of beggars who see the stricken woman as a meal ticket. 

Henriette escapes from the nobleman with the help of Chevalier de Vaudrey and the two fall in love.  Of course, the beginning of the French Revolution may destroy everyone and everything.  Can Henriette find her sister in Paris?  And will she keep her promise not marry until Louise has regained her sight?  Or will the sisters be casualties of the revolution.

Orphans of the Storm is a good period piece by D.W. Griffith featuring real life sisters Lillian and Dorothy Gish.  I loved the last two-thirds of the movie.  From the moment the sisters are separated, the film sails on the acting skill of Dorothy and especially Lillian Gish.  As Lillian begs to be saved from her abducter, you feel her desperation.  You sense her internal conflict in every moment with de Vaudrey.

This is also a return to form (for the most part for Griffith).  The end sequence with Danton, a French revolutionary, racing to save Henriette from the guillotine is thrilling (though a mash-up of the climax of The Birth of a Nation and the modern story from Intolerance).  The aristocratic party and the battle scenes from the revolution are classic Griffith.  They are crisply paced, well-edited and  have a scale that you can only get from a movie.

The scale of the movie is also one of its great weaknesses.  The scope means you spend the first half hour meeting various characters and getting a lot of exposition.  Because some of the players have no interaction with the sisters until much later, it feels a bit plodding at times.  Once he sets the table however, the movie moves at a better pace.

There is one absolutlely brilliant shot that I want to highlight.  An aristocrat's carriage moves through a crowd of children who scatter.  One of the children doesn't move fast enough and is trampled by the horses and carriage.  The first time I watched it happen on screen took my breath away.  Amazing practical effects work for the time!

There are some odd choices throughout that hurt the tale.  Some of the edits are overly choppy, as though the director was watching to much MTV.  There's also a secondary character Picard who randomly turns into comic relief throughout the last third of the film, and always at the worst possible moment for comedy.  I know why Griffith is attempting to inject the laughs, but it just doesn't work.

Still, the direction and the acting are top notch and Griffith continues to pull out both surprising and effective camera moves and angles.  It's 2-1/2 hours long, so it's not going to be for everyone.  Orphans of the Storm is not as good as Intolerance, but it's closer to the Griffith I love than his last couple.

**** out of *****

Photo from The Dancing Image

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Way Down East (1920)

The amazing ice floes ending from Way Down East

Directed by D.W. Griffith
Starring Lillian Gish and Richard Barthelmess
Produced by D.W. Griffith Productions

Anna Moore lives with her mother in the country.  The poor family needs money and Anna heads off to visit her rich relatives in Boston for a loan.  The extended family is less than thrilled to see their country bumpkin niece show up.  Anna sticks around for a ball and meets Lennox Sanderson, who we are told has three specialties: "ladies, Ladies and LADIES".

Lennox proposes to Anna and all seems well.  Except Lennox tells his betrothed to keep it a secret, then pays someone to pretend to be a priest and marry them.  Off they go on their honeymoon and, after a few reluctant moments, the sham marriage is consummated. 

The marriage of course results in a pregnancy, which forces Lennox to come clean.  Anna is on her own and gives birth to a boy.  But the boy is sick and dies in short order.

Anna is now a social pariah (having a baby and no husband is a big no-no) and is evicted from her room.  She wanders into another town where she meets up with the Bartletts and finds work on their farm.  She keeps her past a secret from them, but catches the eye of the Bartletts' son David.  She resists his advances, ashamed of her past.

Soon enough Lennox ends up at the estate across the street from the Bartletts.  Will Anna's secret be revealed to her new adoptive family.  And can David love her in spite of her past?

Way Down East is the tale of two movies.  One has impressive acting by the two main leads and a climax as visually stunning and engaging as any I have seen in the silent era.  The other is pretentious, in need of editing and full of characters who appear to be in a different movie.

Let's talk about the first.  Lillian Gish is easily now my favorite actress of the silent era thus far.  She is natural in most scenes, but when the emotional moment comes, she goes for it.  And it never seems over the top.

Richard Barthelmess is someone I hope to see more of.  He is great as David, underplaying his role for much of the movie.  He is pitch perfect in his confusion when Anna's secret comes to light, then he is fantastic in his rage at Lennox when he discovers the circumstances behind Anna's pregnancy.

If a 2-1/2 hour movie can be saved by a ten minute ending sequence, this is one comes as close as any.  Anna runs from the Bartletts' home into a winter storm, ultimately collapsing near an icy stream bank.  The ice breaks away from the shore and large chunks of the ice start flowing down river.  David chases her onto the river, jumping from ice chunk to ice chunk to reach Anna before the ice floes go over the waterfall.  It's a thrilling chase, masterfully edited and perfectly acted.

