Balked at the Altar

In the review for "Balked at the Alter", boblipton from New York wrote that although it's credited as a D.W. Griffith film, it appears to actually be a Mack Sennett short. I agree completely, as the film bears nothing of the style of Griffith and sure looks a lot like one of Sennett's later Keystone films. Before he started Keystone Studio, Mack Sennett was an actor and assistant director with Biograph and was a favorite of Griffith--and he got his directorial start because of Griffith. So, logically speaking, this is probably a Sennett film or at least one in which Sennett had a hand in directing it or setting up the gags.

The film could have used some intertitle cards, though at the time they were just coming into vogue. Because there are no cards to explain the action, what is occurring is something a little vague. A man-crazy woman keeps hitting on practically every man that comes her way. Finally, her family (at least you assume it's them) decide to get her a man by picking some poor sucker and forcing him at gun-point to marry her! However, at the alter, he takes flight and much of the film is spent showing the wedding party chasing the poor guy.

I wouldn't give the film a higher score than 6 because it is essentially a one-gag film and it was handled only moderately well (I think they could have milked more laughs out of the situation--and probably would have if Sennett had made this a few years later). Also, as I often have seen in some of Griffith's films (which makes me think this might be a hybrid Griffith/Sennett movie), the black man in the picture is just some white guy painted up to look black (I really do think Griffith hated blacks and preferred employing fake blacks instead of the real thing).