Those Awful Hats (1909)

While often considered as one of the most (if not "THE" most) influential filmmakers of all time, American director David Wark Griffith started his career on film in 1908 in a very humble way: as an actor in short films under the orders of film pioneer Edwin S. Porter, at the time head of Edison's Film Studio. Griffith's luck would change soon, as that very same year he was offered the chance to direct shorts for the American Mutoscope and Biograph Company. Biograph's main director Wallace McCutcheon fell ill and soon there was the need to find a replacement. Griffith took the job and it was there where he truly fell in love with cinema. In less than a year, Griffith mastered the craft, soon becoming acquainted with medium's many tricks and techniques. 1908's short film "The Adventures of Dollie" was the first amongst his many hits. It wouldn't take him too long to start directing short films of excellent quality, a path that would culminate with the making of his first feature length masterpiece, 1915's movie "The Birth of a Nation".

One of the movies where the young Griffith began to show that mastery he had acquired so quickly was the short film "Those Awful Hats", a 2 and a half minutes movie done with the purpose of being a theatrical public service announcement (probably amongst the first of its kind) to be projected before the movies. In "Those Awful Hats", the action takes place during a typical screening in the nickelodeons of cinema's early years. The audience is enjoying a movie when suddenly, an arrogant gentleman (Mack Sennett) with a top hat enters the room and tries to find a seat for him and her companion. Loud and impolite, the man bothers the public constantly, making impossible to enjoy the show; however, this is not the audiences' main problem, as a group of ladies takes a seat and refuses to remove their big and ludicrous hats, an action that alienates even more the audience. Fortunately, the theater has an interesting and quite effective device to remove such undesirable elements: a giant steel bucket. And fortunately, it also removes undesirable people!.

Ordered by the heads of Biograph to conceive a short movie to tell the females among the audience to please remove their bothersome hats while attending a screening, D.W. Griffith wrote and directed this very creative announcement that is both funny and informative at the same time. Making fun of the big hats that were fashionable in those years, Griffith put on film what many audiences have desired to have at least once, a machine created to remove the troublesome persons among the audience. Using a mixture of special effects techniques (mainly the Dunning-Pomeroy Matte process), Griffith created a film that shows a very early use of the technique that decades later would evolve into the green-screen technique. Not only he managed to put a film within a film, but also created an extremely good effect of a steel bucket pulling out stuff (and persons!) from the audience. Griffith showcases an inventive use of special effects, and also an ability at getting the very natural performances from his cast, as their reactions are believable and the use of slapstick very appropriate.

The gag is simple, but very effective, and it constituted one of the earliest examples of a public announcement devised to be shown before the feature films (a concept still used today in most theaters). While not exactly on the level of many of his better known masterpieces, "Those Awful Hats" is a very funny and historically important short movie that can give us an idea of how was cinema in the past, and how it seems that we as audience haven't changed that much in more than a century of film-making. It is also a testament of the how Griffith was always willing to experiment as all as of the mastery he had achieved in only a year making movies. Despite its short length, "Those Awful Hats" is definitely one of the most enjoyable Griffith shorts, as it shows that the director of Biograph's many drama and adventure films was also able to laugh.

7/10

Le chaudron infernal (1903)

While an enormously influential pioneer on the field of special effects, French director Georges Méliès was oddly not that interested in making color films in his career. The reasons behind this apparent lack of interest were probably related to how costly and laborious was the process of hand-coloring frame by frame, as while his first hand-colored movie was done in 1897 ("L'Hallucination De l'Alchimiste"), he wouldn't attempt to make another one until 1903, when the hand-colored movies done by Edison's Studios became to be as popular as his films. That year, right after the enormous success of his masterpiece, "Le Voyage Dans la Lune" ("A Trip to the Moon"), Méliès directed 3 shorts that he colored himself: "La Guirlande Merveilleuse", "Le Cake-walk infernal" and "Le Chaudron infernal". Of the three, "Le Chaudron infernal" (or "The Infernal Cauldron") is the most well-known, mainly because this film followed Méliès' interest in the horror genre.

"Le Chaudron infernal" (also known as "The Infernal Boiling Pot" by some sources) is a movie about an evil green-skinned Demon (Georges Méliès, of course), who works as an executioner in Hell. Another demon in charge of bringing him the condemned, begins his work by sending a woman to the Executioner, who joyfully ties her and throws her into the big cauldron he has in his room. His assistant brings him another two condemned, this time two male courtiers, who follow the woman to her fate inside the boiling pot. As the bodies enter the cauldron the infernal flames grow bigger and reach an enormous size. After putting the three inside the cauldron, the Demon stirs up the remains and suddenly the smoke that comes from the cauldron begins to form images that resemble the bodies of the condemned. Realizing that this are the souls trying to escape, the Demon will raise the fire from Hell to stop them from escaping.