Unfortunately, the film has a lot of problems as well.  Griffith has developed this annoying habit with his language.  It's flowery as though written by someone who wishes he were a poet, but doesn't have the skill.  A sample:

Time and place - in the story world of make-believe
Characters - nowhere - yet everywhere
Incidents - never occurred - yet always happening

Beyond the language, his film style conveys a sense of over-the-top imagery that is out of place.  At one point, a bird lands on Gish's shoulder, demonstrative of her goodness and harmony with nature.  It's unnecessary.  The audience is already on her side. 

A lot of the secondary characters are completely unnecessary.  The Bartletts are surrounded by townsfolk who attempt to serve as comic relief.  Unfortunately, it's hard to make the audience laugh at the inept constable when you've just killed off our heroine's baby. 

Finally, there is one moment in its sheer lunacy I need to point out.  The Bartlett patriarch, Squire, is told secondhand that Anna had birthed a child out of wedlock.  He is angry, but his wife says he needs proof.  So the next morning he gets up bright and early and rides a sleigh to Anna's former town.  He arrives at noon.  He walks into her old room and ask the landlady if it's true.  She confirms it in two sentences.  He then goes back out, gets in his sleigh and drives back.  The guy just went ten hours round trip to have a 90 second conversation.  And that is proof.  It's completely unnecessary in the story.  He could have just acted on the initial claim and you could have had the same result.

You could have cut this movie by almost half and had a lot of the same impact.  A lot of the opening 45 minutes is plodding and unnecessary.  There's a lot of melodramatic filler throughout the movie that could have been lost and I would not have missed it.

It's hard to say whether this is good movie or bad movie.  There are moments I loved and moments that were painful to sit through.  I guess I'd give it a middle of the road:

**1/2 out of *****

Watched on Netflix Watch Instantly

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What the Daisy Said (1910)

Directed by D.W. Griffith (uncredited)
Starring Mary Pickford, Gertrude Robinson, Joseph Graybill
Produced by Biograph Company

Two girls seeking romance turn to a gypsy to have their fortunes read.  But the gypsy may just be playing the girls for his own purposes.  When their father intervenes and is attacked, complications ensue.

This is a slight tale that takes us back to 1910 and a D.W. Griffith short. The story is pretty unremarkable.  Even Pickford is pretty boring as one of the girls the gypsy is leading on.

The only thing of note here is Griffith's editing style. It's a number of quick cuts that seem normal today, but would have seemed extraordinary at the time.  Griffith also characteristically films outdoors, which sets him apart from most directors at the time.

In the end, What the Daisy Said just lies there. There's nothing to it.  It is the definition of "meh".

** out of **** stars

Watched on DVD through Netflix

NOTE: Once again, we jump back in time because this was included on the Daddy Long Legs disc. Consider it a cinematic sorbet as we enter the 1920s.

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Broken Blossoms (1919)

Barthelmess with the amazing Lillian Gish

Directed by D.W. Griffith
Starring Lillian Gish, Richard Barthelmess, Donald Crisp
Produced by United Artists

Cheng Huan leaves his native China on a mission to sow the tenets of Buddhism among those in England.  However, he soon finds himself as a shopkeeper in the Limehouse district of London, spending his days smoking opium.  His only joy comes from seeing the young Lucy pass by his store.  Despite her ragged clothes, Cheng sees her inner beauty and admires from afar.

Lucy lives a difficult life herself.  She is the daughter of a prize fighter, Battlin' Burrows, who thinks nothing of taking out his aggressions on the girl.  So miserable is Lucy that she literally must grab the corners of her mouth to force a smile.

After one particularly violent attack by her father, Lucy wanders from her home and collapses in Cheng's doorway.  The former missionary takes the girl in and cares for her.  Though clearly smitten, he never takes advantage.  Can the two find love?  And what will happen when Battlin' Burrows learns his daughter is with a foreigner?


Broken Blossoms seems like almost an experiment in movie-making from D.W. Griffith.  Can he take the techniques he used to tell the massive, epic stories in Intolerance and The Birth of a Nation to not only tell a much more intimate tale, but to make that story feel just as epic?

On this count, the movie almost entirely succeeds and even surpasses his earlier work.  The final act of the film is assembled into a dizzying array of close-ups, medium and long shots that feel very modern in their editing.  Toward the end, Griffith intercuts between Battlin's boxing match and a tender moment between Lucy and Cheng. The impact gives Lucy's scene even more tension as the action in both the ring and Cheng's apartment build.

The three main leads are fantastic. Gish brings a melancholy to the performance that no other actress could have matched.  In the end, as she tries to hide from her father, her terror becomes crazed beyond anything I have seen before.  You believe she is in fear for her life.  Barthelmess brings a dignity and nobility to his role and Crisp is menacing as the brutish antagonist.

None of that is to say the film is perfect.  There are moments that become tedious, particularly in the second act as Cheng cares for Lucy.  Although we are told she was with Cheng for only one night, the events of the film made it seem to stretch longer than that.

