The Musketeers of Pig Alley (1912)

Director:

D.W. Griffith

Writers:

D.W. Griffith (writer)
Anita Loos (writer)

Release Date:

31 October 1912 (USA)

Genre:

Short | Crime | Drama

Tagline:

One good turn deserves another.

Plot:

A young wife and her musician husband live in poverty in a New York City tenement. The husband's job requires him to go away for for a number of days...

Plot Keywords:

Gangster | Silent Film | Melodrama | Independent Film

Cast

Elmer Booth	...	Snapper Kid, Musketeers gang leader
Lillian Gish	...	The Little Lady
Clara T. Bracy	...	The Little Lady's Mother
Walter Miller	...	The Musician
Alfred Paget	...	Rival Gang Leader
John T. Dillon	...	Policeman
Madge Kirby	...	The Little Lady's Friend / In Alley
Harry Carey	...	Snapper's Sidekick
Robert Harron	...	Rival Gang Member / In Alley / At Dance
W.C. Robinson	...	Rival Gang Member (as Spike Robinson)
Adolph Lestina	...	The Bartender / On Street
Jack Pickford	...	Rival Gang Member / At Dance
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Gertrude Bambrick	...	At Dance
Lionel Barrymore	...	The Musician's Friend
Kid Broad		(as 'Kid' Broad)
Kathleen Butler	...	On Street / At Dance
Christy Cabanne	...	At Dance (as W. Christy Cabanne)
Donald Crisp	...	Rival Gang Member
Frank Evans	...	At Dance
'Harlem Tom' Evans
Dorothy Gish	...	Frizzy-haired woman in street
Walter P. Lewis	...	In Alley / At Dance
Walter Long
Antonio Moreno	...	Musketeers Gang Member / At Dance
Marie Newton	...	At Dance
J. Waltham	...	In Alley

Runtime:

17 min (16 fps)

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.33 : 1

Sound Mix:

Silent

Filming Locations:

New York City, New York, USA

Company:

Biograph Company

Trivia:

This film heavily influenced Martin Scorsese in the making of his own gangster films, Goodfellas (1990) and Gangs of New York (2002). It was picked by Scorsese for his 2005 tribute at Beaubourg, centre d'art et de culture Georges Pompidou (1977) in Paris, France. Biograph is the oldest movie company in America and, as of 2009, is still in existence.

Movie Connections:

Featured in 100 Years at the Movies (1994) (TV)

Not bad, but am I missing something?!

It's very odd. I just read through the two summaries and found they weren't exactly like the movie I saw. It is very possible there are multiple versions out there (that's true of MANY of Chaplin's shorts)--film distributors and theaters often chopped the films apart in those days. Perhaps those who saw it and wrote summaries saw versions with more or different inter-title cards, as there was really nothing about two rival gangs in the film I saw. Instead, a gang terrorizes a neighborhood and steals the money a man has saved. Later the man who was robbed sees the gang members in a dance hall. He and what appear to be his friends (not a rival gang) follow the gang and they all have a shootout--and the cops come to save the day. Now that I think about it, whose friends would just happen to have guns?