The Voice of the Violin (1909) User Reviews

Anarchist are bad,..m'kay?

[planktonrules · 6/10 · 16 June 2009]

This D.W.Griffith film is part of a collection entitled "American Film Archives: Vol. 3: Disc 1". The DVDs deal specifically with American short films that deal with various social issues. These are the sort of films that usually would be forgotten or lost had it not been for some film preservationists work. Now this set certainly isn't for everyone, as the content is a bit dry. However, for history teachers (like myself) and cinemaniacs (again, that would be me), it's an invaluable set. As the films are all silent, they actually are very watchable along with the optional audio commentary--which gives nice background information.

This film begins with violin teacher Herr von Schmidt meeting with an Anarchist friend. Von Schmidt wants nothing to do with politics and the friend leaves. Soon, a rich lady (the daughter of a banker) comes for her lesson. When von Schmidt declares his love for her, she rejects him because of their difference in social class. Her father also is enraged and they push and shove a bit. This moment alone INSTANTLY turns von Schmidt into an Anarchist and after the lady and her father leaves, the Anarchist returns (like he's been hiding behind a wall--not through the door).

In the next scene, von Schmidt has joined the evil political group and is subsequently chosen to bomb some place in the name of Anarchy. However, just before detonating the bomb, he hears the violin being played--the home he is about to blow up belongs to the lady he pledged his love for earlier in the film! Now von Schmidt cannot bring himself to do this and his compatriot beats him up and leaves him to die after he lights the bomb. However, when von Schmidt awakens, he is able to stop the bomb from going off and receives the rich man's blessing to be with the daughter--and all is forgiven.

Aside from teaching us that foreigners and Anarchists are bad, the film is reasonably entertaining for 1909. Not great, but worth seeing.

When love goes boom...

[JoeytheBrit · 5/10 · 10 September 2010]

Strapping young Arthur V. Johnson makes an unlikely music teacher in this early drama from D. W. Griffith. One of his pupils is a wealthy young slip of a girl who rejects his advances, and whose father understandably takes offence at her music tutor trying to pluck her strings. Arthur, who for some reason plays a character called Herr von Schmidt (presumably because no all-American boy would ever consider blowing things up in a fit of romantic pique) impulsively joins an anarchist group (as you do) and, wouldn't you know it, his name's first out of the hat when his new mates are deciding who's next to get the honour of blowing up rich people.

Schmidt and his accomplice lurk suspiciously outside their intended victim's home for a while before the other guy sneaks into the basement with a bomb shaped like a black ball. Seeing that bomb makes you wonder whether any like that ever really existed or were merely the invention of comic strip cartoonists and early filmmakers. Anyway, it's black and round and has an impossibly long fuse – honestly, you could be in the next state before it exploded – and serves as the device by which Griffith struggles to engineer a measure of suspense that resolutely refuses to develop. Needless to say, our hero finds himself tied up next to the bomb after he discovers the home is that of the woman he loves, but everything works out for the best in the end.

This certainly isn't one of Griffith's best, even for such an early example. At a little under 16 minutes, the film contains far too much padding, and it's a little unclear why the young girl and her wealthy dad are suddenly so enamoured of our hero – he was only there because he wanted to blow things up, after all. Anyway, many of Griffith's regulars are here – Marion Leonard and Frank Powell both have sizeable roles, while Linda Arvidson (Griffith's wife), Gladys Egan, Owen Moore and Mack Sennett are among those who provide the atmosphere.

"No high, no low"

[Steffi_P · 3/10 · 20 June 2008]

This early Biograph short is a pretty unremarkable entry in DW Griffith's early career. While he would make some important breakthroughs in mid-1909, at this point there was really very little that distinguished him from anyone else in the industry at the time.

Voice of the Violin begins fairly well, with an extremely long take that sets up the protagonist and the romantic angle. There's also a little comedic touch with the violin rehearsal that never gets started thanks to an interfering maid. However, when the main action of the story really begins, it becomes incredibly dull just when it should be getting interesting. The bomb plot sequence is static and uninspired. The trouble is, while long takes are excellent for drama, Griffith had yet to realise the potential of the editing process in creating exciting, suspenseful action scenes.

This early in his career, Griffith was still little more than a stage director with a camera. I suspect, though I don't know for certain, that Voice of the Violin was based on a play. It has a neat full-circle storyline, which would later be a hallmark of Griffith pictures, but it just doesn't move the way his later work would.

Great

[Michael_Elliott · 29 February 2008]

Voice of the Violin (1909)

*** 1/2 (out of 4)

A music teacher is in love with one of his students but she has to reject him because her father wouldn't allow her to marry a poor man. Brokenhearted, the man joins a terrorist like group who bombs the homes of rich people. The man is sent out on his first mission and learns the house belongs to the girl and her father. The plot is certainly far fetched, as is in the insane happy ending but there's a lot of terrific suspense here as the time for the bomb to go off gets closer and closer. Once again the terrific editing is the high point.

Bite the bomb

[JohnSeal · 7/10 · 9 January 2011]

Though this D. W. Griffith-helmed one-reeler carelessly conflates the tenets of anarchism and communism, it remains a surprisingly brisk and entertaining sixteen-minute examination of love, music, and radical politics in the early twentieth century. Handsome Arthur V. Johnson--who looks a bit like Charlie Chaplin, and would succumb to tuberculosis in 1916 at the age of 39--plays the lead, a violin teacher who falls under the spell of a left-wing ideologue who convinces him to join the Party. When our hero attends a gathering of radicals, he is selected to help with the bombing of the house of the (wealthy) woman he loves (Marion Leonard). This scene is particularly interesting: some of the Party members are garbed in robes similar to those worn by the Ku Klux Klan, whilst the selection process is the same one used over a decade later in Wallace Worsley and Lon Chaney's Ace of Hearts (1921). A change of heart leads to reconciliation and a kiss...but the commies remain at large, no doubt plotting to set off other bombs in other basements. Beware!

Cuddebackville

[Single-Black-Male · 13 February 2004]

This short film was shot in Cuddebackville which is in the orange mountains of New York. It provides a self-constructed representation of the American man in an attempt to construct a national identity. The problem with Griffith's characters is that they are all homogenous.