The other major flaw from a modern perspective is the treatment of the "yellow man" in the film.  While it's easier to look past the derogatory references to the minority characters as indicative of the times, having a white actor play Cheng was distracting.  In order to look Chinese, Barthelmess walks through the film with his eyes half-closed and his eyebrows pointing up.  He never struck me as Asian as much as he did sleepy.

Unlike the problems of racism in The Birth of a Nation, which structured its story as an argument for racism, the treatment of the Chinese is a minor quibble in what is an otherwise great film.  Definitely recommend.

****1/2 out of *****

Watched on Netflix Watch Instantly (also available at the Internet Archive)
Photo from Another Nickel in the Machine

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1918: The Year that Ultimately Leads Us to Bugs Bunny

We've reached 1918 and I'm almost through my first decade of film watching  The big, notable piece of film history for me?  Four brothers (Jack, Albert, Harry and Samuel) open their own movie studio.  Their last name?  Warner.  That's right, this year was the birth of the studio that would bring the world The Adventures of Robin Hood, Casablanca, A Streetcar Named Desire, Rebel without a Cause, Dirty Harry, and Jonah Hex (they can't all be winners).

Now, amongst other things, I am a huge fan of the Warner Bros. cartoons.  I love Bugs, Daffy, Taz and especially Road runner and Wile E. Coyote ("super-genius").  The rest of my family loves Disney; for me, it's all about Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies.  One of my favorite quotes: "If you want to smile, watch Disney.  If you want to laugh, watch Warner Bros."  

In movie news, Stella Maris is the highest grossing film and features Mary Pickford in two roles.  Can't wait to see that.  This year also features the first movie version of Tarzan and you know I will be checking that out.  


As far as availability of movies go, things are definitely improving.  I had to research the various films available on NetFlix to pick them (rather than being forced to go with the only ones available).  My plan is to watch Stella Maris, Broken Blossoms (a D.W. Griffith film), The Blue Bird and Amarilly of Clothes-line Alley through NetFlix.  I'm also going to try to catch a Charles Chaplin and a Buster Keaton flick.  And of course, Tarzan.  I'm sure there will be some other surprises along the way.  As it's shaping up, I may be spending some more time in 1918 than in any other year to date.

I'll leave you with my favorite Bugs moment from 1957 What's Opera, Doc? performed with a live orchestra:




Photo from JohnThrasher.net

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Intolerance (1916)

This was a set.  Seriously.

Directed by D.W. Griffith
Starring Mae Marsh, Robert Harron, F.A. Turner
Produced by Triangle Film Corporation

Intolerance is Griffith's follow-up to his hugely successful (but incredibly racist) epic Birth of a Nation.  Intolerance weaves a narrative from four different stories throughout history: modern day America, ancient Babylon, 18th century France and the time of Christ. The connecting thread of the tales is the impact intolerant people can have on the good and the just, literally upending entire civilizations.

Let's start with the great.  Babylon is one of the most impressive sets I have seen.  Ever.  The scale and scope of the city, populated by hundreds of extras, is massive and Griffith brings the camera back to show you the scale.  The story is engaging with enough plot and characters to fill an entire film.  An unladylike young girl is saved from a forced marriage by the prince of the city.  She returns the favor by fighting for him when the armies of Cyrus attempt to breach the city walls. The battle is gorgeous and includes massive siege towers and a flame-throwing cart that had to have resulted in many injuries amongst the extras.

The marvel of these scenes is their scale.  Griffith appreciated the massive canvas film could provide and built sets that were 100 feet tall.  He was among the first to mount his camera on a crane and, during a feast scene, slowly brings the camera from atop the city down to the steps where revelers are dancing.  During every moment in Babylon you get this tremendous sense of the scope of the place which makes the ending more unfathomable.

However, the most enthralling tale in the movie is the modern day story.  A mill owner, in order to finance his sister's charity, cuts the wages of his workers who then strike.  There is a street fight between the mill owner's men and the workers that ends with the death of the boy's father and the displacement of the workers to find a new life in the city. 

The boy falls into a life of crime, but changes his ways when he meets and marries "the dear one."  However, the boy cannot so easily leave his past behind and is framed for murder.  The story ultimately leads to a thrilling chase as the dear one races a train to convince the Governor to spare her husband.

Griffith again proves his mastery of the medium during this final action sequence.  He gets his camera into places no one else is even thinking about at the time.  The way he tracks the car as it chases down the locomotive while cutting back to the husband's walk to the gallows creates a palpable tension.

Unfortunately, the other two stories do not fare as well.  The French tale feels like its walking the same ground as the other stories with less spectacle and action.  And Jesus only appears to punctuate the mood in other stories.  For example, as the boy is facing the executioner, we cut to Jesus carrying his cross.  Griffith is not interested in giving us a telling of the New Testament; he's interested in Jesus as an exclamation point on his other stories.