Among Méliès' many fantasy films, "Le Chaudron infernal" is definitely one of the most impressive of all despite its short runtime, as the addition of color takes the film to a whole new level, making Méliès' many tricks look even more amazing than before. To his usual array of dissolves and camera tricks, Méliès added the effects of drawing over the celluloid (an effect made famous years later by the "Godzilla" films of the 60s), using the hand-coloring technique not only to make the film look nicer, but to make an effect in itself. On a completely different subject, it's interesting to see that in this movie Méliès continues his preference for themes of horror and black magic, as he knows that it's in the horror genre where he'll be able to exploit his special effects to shock and impress his audience.

Being objective, the only problem of "Le Chaudron infernal" is definitely its runtime, as considering that by 1903 Georges Méliès had already done "Le Voyage Dans la Lune", one would think that this film is a bit too short. However, there is a reason for this considerably shorter runtime: it's short because the process of coloring the film was lengthy, and Méliès wasn't able to make longer colored films (and as written above, that's why he only made 7 colored shorts in his career). Despite this problems, "Le Chaudron infernal" is definitely one of the most interesting movies done by the legendary French magician, not only because of its inventive use of color as a special effect, but also because of its place in the history of the horror genre. This movie is definitely pure Cinemagic.

8/10

The Night Before Christmas (1905)

On December 23, 1823, an anonymous poem was published on the New York Sentinel that would redefine the American ideas about Santa Claus and his image: "A Visit from St. Nicholas". Later attributed to Clement Clarke Moore, the poem describes a man awakening at night after hearing a noise only to discover St. Nicholas arriving to his house to deliver presents for the children. It describes St. Nick 's appearance and "working method", as well as his way of transportation and the names of his reindeer, completing the modern image of the old Christmastide visitor. More than 80 years later, the classic poem would find a new outlet in cinema, which still was a vibrant new art form with a language in constant development. After making the classic "The Great Train Robbery" (cinema's first Western), film pioneer Edwin S. Porter was the prime director at Edison Manufacturing Company, and on his hands fell the job of adapting the beloved poem to the new medium. It would be the first time Santa Claus would appear on the big screen.

Titled "The Night Before Christmas" (which is also another popular name of Moore's poem), the movie begins with Saint Nicholas feeding up his reindeer, preparing them for the big trip. Later, we see him giving the final touches to the toys at his workshop. In the mean time, a family is celebrating Christmas with a dinner, but the kids are already preparing themselves to go to bed, but not without first hanging their socks by the chimney. The kids can't really sleep with all the excitement, and they start a pillow fight, however, sleep ends up taking them all. Just before leaving the North Pole, Santa Claus gives a final checking to his book, and then he flies away on his sled to fulfill his yearly mission. Saint Nicholas arrives to the family's house, where as usual, he makes his way in through the chimney. Inside the room, Saint Nicholas not only delivers the presents into the children's socks, but also using his magic, he makes a beautiful Christmas tree appear along many presents more. The family will find a great surprise the following morning.

It's not clear who adapted the poem (probably Porter himself, but it can't be verified), but what's clear is that "The Night Before Christmas" is more or less a pretty straightforward adaptation of the classic Christmas poem, as it shows Saint Nicholas' visit to a family on Christmas' eve and it even uses bits of the poem as intertitles. The short film also makes some changes and additions, like for example, the scenes detailing Saint Nicholas' preparations for the trip and his work at the North Pole; however, the most interesting change is the fact that the witness of Saint Nicholas' visit is no longer a character of the story (the poem is written in first person, as the recounting of a witness), but us, the audience. Through the camera's eye (proof that it has always had something of a voyeur in it), we become witnesses of the magic of Christmas and, like the character in Moore's poem, not only see St. Nick delivering happiness to the children of the house, but also become his partners in crime.

Director Edwin S. Porter created his version of "The Night Before Christmas" employing the cross-cutting editing style that he had been employed since "Life of an American Fireman" and most notably, in "The Great Train Robbery" (both in 1903). This use of editing makes the film quite dynamical, however, this time the focus is more on the special effects than on the storytelling, and to achieve Saint Nicholas' magic Porter uses all the tricks he knows, and borrows a couple more from the filmmaker he admired the most: Georges Méliès. This is most notorious in the wonderful scene of Saint Nicholas' sled dashing swiftly through the mountains before flying away, which was achieved using beautifully designed models and a clever mechanical devise. The idea of course comes from Méliès' 1904 masterpiece, "Le Voyage à travers l'impossible", where a similar model is used for "The Impossible Carriage". Still, the fact that the idea was borrowed from another film doesn't diminish the merit of a scene like this one, which showcases a lot of talent on the side of the crew.

