The Squaw Man (1914)

Interracial romance

The Squaw Man is considered by many to be the first feature film produced in Hollywood at 74 minutes.  Some claim it as the first feature film, period, though my own movie watching over the last two months demonstrate that is not true.  This also the first film by the legendary Cecil B. DeMille, who co-directed with Oscar Apfel.

Jim and his cousin Henry are charged with overseeing a trust fund to support orphans and widows of the war. Henry embezzles from the fund to cover gambling debts and when the theft is discovered, Jim takes the fall.  Jim escapes the authorities and travels to the American west, where he is twice saved by an Indian woman. They eventually marry and have a son.  Will their troubled pasts find them in the deserts of Wyoming?

There's a lot here to like. There are some wonderful shots throughout, including a special effect on the boat traveling to America that gives it a real sense of movement and a saloon where you can literally see trains racing by outside the front door.  The story is engaging and has some great action set pieces including a tragic mountain climbing accident that is well choreographed and edited.

The film also deals with a presumably taboo subject for the time, interracial marriage.  When Jim actually marries the Indian woman, the minister is forced to do so at gunpoint.  Events will ultimately conspire to eliminate the interracial marriage, but the fact that the relationship is portrayed at all is notable.

That said, this movie has problems.  The scenes barely add up to the whole story.  It feels like large pieces of this are missing and extraneous pieces are added.  The boat he is traveling on catches fire and they are rescued by another ship. No aspect of that plays any role later in the film. There are random edits of secondary characters talking to one another without any context or explanation.

None of the characters ever feel like real people.  They are contrived simply to push the story to its next beat.  The directors often don't know where to point the camera as some scenes take place with characters barely in the view of the camera.  Most distracting to me were scenes early on that featured main characters with their back to the audience in the middle of the shot.

The acting is over the top in ways I have not seen in this marathon yet. Large hand gestures, deep emoting, but ultimately too showy.

Lots of stereotypes in this one, particularly with the native Americans.   The chief is shown to be an alcoholic and at the end of the film dons the full headdress of a your prototypical chief. 

DeMille clearly loved this story as he remade it twice (in 1918 and 1931).  It's an interesting first effort that demonstrates the ambition of the director even when it fails.  Overall, this one was just okay.

Watched on YouTube.
Picture from Three Movie Buffs

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1914: USA! USA!

Cecil B. DeMille

1914 is the year that establishes American dominance in film. This was obviously because of the important technological advancements the country was developing as well as the emergence of artists unparalleled...

Okay, it was because of a war.

Europe was subsumed by World War I in 1914 and the U.S. was left as the only game in town.  Hollywood established itself the year prior as the center of the American film universe and that fact, combined with the shuttering of Europe's studios in support of the war effort, led to America's foremost place as THE place for film in the world.  After the war, American films dominated Europe because the movies had recouped their costs in the U.S.  The stalled European studios started closing and Hollywood became the predominant force.

Some important names got their start in 1914.  Cecil B. DeMille made his first film, The Squaw Man, which became a success in part because of the marketing by Samuel Goldfish.  DeMille would go on to direct some of the biggest and most successful movies ever produced, including The Ten Commandments.  And Goldfish would change his name to Goldwyn and found a studio that we call MGM.

All of that and I have not even mentioned that Charlie Chaplin's first appearance as his "Little Tramp" character in Kid Auto Races at Venice.  Or that Jesse L. Lasky started releasing films under the newly-formed Paramount Pictures Corporation.

So what are we watching this year?  Unlike 1913, there is a real lack of 1914 films on Netflix, so it looks like we are back to the web.  The Squaw Man is available and I am hoping to watch Kid Auto Races at Venice as well.  I'll have to find a couple of others (perhaps The Spoilers which was later remade several times starring unknowns like John Wayne and Gary Cooper).

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