You see this dozens of times.  Just this.

The worst aspect of the film is a fifth story Griffith sprinkles throughout and that is the image of his most famous actress Lillian Gish as a mother slowly rocking a cradle.  It is a moment of innocence before intolerance infects the human condition.  It is also pretension injected into what could have been one of the greatest movies ever.  And Griffith constantly returns to this image between and in the middle of scenes.  We get it.  Please move on.

For Griffith, Intolerance was a commercial failure.  In his attempt to attack the critics of Birth of a Nation, he produced a film I feel surpassed his earlier work in every way.  It's a shame the public at the time did not reward the artistic achievement the movie represents.

At over three hours, it is hard to recommend people sit through this one.  I would love to watch the Babylon and modern day stories on their own as I think these would hold up very well even today.

Watched on Netflix Watch Instantly
Photos from (what is this?) and 1001 movies you must see before you die

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1916: Star Power!

20,000 Leagues in 1916? Mind=blown

We are leaving behind 1915 and the historic but personally frustrating Birth of a Nation for 1916 and the birth of star power.  Charlie Chaplin signs an unprecedented $10,000 per week contract with Mutual Film Company.  Mary Pickford signs her own $10,000 per week contract plus half of her film's profits, making her the first million dollar movie actor.  That's the equivalent of $20 million today, putting her in the same league as the biggest stars in modern film.

This year also featured the first true vampire film (the German Night of Horrors), the first full female nude scene (Daughter of the Gods, also the most expensive film at $1 million), and the first original orchestral score (Thomas Ince's Civilization).

As far as my movie watching goes, I feel like I've hit a rut. The last few (except for Chaplin) have been meh, with the exception of Birth, which got my Irish up for all the wrong reasons. It's like I am running a marathon and the initial excitement of leaving the starting gate has worn off.  Hopefully, 1916 get me more excited.

Speaking of which, this year, I'll be catching D.W. Griffith's Birth of a Nation followup, Intolerance and black comedian Bert Williams' A Natural Born Gambler, but...

20,000 Leagues under the Sea!  There's a 1916 version of 20,000 Leagues under the Sea!  I love all movies, but I'm a genre guy at heart so seeing Jules Verne on here just made me smile.  I'm excited about Intolerance, but I cannot wait for 20,000 Leagues.  I'm dying to see how they pull this one off!

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D.W. Griffith: Propaganda and Birth

A jury of his peers?

I already posted a brief review of The Birth of a Nation here.  However, the supposed "importance" of the film is worth a longer look.

For those who don't know, Birth is considered a crowning technical achievement in film, while also being amongst the most racist frames of celluloid ever produced.  I do not think you can separate the cinematic achievements from the story it serves.  Others feel differently.

Much critical attention is focused on the depiction of blacks in the latter half of the film.  However, Griffith begins building his argument much earlier in the film. 

The narrative of the film follows two families, representing the North and South.  The Northern family (The Stonemans, led by a congressman from Pennsylvania) visits their Southern friends (the Camerons) in Piedmont, South Carolina prior to the start of the Civil War.  Early in the film, Griffith depicts the slaves here as generally satisfied with their lot in life, even spontaneously breaking into a dance for the amusement of the guests.  The seeds of a romance between the eldest sons and daughters of the respective families.

Then the war comes.  Griffith sets his principal argument in a simple title card: "The power of the sovereign states, established when Lord Cornwallis surrendered to the individual colonies in 1781, is threatened by the new administration."  Everything would be okay if President Abraham Lincoln did not want to infringe on states' rights.


Both families' sons join their respective armies.  Even here, great care is taken to lionize the South. The troops have a ball to celebrate their early victories in the war.  They even carry in the Confederate flag from Bull Run and honor it.  The troops assemble with pomp and circumstance not shown in the North.


The youngest sons of each family meet on the battlefield and are killed.  The Camerons are selling every one of their possessions in order to support the war effort and the eldest Stoneman daughter Elsie is working in a military hospital for the North.  Sherman's march to Atlanta is depicted in red tint as though a literal hell on earth.  Women and children cower in fright.  The Cameron's Piedmont home is overrun by black Union troops. 


The eldest boys from the families meet in battle.  Ben Cameron (known for the rest of the film as the "little Colonel") leads his men over three Northern encampments before being wounded and captured.  Ben is shown as the courageous leader, overcoming the odds and even stopping to tend to an enemy soldier to the rousing approval of the enemy troops.  Ben is a leader.  He is honorable.  Contrast that with Phil Stoneman who sits in his trench attacking from a distance.


The North wins the war.  Griffith takes great care to point out he is attempting a historically accurate reenactment of the surrender. This is critical to the film's arguments later.  Ben is to be tried as a war criminal, but a subtle change happens with President Lincoln as a character.  Ben's mother pleads with the President to spare his life.  He acquiesces and Ben is saved, showing Lincoln's compassion for the South.  The man earlier described as the destroyer of state sovereignty is now cast as its greatest hope.