Many early filmmakers borrowed tricks from each other (Porter's own "The Great Train Robbery" was copied almost frame by frame by Siegmund Lubin in 1904), but Edwin S. Porter was one of the few who could imprint his own style despite of it. The key was that Porter wasn't interested in merely copying a film, but in using a trick or two from one film into a completely different one, often making some improvements in the process. When the movies are based on storytelling, Porter is a great director, but for films based on special effects, Méliès was the one to go. Still, while this time Porter can't beat Méliès' superior artistry in terms of film-making, his rendition of "The Night Before Christmas" is very bit as magical as the poem where it originates. And that's definitely quite an achievement.

7/10



Buy "The Night Before Christmas" (1905) and other early holiday films
-----------------------------
Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to all!

L' Homme à la tête en caoutchouc (1901)

In less than 5 years, the cinema had made a gigantic jump from the short "documentaries" of the early pioneers (Le Prince, Dickson and the Lumière brothers) to the amazing Cinemagic of french director Georges Méliès, who became one of the first filmmakers to focus entirely in making fiction movies. Ever since he watched a movie for the first time (as a member of the Lumières' first audience), Méliès was convinced of the enormous potential of the new invention as a form of entertainment, as as soon as he could he started to make his own films. By 1901, stage magician Georges Méliès had already 5 years of making films and experimenting with special effects, and his movies were well-known around the world as the finest films of his time. With his many discoveries in the field of special effects, Méliès was able of making films that looked like real magic, and his movies became more complex with time, and even more fascinating.

"L' Homme à la Tête en Caoutchouc" (literally, "The Man with the Rubber Head") is another one of Méliès' many "trick films", which were short movies that showed him making an impossible magical trick. In this movie, an alchemist (as usual, Méliès himself) is preparing a strange experiment in his laboratory. The alchemist puts an odd devise on a table, and connects it to his bizarre creation: a living copy of his own head (Méliès again) that stands over the table without a clue about what will happen to it. Using an air pump he connected to the head, the alchemist begins to blow, and the living head begins to increase its size as if it was a balloon made of rubber. The head reaches a gigantic size, but the alchemist decides to release the air from it as he fears the head may explode. Proud of his invention, the alchemist decides to show it to his assistant (quite probably played by his wife Jeanne d'Alcy, but this is not confirmed), but the assistant may not be as careful as he was.

As in many of his early shorts, this movie is a "gimmick film", in other words, a movie devised around a special effect in order to show it like a magician would make a trick. In this case, the movie combines an excellent use of multiple exposures and editing to create the two heads, and a remarkably creative use of zoom to create the illusion of a head increasing its size. While a quite simple trick to our modern standards, the effect achieved is one of Méliès' most amazing and better done special effects, making "The Man with the Rubber Head" one of the best "gimmick films" in the Cinemagician's career. However, this short is more than an excellent gimmick, as what makes "The Man with the Rubber Head" different from his earlier films (and the similar movies of his competitors) is the care Méliès put to create a "story" to his trick.

While in his first films he simply appeared as a magician doing his show, in this movie there is a set build for the scene (instead of a simple circus stage), and while simple, the movie is clearly set in the middle ages. This gives the movie a distinct atmosphere, and already shows the path that Méliès was taking at that stage in his career, as that very same year he would start making his now famous series of fantasy films, which would be far more complex than his "gimmick films". One can say that it was with in those movies where Méliès tested his craft before making his masterpieces like "Le Voyage Dans la lune" the following years.

8/10

The Sealed Room (1909)

After not having much luck at selling his screenplays to the new movie industry during the first decade of the 20th Century, in 1908 playwright D.W. Griffith got the job that would make him a legend: he was hired by the Biograph Company as a director of movies. It wasn't really what Griffith had expected when he decided to enter the movie business, but he accepted the job, and in less than a year he became Biograph's most successful director thanks to his original approach to film-making and the wild inventive of his narrative. Many years later, he would direct "The Birth of a Nation" in 1915, the movie that would revolutionize film-making and make him one of cinema's first recognized authors; however, a lot of what would make him a great filmmaker can be found in the many short films he made for Biograph Company in the early years of his career. 1909's "The Sealed Room" is one of those, and also one of the few horror movies of that very first decade of the 20th Century.