Representative Stoneman wants to grind the South under the North's boot heel.  Lincoln wants to take a more conciliatory approach, to Stoneman's dismay.

Lincoln is killed in what was my favorite sequence in the movie.  There is real drama as the moment approaches in Ford's theater.  Griffith again takes care in a title card to point out the historic accuracy he is attempting in his portrayal of the event.

The contrast in reactions from the Cameron and Stoneman clans is striking.  The South laments the loss of their friend and worries for the future.  Stoneman sees only his own ascension into power.

Stoneman uses the opportunity to anoint a mulatto named Silas Lynch as his political protege.  Any time Lynch is in a room with Elsie Stoneman, his lustful gaze becomes fixed on her.  He can't help himself; he's a half breed after all.  His lust gets the better of him.

Stoneman conspires to make Lynch the Lieutenant Governor of South Carolina.  The racism of the movie picks up tremendous steam here.  The blacks are seen on election day stuffing the ballot box and preventing the honorable white men like Dr. Cameron from casting a vote.

Then, in the most ridiculous scene in the whole move, Griffith introduces us to the newly elected state legislure through a title card that imbues the same historical accuracy on the scene as he did for the South's surrender and Lincoln's assassination.  If those were true accounts, so too must his portrayal of a black legislature.

And what does this portrayal of the legislature in session look like?  One of the black legislators sneaks a drink from a flask hidden in his desk. Another kicks off his shoes and props his bare feet on his desk as a colleague eating fried chicken looks on.  The legislature decides that its members should wear shoes so the barefoot man places his shoes back on his feet. the legislature then passes a law allowing interracial marriage. Immediately after that, they all look lustfully at the white women in the gallery.  Griffith has torn away any subtlety and revealed his true agenda: dehumanizing blacks and sowing fear amongst whites.

The Little Colonel is lost and frustrated.  Then, he sees some black children frightened by white children dressed as ghosts.  An idea hatches in Ben's head and the KKK is born.

After some scenes depicting the conflict between Lynch and the KKK, the next critical scene in the film unspools.  Gus, a lustful black man, follows the young Flora Cameron as she goes off to get water.  She runs from him and is chased to the top of a mountain.  Rather than succumb to Gus, she leaps to her death, her honor and innocence intact.  The Little Colonel witnesses the tragedy and cradles his sister as she lay dying.

The Klan rallies to find Gus and they try him (i.e., they drag him into a field and Ben identifies him as the killer.  Gus is killed and deposited on Lynch's doorstep.

Now, as we head toward the climax, two different storylines proceed to solidify Griffith's conclusions.  First, the Cameron's are fleeing the black soldiers loyal to Lynch.  They seek refuge in a cabin owned by two former Union soldiers. The soldiers protect the Camerons and even fight the black oppressors.  No subtlety here.  The Union soldiers act as proxies for the North, implying the apparent mistake they made in freeing the blacks.

Second, Lynch ends up alone with Elsie under his power. He proposes to her and she reacts in horror.  He vows to wed her anyway.  Then Elsie's father shows up. The eldest Stoneman at first approves Lynch's desire to marry a white woman, but the reaction turns to disgust when Lynch reveals he wishes to marry Elsie.  Of course, the Klan shows up to save the Stonemans after the leader of the emancipation movement realizes the error of his ways.

The final frames provide an icing on this cake of racist propaganda.  The blacks leave their homes to vote in the next election and the KKK is there on horseback, threatening them.  In a moment played for laughs, the blacks retreat back into their homes. Then we see the marriage of the eldest sons of each family to the daughter in the other family.  Ultimately, Jesus shows up to bless the entire affair. Seriously.  I am not making this up.  Jesus Christ is shown on film giving this all a big thumbs up.

So, the movie is basically this: Southern shown as honorable men and war heroes, blacks shown as threatening their way of life and killing innocence in the South (represented by Flora), the Klan is formed and saves the country.  At every turn, Griffith makes a choice to glorify the actions of the South and demonize those of the North and the blacks.  A simple example: as Ben courts Elsie, she immediately becomes smitten.  Phil on the other hand, is met with distrust by Margaret Cameron until the Klan triumphs at the end.  Even in the little details, Griffith is making the argument.

This is a propaganda film sold as entertainment at the time.  Yes, this sentiment existed then and sadly does today, but it was not the only viewpoint.  This movie was banned in several cities and severely edited in others.  To simply dismiss it as a product of its time is wrong.

If you are interested in propaganda film-making, here's a great example.  If you are interested in movies as entertainment?  Move along, nothing to see here.

Picture from Old School Reviews

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The Birth of a Nation (1915)

Yeah!  The KKK is here to save us!

Hailed as one of the first true masterpieces, The Birth of a Nation combines all of the techniques we have seen in D.W. Griffith's previous work to tell the story of America through the Civil War and subsequent Reconstruction.  The film has an epic scope (187 minutes) that incorporates cross-cutting shots, close-ups, camera tints and dolly shots to tell the tale.  The civil war battle scenes and Lincoln's assassination are particularly remarkable.

I hated this film.

Many praise this film as a masterpiece. In rushing to extol the film's virtues, critics perform an intellectually dishonest trick.  They separate the technical achievement of the film from the story it tells, discounting the point of the film in favor of discussions about camera work.

Think about that for a moment.  How many of us walk out of a theater today thinking, "That was the most offensive film ever screened, but the camera work was amazing!"?  We don't.  Because you cannot separate technique from the story it serves.

What is the film about?  It's a three-hour recruitment video for the Ku Klux Klan.  It's a propaganda film that recasts the North's entry into war to free the slaves as a misguided mistake that can only be rectified by whites forming their own army.  I'll deal with the film as propaganda in a separate article.

The basic story is of a southern man who fights valiantly in the war only to see his town and government overrun by blacks.  He creates his own southern army of whites dressed as ghosts to fight back against the encroachment of the former slaves on his life. The man (and his family and friends) find themselves at the center of a number of historical events throughout the running time of the movie.

There are certainly elements of the film to be admired.  I cannot remember seeing Lincoln's assassination on film, let alone at this level of detail and drama.  The war scenes are remarkable with the camera seeming to film from miles away, capturing the full scope of the battlefields.  Griffith here uses close-ups, iris shots and camera movements in ways that bring the audience into the plight of the characters. 

That makes the crimes of the story here worse. It's really well done, but it's a really well done racist portrayal of blacks.  It's not just propaganda, but very effective propaganda.  Blacks are filled with lust for white women.  They cheat to win elections.  They abuse their power and enter the hallowed halls of the state house barefoot, drinking and eating fried chicken.  Seriously.

Bringing Griffith's talent and vision to this tale is like Michaelangelo focusing his artistry on celebrating Goliath instead of David.  Griffith is the most influential moviemaker of his time with the biggest budget and a great cast and he chooses to share his admiration for the KKK.


I knew about the controversy with this film, but I was not prepared for how over-the-top racist this is.  I was expecting some subtlety.  There is none. This is three hours making an argument for a cause that is morally reprehensible.

Unless you are a film historian, I cannot recommend this.

Watched on Netflix Watch Instantly
Picture from Entertainment Weekly

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1915: Birth of an Industry

Let's leave behind 1914 (which truth be told was somewhat of a disappointment) and move to 1915. On the face of it, this is a year of masterpieces.  First and foremost is of course D.W. Griffith's The Birth of a Nation.  Hailed for its technical achievements but controversial for its positive depiction of the Ku Klux Klan, Birth is the first movie I have been chomping at the bit to get to.  It's available on NetFlix Watch Instantly, so this will definitely be on my review list.


Beyond Birth, AMC's Film Site recognizes The Tramp as Chaplin's first masterpiece.  I'll try to track that down.  Theda Bara became one of the first "sex symbols" in A Fool There Was.  And Lois Weber served as actress, director, writer and producer in The Hypocrites, a controversial film for its nudity.

Technically, a lot of innovations this year.  The first camera that allowed for close-ups without picking the whole thing up and moving it was used.  Thomas Ince created an assembly line system for producing movies that cut down on costs (as well as creativity).

Finally, a couple of important court cases get decided in 1915.  First, Thomas Edison's Motion Picture Patents Company was declared an illegal monopoly.  When the film industry was getting its start, Edison used his patents on camera equipment to control every aspect of film making and distribution.  After this case, Edison's company was broken up and all of the component studios except one almost immediately folded.

Second,the Supreme Court upheld the right of states to censor movies.  I discussed the censorship issue previously, but this is the decision that would lead to decades of oversight.


So what are we watching?  Birth of a Nation obviously and The Tramp if I can find it.  Cecil B. DeMille's The Cheat is available on Netflix Watch Instantly so that seems likely.  Beyond that, I'm sure there will be a couple of surprises.

On a personal note, doing 100 years of movies leads to some easy mat so I can say I am officially 5% done!  I expect my pace will slow as we enter into the feature film era, but I am enjoying the experience so far.

Picture from iGuide

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Traffic in Souls (1913)

Early exploitation film

After a brief hiatus, I'm back with a classic from 1913, Traffic in Souls.  The film was directed by George Loane Tucker and was one of the most expensive, but successful films of its time.

The lives of two sisters and their invalid father are shattered when one of the sisters goes missing.  The family fears for her safety as they are very aware that woman are being abducted and forced into slavery.  Can the police and the family find the woman in the bustling metropolis of New York?