"The Sealed Room" is a story set in the 16th Century in which a Count (Arhtur V. Johnson) has built a windowless room in his castle. It is a small yet nice and very cozy room, as it is meant to be used to enjoy the love and company of his wife, the Countess (Marion Leonard) in a more private way. However, the Count doesn't know that his wife is not exactly faithful, as she is infatuated with the Minstrel (Henry B. Walthall) at Court, with whom she is having an affair. As soon as the Count gets busy with his own business, the Countess calls the Minstrel and both lovers go to enjoy the Count's new room. When the Count returns, he discovers she is missing and begins to suspect, finally discovering the two lovers in his room; but instead of making a scene, he prefers to remain hidden as he decides that there is a better punishment for his unfaithful wife: to seal the windowless room with the couple inside.

Written by Griffiths' regular collaborator Frank E. Woods, "The Sealed Room" takes elements from Edgar Allan Poe's "The Cask of Amontillado" and mainly Honoré De Balzac's "La Grande Breteche" to create a haunting Gothic melodrama based on the themes of treachery and sadism. Despite having a runtime of 11 minutes, Woods' screenplay develops the story in a very good way, and plays remarkably well with the horror elements of the story. While a melodrama at heart, Woods focus on the character of the Count and his sadism creates one of the best horror characters of these early era. "The Sealed Room" is definitely a very simple and basic story, but Woods handling of the dark and morbid thematic of its plot makes the story a very entertaining film that was very different than most Griffith's melodramas.

In "The Sealed Room", Griffith uses his talents to experiment with tension and suspense in a different way than his usual. While he often played with editing to create thrillers that excited his audience, in this movie his focus was to create desperation and horror, playing with the inherent feeling of claustrophobia that the source stories had. It is interesting how the story starts as another of his melodramas and slowly the pacing becomes faster as the horror themes begin to dominate the plot, culminating in his great use of editing for the final scenes. Not being a movie where camera tricks are essential, what shines the most in "The Sealed Room" is Griffith's talent to direct his actors, as the legendary filmmaker manages to bring the best out of his cast with his usual natural style far removed from the staginess that was the norm in his day.

As usual, the cast was comprised of usual collaborators of Griffith, starting with Arthur V. Johnson as the Count. Johnson gives a great performance and truly conveys the character's transition from loving husband to sadistic monster. His performance is not without a touch of overacting, but actually that adds realism to the character's exaggerated personality. As the Countess, Marion Leonard looks very good and is also very effective in her acting, conveying a natural charm that makes hard not to sympathize with her in her treachery. Finally, the legendary Henry B. Walthall appears as the handsome Minstrel, and while far from being one of his best performances, he manages to give a proficient acting that also adds a nice touch of comedy to the film. While not of real importance to the plot, it's nice to see other members of Griffith's stock company in the background, like his wife Linda Arvidson and a young Mary Pickford as nobles at Court.

While not exactly a masterpiece, "The Sealed Room" is a notable exercise of editing to create suspense and tension like Griffith used to do in those days. The movie has very good set design and while of a very low budget, Griffith's care for details makes it look very convincing and works perfectly along with his directing style. The change of focus to horror makes it to stand out among other of his films from that era, and Johnson's performance as the sadistic Count makes it worth a watch. While Griffith will always be remembered for his highly influential (and controversial) "The Birth of a Nation", the early short films he made before it really give a good idea of the development of the techniques and the style that would make him a legend. Simple yet elegant, "The Sealed Room" is a fun movie to watch and one of the few horrors of the first decade of the 20th Century.

7/10



Buy "The Sealed Room" (1909) and more of Griffith's Biograph Shorts

Le Voyage à travers l'impossible (1904)

In 1895, a stage magician named Georges Méliès witnessed how the Lumière brothers changed the history of entertainment when he attended the first public screening of their projected motion pictures, and was marveled at the idea of moving images. Seven years and dozens of short films later, Méliès was a successful filmmaker on his own account, releasing a movie that would become legendary, "Le Voyage Dans La Lune" ("A Trip to the Moon"), a monumental achievement in which he would finally prove that cinema was more than documentaries and "gimmick films", and that there was something that the Lumières couldn't see: that it was a natural medium for telling stories. So, after having great success with "Le Voyage Dans La Lune", Méliès prepared his next major project as another adaptation of a Jules Verne story: "Le Voyage à Travers l'impossible", or "The Voyage Through the Impossible".

Better known as "The Impossible Voyage", "Le Voyage à Travers l'impossible" is the story of a geographic society (presumably French), which decides to make the ultimate trip. As one can imagine, this won't be a normal voyage, as they will use every vehicle they can use in an attempt to travel across every corner of the world. So, with this in mind, they prepare a train at the Swiss Alps with their advanced machinery and begin their journey. However, first they must arrive to the train, so they use "The Impossible Carriage" to get across the mountains, and after several difficulties, manage to get to the train. With their specially equipped train, the group manages to fly high in the sky, and are literally swallowed by the Sun. The group will face more difficulties, as their voyage will take them to many fantastic places, from the Sun to even the bottom of the Ocean.

The film's source, "Le Voyage à Travers l'impossible", was a play written collaboratively by Jules Verne and French dramatist Adolphe d'Ennery in 1882, in which the writers adapted to stage the style and themes that Verne had been used in his popular novels. Naturally, Méliès' adaptation lacks the benefits of having dialogs, but his version of "The Impossible Voyage" does keep the same atmosphere of Jules Verne's literary work, capturing the spirit of science fiction in each act of the film and mixing it with that magical fantasy and charmingly whimsical humor that Méliès used to employ in each one of his films. With a runtime of only 24 minutes (something unheard of at the time of its release), "The Impossible Voyage" shows a progression of what Méliès did in "A Trip to the Moon", as the narrative is built in a tighter way (despite the similarities with that previous masterpiece).

As usual in a film by Georges Méliès, the real magic of the movie lays in the extremely clever and detailed way in which Méliès creates his special effects, and in the beautiful art direction he uses to make his fantasy come alive. The world of "The Impossible Voyage" seems like a more detailed trip to the same universe of "A Trip to the Moon", where insanely courageous scientists and inventors use their wonderful and crazy machines to conquer the limits of their fantastic world. In this there's a difference with Verne, as while in the writer's novels there's always a certain factuality in his devices, Méliès versions have more of magical than scientific, which goes perfectly with the comedic tone he uses in his adventure films. A magician until the end, Méliès creates wonderful special effects using every single photographic trick he had discovery at the time (there's a wonderful use of miniatures in the movie).

While the legendary classic "Le Voyage Dans La Lune" is certainly an iconic masterpiece (it'll always be Méliès' most famous work), personally I found "Le Voyage à Travers l'impossible" to be a superior film. Maybe it was that I saw it hand-tinted (which gives it an even more beautiful look) or the fact that it gave me the feeling that in this movie Méliès just let his creativity run completely free, but I just enjoyed this one (a bit) more. True, it's a bit tacky for our standards, but even today it holds up surprisingly well and remains as fun as when it was originally done, more than a century ago. "Le Voyage à Travers l'impossible", or "The Impossible Voyage", definitely makes a perfect companion piece to "Le Voyage Dans La Lune", and it's a nice introduction to the magic of Georges Méliès, the Cinemagician.

10/10



Buy "Le Voyage à travers l'impossible" (1904) and more films by Georges Méliès

Les Cartes Vivantes (1904)

Few persons have meant as much to the history of cinema as Georges Méliès, the now legendary French stage magician that revolutionized film-making with his enormous narrative creativity and his many discoveries and inventions in the field of special effects. As a member of the first audience that experienced the Lumières' first screening, Méliès discovered cinema and immediately realized the enormous potential it had as a narrative art. During the following 15 years, Méliès would become one of the most important producers of movies, and he went from making amusing "gimmick movies" (films about Méliès making an impossible magic trick) to creating some of the most amazing stories of those years, using his skills to enter the genres of horror, fantasy and science fiction. By the year of 1902, Méliès was focusing more on his major projects than on "gimmick movies", but he still made several ones to test some new tricks. 1904's "Les Cartes Vivantes" was one of those shorts.

As usual in his "gimmick films", "Les Cartes Vivantes" (literally, "The Living Playing Cards") is about a Magician (Méliès) performing an amazing magic trick. This time, the trick involves a simple deck of playing cards, and a large cardboard that resembles a blank card. The trick begins with the Magician making one card grow bigger, to the size of a book. Then, by simply throwing the card towards the cardboard, it becomes an enormous version of the card the Magician threw. As if that wasn't enough, the Magician transforms the giant card (a 9 of Spades) into the card of the Queen of Hearts. With that card on the cardboard, the Magician proceeds to to make the image come alive by transforming the drawing into a real life Queen of Hearts who walks out of the card. To finish the trick, he returns the Queen to the card and decides to transform the card into the King of Clubs; but the trick may be really on him.