This was one of the first feature films to focus on delivering a social message to the masses.  The movie feeds into a very real fear amongst women at the time: that they would be abducted and forced into prostitution. The film depicts in detail how the white slave trade works, following recent immigrants off of boats and trains and tricking them into their own capture.  Some of the methods used by the slavers seem lees than authentic, but that's to be forgiven in a 74 minute film. 

The movie also was one of the first exploitation films.  The advertising explicitly sold the sexual aspects of the movie (which seem downright quaint now) and the movie features misogynistic slavers, including one prepared to whip one of the slaves into submission.  Depictions of the white slave trade would later be banned under the Hays Code in the 1930s.

Technically, there is not a lot of innovative camera work here.  The camera basically remains in the same position for each scene.  There is an amazing shot of the head of the slavery ring descending the steps of the jail from an overhead angle and a well done pan across multiple jail cells.  Where the movie shines is in the editing. There are a lot of quick cuts between scenes and character and, despite the multiple plotlines, you never get lost.  The acting is solid, but never showy which lends the film an almost documentary feel.

On the whole, I really enjoyed this movie.  The first half showing the slave trade mechanics was much more interesting than the latter half.  The ultimate plot resolution involves a big coincidence and shows the local police methods in sometime monotonous detail ("let's show the viewer that every exit of the building is covered").  However, the film is briskly edited (a rarity in this time period) in a method rivaling D.W. Griffith and the plot structure following multiple characters reminded me of more recent films like Traffic and Crash.  Compared to most of the other movies I have watched, Traffic in Souls seems ahead of its time.

Watched on DVD from Netflix

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The Mothering Heart (1913)

A crazed Lillian Gish

Here's another D.W. Griffith film (this one clocking in at just over 23 minutes).  Lillian Gish plays a young woman who, against her better judgment, agrees to marry her boyfriend. After struggling to make ends meet, the man finally gains some success and takes his wife to a nightclub.  She is out of place in high society, but he manages to attract the attentions of another "idle woman."  The husband soon begins an affair with this woman and when his now pregnant wife finds out, she leaves him for her mother's house.  Ultimately, the wife begins raising the child on her own and the husband's concubine attracts the attentions of another man.  Seeing the error of his ways, the husband tries to reconcile.  But is it already too late for their marriage and... the baby?

All right, I'll admit it. This one felt like a chore. The story was just never terribly engaging. The entire relationship between the unnamed husband and wife just never really clicked, so his philandering does not come as a shock.

A couple of real positives are on display here, first and foremost being Gish's performance. This is the first performance I have seen in this marathon that is off-kilter.  I'm talking Gary Oldman in The Professional off-kilter.  Nicolas Cage in... well, everything, off-kilter.  When the wife discovers the other woman's scarf in her husband's coat pocket, she smiles, frowns, laughs and becomes angry over the course of seconds.  At the end of the film as she wanders through her rose garden, she looked (to me) exactly like Michelle Pfeiffer's crazed Selina Kyle in Batman Returns.

The most remarkable thing to share however is the ending. SPOILERS FOLLOW!  A title card appears on the screen saying "The baby ill."  That statement is like describing the great flood from the Bible as a slight drizzle.  The doctor comes to the house, dotes over the child for a minute and the baby dies.  The woman loses it and the husband, who had just seen his child presumably for the first time moments ago, mourns by the cradle. After destroying the rose bushes she so carefully tended during the movie, the wife reenters the house and is about to kick her husband out when she notices the baby's pacifier juxtaposed against his wedding ring.  As the movie ends they appear to reconcile in that moment.

Because of the inherent shortness of the piece, nothing about this ending feels earned.  The baby is on-screen for mere moments before you find out the baby died.  The husband is generally a jerk throughout and there is no evidence he's changed at all.  The wife has spent entire movie being put upon, has her baby taken from her and is rewarded with the moron that she spent the movie escaping from.

Technically, the movie feels both overly long (with repeated shots of the goings-on at the nightclub) and compressed (I could not for the life of me explain passage of time in this movie).  He does more referencing of earlier scenes than I've seen before, most notably when the husband first attracts the idle woman's attention and then later has the situation very precisely reversed in both action and staging. 

I love my Griffith, but beyond Gish's kooky performance which is great, this is one of the lesser works I've seen from the director.

Watched on YouTube
Picture from MoMA

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1913: Hooray for Hollywood!

A couple of notes before talking about 1913:

First, I'm only three years into this, and I am already completely hooked on these movies.  I am particularly fascinated watching D.W. Griffith essentially writing the rulebook for every director of the past century.  I've watched The Musketeers of Pig Alley three times and The Lonedale Operator twice.  I imagine there will be a Griffith movie on my list for each year just so I can continue to watch the progression of this amazing talent.  Which leads to...

Second, I am for the first time finding myself looking ahead anxiously to 1915 and Birth of a Nation, followed of course by Intolerance in 1916.  Birth of a Nation is intensely controversial, but also incredibly influential, so I am really being tempted to sprint for the next two years to get to my first real checkpoint. 