As written above, for Méliès this kind of short films were more than a way of having a fresh and original catalog of movies in his theater, they were a chance to test new or improved tricks and special effects he could later use in his major projects. "The Living Playing Cards" is a prime example of this, as it is composed of many of the tricks that Méliès had used in many previous occasions (dissolves, multiple exposures and several editing tricks), but the way they look in this movie is considerably better than when Méliès used them for the first time. When one watches the movies Méliès did before 1901, the effects look marvelous but primitive; "The Living Playing Cards" is the direct evolution of his talents, and it's easy to notice that his work of editing has improved considerably since his early years. His use of props and set design to build up an atmosphere has also improved, and he captures perfectly what his real performances as a magician would had been.

Honestly, there's nothing really remarkable in "Les Cartes Vivantes" besides its amazing display of special effects, but like every Méliès film, it has a special magic that makes difficult not to enjoy them. Méliès had an enormous charm as a performer, and despite the shortcomings of the technology of his time, he really knew how to use cinema's potential to entertain his audience the best he could. While in the end, "The Living Playing Cards" may not be anything more than a "gimmick trick", one has to remember that in 1904, the legendary Méliès was preparing his most ambitious project to date: that often forgotten masterpiece named "Le Voyage à Travers l'impossible", better known in English as "The Voyage Through the Impossible".

8/10

The Adventures of Dollie (1908)

The year of 1908 was certainly an important one for a 34 year old playwright named D.W. Griffith, because that was the year he decided to try his luck in films with an adaptation of "Tosca" that he wrote specially for the new movie industry. However, success didn't came quick for the young writer, as literally nobody saw any potential in his work; the only one who saw any kind of potential in him was film pioneer Edwin S. Porter, but his eyes weren't in Griffith's writing skills, but on his acting, and send the young man with director J. Searle Dawly to make some shorts. While disappointed, Griffith kept acting to pay the bills, until later that year, he was finally hired for something other than as an actor: American Mutoscope & Biograph was looking for young directors and D.W. Griffith took the job. 1908's short film, "The Adventures of Dollie", was the humble debut of a director that would be known as a legend.

In "The Adventures of Dollie", a family of three goes out for a nice trip along the riverside during a sunny summer's day. A gypsy (Charles Inslee) walks by them, and attempts to sell his baskets to the family. The Mother (Linda Arvidson) doesn't want to buy anything from him, and attempts to move on, but this angers the gypsy, who begins to attack the mother and her daughter Dollie (Gladys Egan) until the Father (Arthur V. Johnson) appears and drives the gypsy off. Even more angered, the gypsy decides to kidnap Dollie and hide her inside of a barrel to be able to escape unnoticed. When her parents notice she's been kidnapped, they organize a rescue party, but it's too late: the gypsies have escaped and the barrel where Dollie is hidden is on their wagon. However, this is only the beginning, as the barrel falls from the wagon and falls into the river. Dollie's real adventure is just about to begin.

Written by Stanner E.V. Taylor (his first real work as a scriptwriter), "The Adventures of Dollie" is a very simple tale of action and adventure on a style that was made very popular in that year after the release of J. Searle Dawly's "Rescued from an Eagle's Nest" (the movie where Griffith debuted as an actor), in fact, the plot of both films are so similar that it's clear that this movie was made to cash on Dawly's success (both films are about kidnapped childs). Still, what made this movie a bit different was that this time the focus was on the kidnapped kid instead of the rescuers, as we follow Dollie (or better said, the barrel that contains her) through the film. Some have labeled the movie as racist towards the Romani people (gypsies), but I find such comments out of place as the story simply reflects the ideas of its time, as gypsies weren't seen on a good light because of their nomadic lifestyle.

In this his modest debut as a director, there are already some early touches of Griffith's genius through the movie. While an amateur following the conventions he has learned from his work as an actor (as well as from codirector and future collaborator G.W. Bitzer), Griffith already begins to show his ideas about storytelling in film and his creative use of editing to create emotions on the audience. The effective use he gives to Arthur Marvin's cinematography helps to keep the film dynamic, away from the theatrical style that was common in those years. True, the film is pretty typical and follows an already stablished ideas about film narrative, but credit must to Griffith for making such an accomplished film with almost zero experience behind the camera.

One of Griffith's most famous traits can also be seeing in this movie, and that is his great skill to get natural performances from his actors. As written above, the movie moves away from the stagy style of film-making of the time, and Griffith takes this ideal to his cast too, as he decides to get a more realistic approach in their performances. Arthur V. Johnson and Linda Arvidson (Griffith's wife) are good in their performances, although Johnson tends to overact a bit (understandable as he had little experience on film). Gladys Egan, who plays little Dollie is also very good, although her role is considerably simpler. As the gypsies, Charles Inslee and Madeline West are OK, although like Johnson, they tend to overact a little bit, although that would be natural, since they are playing the common stereotypes of gypsy people.

"The Adventures of Dollie" is not exactly a movie that one would expect from legendary director D.W. Griffith, but then again, most debuts tend to be mere shadows of the future ahead. Later that very same year Griffith would start making some serious experimentation on this very same plot line, and would create some really innovative films in a very short time. Movies like "The Red Man and the Child", "For a Wife's Honor" and "The Lonely Villa" would introduce new and highly inventive ways of storytelling that would further develop film-making as an art. While many of the techniques he used weren't exactly new, he combined them and put them together in a way that later would be considered as the definitive narrative language of cinema. While there are many better Griffith shorts (even from the same year), this movie is a must see if only because it represents the humble start of a master's career.

6/10

Rescued from an Eagle's Nest (1908)

In 1908, a 34 year old playwright named D.W. Griffith was having little success with his plays and decided to try his luck in the newly formed movie industry with an adaptation of "Tosca" he intended to sell to the film studios of the Edison Manufacturing Company. The head of the studio at the time was film pioneer Edwin S. Porter, who wasn't really impressed with Griffith's work as a writer but, since Griffith was also an actor, Porter decided to hire him and send him to director J. Searle Dawley. A former theater director (he liked to called himself as "the first professional motion picture director"), Dawley immediately chose Griffith for the main role in his new film: "Rescued from an Eagle's Nest". It would be in this early adventure film where D.W. Griffith would have his first contact with the movie industry and where he would first learn the crafts that would make him a legendary filmmaker in the following years.

"Rescued from an Eagle's Nest" is the story of a woodsman's family and the extraordinary adventure they live one day while the Father (D.W. Griffith) was outside working. After the father leaves the house, the Mother (Miss Earle) begins her own housework and leaves the child (Jinnie Frazer) outside to play. While the mother is inside the cabin, a big eagle descends from the sky and takes the child away. The mother notices the eagle kidnapping the kid, but it's too late for her to save him, so she runs to the woods in order to tell her husband about it. After hearing what has happened to his child, the lumberjack and his mates run together to the mountains. When they find the nest, they discover that it's very difficult to reach it, so the Woodsman takes a rope with him and begins to climb down. However, before returning home he'll have to face the eagle that kidnapped his kid.

As usual with the early movies from the Edison Manufacturing Company, it can't be known for sure who exactly wrote the screenplay of the film, but considering director J. Searle Dawley's background, it is highly probable that it was all Dawley's creation expanding from one of his or Porter's ideas. The story of "Rescued from an Eagle's Nest" is pretty simple and has almost no characterization, focusing on the action and adventure that the Woodsman faces to save his kid. In this sense, the movie works like a folktale put on film, as it is concerned more about the adventure in itself than about the characters. While simple in its construction, the plot of "Rescued from an Eagle's Nest" remains so universal that is hard not to feel thrilled by the Woodsman's adventure.

In "Rescued from an Eagle's Nest", director J. Searle Dawley truly shows a better understanding of the new options that film offered him as a narrative language, and moves further away from the idea that movies were simply plays on film. The influence of Edwin S. Porter (who was in charge of cinematography in this movie) can be seen in many scenes as Dawley employs several of the editing techniques that Porter originated in his 1903 seminal classic, "Life of an American Fireman" (Techniques that Griffith would further develop in his own films). This is reflected in the very original ways the movie uses edition and its primitive special effects to play with action and suspense in order to thrill and surprise the audience. By our standards, the effects look poor and clichéd, but it was definitely a step ahead in its time.

As written above, the film focuses entirely on the family's adventure without leaving too much for character development, so it would be not only difficult but also unfair to judge the performances of the cast on those terms. So considering that they were playing basically archetypes, it could be said that the whole cast was actually good, as there rarely was any overacting (so common in the early days of cinema) and everyone seemed to know what to do. It is obviously interesting to see D.W. Griffith as the Woodsman, and his performance doesn't disappoint. His fight with the eagle is a very good scene that forecasts similar scenes in future action movies like the ones with Douglas Fairbanks. Even when she was not a professional actress (or probably because of that very reason), Miss Earle is very good and looks very natural in her concern for her baby.