Now, 1913...

The center of the American film-making universe begins to shift from the east coast of the U.S. to the west and a newly-christened "Hollywood."  Of course, 1913 also gave us the first true film example of "sex sells" as Traffic in Souls is released.  According to IMDB, it follows a woman and her police officer boyfriend as they try to uncover a prostitution ring.  It was the most expensive film made to date, costing $57,000 (take that James Cameron!), but made $450,000.

Speaking of Cameron, 1913 saw the release of a film about an ocean liner sinking with spectacular special effects that became a worldwide phenomenon.  I am of course talking about the Danish film, Atlantis.  Guess you cannot go back to that well too many times.


As for movie firsts, 1913 featured the first custard pie in the face gag (A Noise from the Deep), the first feature length Western (Arizona), and the first movie featuring an all-Native American cast (Hiawatha).

What am I looking forward to watching this year?  Twilight of a Woman's Soul by the Russian director Evgeni Bauer is definitely on the list.  Bauer's life was tragically cut short by pneumonia after only four years of making films.  Griffith made dozens of movies this year, so at least on of his (not sure which yet).  Traffic in Souls is available from Netflix so I may watch that as well.  I'm sure there will be other surprises along the way.

Sources: filmsite.org, IMDB

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The New York Hat (1912)

Time to close out 1912 with a rather slight tale from D.W. Griffith, The New York Hat.  When a mother in a small town dies, she leaves money to the local pastor to buy her daughter all of the fine things she never could own. The pastor notices the girl admiring a fine, but expensive, hat from the big city and buys it for her.  Soon, the town gossips are speculating as to why their pastor would be purchasing such a gift for the beautiful young woman.  Can the pastor and the woman avoid the scandal?

Okay, as I said above, it is a slight tale.  The story itself attempts to be very dramatic, but (and it may be my modern sensibilities), it's just a hat.  In true sitcom fashion, the story hinges on characters postponing the conversations that provide the easy and obvious resolution.  The act that sets the drama of the story in motion shows a real naivete on the part of the pastor as he never stops to consider what a shop full of patrons might think of man of the cloth buying a woman's hat.

The positive I really find worth highlighting here is the acting. Griffith allows Mary Pickford room to act in the lead role and she does a remarkable job.  Her sadness as she pantomimes wearing the hat of her dreams is palpable despite the absence of soundand her joy and trepidation at receiving the gift are very well-conveyed.The movie features Pickford before she became the first real Hollywood celebrity.  It also showcases a young Lionel Barrymore, who hails from my hometown of Philadelphia and will go on to become one of the biggest stars of the 1920s.

So long 1912!

Random fact speculation:  Do not know this for certain, but the girl's apartment appears to be the same apartment from The Musketeers of Pig Alley, which would be the first reused set I have noticed.

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The Musketeers of Pig Alley (1912)

Here's another by legendary filmmaker D.W. Griffith.  The Musketeers of Pig Alley is the earliest example of a gangster film and features Lillian Gish in one of her first screen roles.  The film follows a musician and his fiancee as they struggle in New York City.  The musician leaves in order to make some money.  While he is away, the young woman meets the Snapper Kid, head of a gang in the slum.  The musician returns a richer man, only to have his wallet taken by the Snapper Kid.  After the death of the girl's mother, a friend takes her to a ball with the gangsters.  The girl is almost drugged by a rival gangster when the Snapper Kid intervenes.  The argument over the girl erupts into a battle in Pig Alley.  Will the Snapper Kid survive and elude the cops?  Can the musician get his money back?

Of the films I've watched so far, this is easily the most violent.  The gun battle is quick, but gives you a sense of the brutality of it despite the lack of sound.  Griffith continues to prove his mastery of both shooting and editing film. There's one shot in particular where the Snapper Kid walks into a full close-up of his face which provides a great sense of mood.  The film creates a great atmosphere with the Snapper Kid's cigarette smoke wafting into the frame in certain scenes before you even know he is there.

Some more movie tropes are on display.  Obviously, the Snapper Kid is about as stereotypically a gangster as you could expect. He cocks his hat in his first appearance and the hat stays exactly in place for the remainder of the movie.  This is essentially every gangster you've seen in the first half of the 1900s, including James Cagney.  Although her appearance is brief, the woman's friend who shows up to take her mind off her mother's death exists in just about every romantic comedy of the last 30 years.  And of course, the musician to demonstrate his lack of cash, reaches into his pocket and pulls it completely out.

I liked this film, though not as much as Griffith's previous work.  There was a lot going on over the course of 17 minutes, but I thought the pace really slowed leading up to the gun battle.  The short shoot-out was well done and the ending has some great pantomime by the actors, particularly the gangster, that made me laugh out loud.

Watched on YouTube
Image from Some Came Running

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