While the film still feels stagy at times, it was a step ahead in the development of the language of cinema that spawned an entire series of imitators that further developed the adventure genre (even Griffith himself would use the same basic plot of a kidnapped child in his first movie, "The Adventures of Dollie"). To call this movie clumsy or uneven and judge it under our standards is criminally unfair, as while "Rescued from an Eagle's Nest" is not a perfect movie, it is not only actually very good for its time but it also helped to set the basis for the action and adventure films of today. "Rescued from an Eagle's Nest" is not only a must see for Griffith fans interested on his first work, it is also an amusing short movie for fans of early action movies and silent film in general.

7/10

The Tempest (1908)

By the year of 1907, cinema had already reached the point where it wasn't a novelty anymore to see camera tricks or actuality films. While cinema had already developed a certain narrative style thanks to the efforts of film pioneers like Edwin S. Porter and Georges Méliès, many people still considered cinema as a lesser art at best, and a mere sideshow entertainment at worst. To help the new medium to gain more credibility as an art form, the shooting of famous theater plays became a new trend in European cinema, and soon the classic works of Shakespeare and other authors began to appear on movies. While the attempt to give some "credit" to films was certainly noble, this approach soon proved to be flawed, as those movies became nothing more than mere plays put on film. However, some artists tried to use this new trend creatively in order to truly innovate cinema, and British director Percy Stow was one of them.

William Shakespeare's "The Tempest" is the story of sorcerer Prospero and his young daughter Miranda. Prospero is the rightful Duke of Milan, but was deposed by his jealous brother Antonio and set adrift along with his daughter until they reached a magical island where they have been stranded for twelve years. On the island, Prospero found a spirit named Ariel, who becomes his servant after Propsero rescued her from imprisonment in a tree using his magical powers. Propsero also found Caliban, a native monster, son of a legendary witch, who helped them to survive on the wilderness but, after attempting to rape Miranda, also becomes Propero's slave, scared by the sorcerer's powers and Ariel's magic. However, another threat is near, as Propero finds out that Antonio is on a ship that is passing close by the island. It is now time for him to unleash the Tempest and consummate his revenge.

This version of Shakespeare's classic is actually the very first adaptation of "The Tempest" to film, and was the second work by writer Langford Reed, who would become a regular scriptwriter in many of the movies for director Percy Stow's company, Clarendon. As written above, in those years the norm was to simply shoot a representation of the play without making any changes, but under Stow's orders, Reed made the very first attempt to actually translate the classic play to the new medium. So, knowing his limitations, Reed makes a condensed, yet very complete version of the story (although Caliban's subplot is eliminated) that truly captures the essence of the play and manages to remain faithful to Shakespeare despite the changes, ultimately proving that cinema requires a narrative of its own.

Just like Langdon Reed's screenplay moves away from the stagy adaptations that were the trend in those days, director Percy Stow makes his movie version of "The Tempest" a brand new kind of way to tell Shakespeare's tale. Instead of simply shooting his actors performing the play, Stow literally makes the magic of "The Tempest" come alive by cleverly using set designs and special effects to recreate Prospero's magic island. Stow started making "trick films" in Georges Méliès' style, and again he borrows from the French master as "The Tempest" visual look owes a lot to Méliès' famous 1902 film, "Le Voyage Dans la Lune". However, Stow also uses scenes on real locations mixed with his very goo special effects to achieve a style that, while fantastic, looks also realistic to a certain extent, and of course, never stagy.

Sadly, the names of the cast of this first version of "The Tempest" have been lost forever, as there are no records of who played who in this early British classic. However, it still can be said that the actor who played Propsero did an excellent job in the role, as without any kind of overacting he manages to compel all the emotions that his character represents, and he can easily go from being fearsome to merciful. Still, the star of this "Tempest" is definitively the little teenager girl who plays Ariel, as she manages to steal every scene with her highly dynamic performance that clearly shows that she was trained as a dancer. This unknown young actress certainly had a lot of screen presence and Stow knew very well how to use it to portray the otherworldly nature of Ariel. The rest of the cast is good although nothing surprising, and as written above, the role of Caliban was diminished to the point that nothing is left of the highly challenging role of Shakespeare's play.

While this version of "The Tempest" showed that cinema wasn't an extension of theater and in fact was an entire new art form, very few followed Stow's cinematic approach to Shakespeare and the stage-bound adaptations kept appearing during the following years. Still, Percy Stow's creative genius kept shining through the following decade in his "Lieutenant Rose" series of movies, early examples of British spy films. As the co-founder of Clarendon and director of several of the most amazing films of early British cinema (including the first version of "Alice in Wonderland"), Percy Stow's name can proudly stand next to Porter and Méliès as one of the most innovative pioneers of early cinema.

8/10