The Sheriff's Baby

With his wife dead, sheriff Alfred Paget sends his baby across the desert to safer hands. But the people who are taking the infant run out of water and die. Bandits Henry B. Walthall, Harry Carey, and Lionel Barrymore, are fleeing Paget and his posse. They find the baby and take it with them. Two of them fall prey to Indians, but do not abandon the child.

Sounds like an uncredited first movie version of THREE GODFATHERS, doesn't it? It could well be, were it not that this was released in March of 1913, and Peter Kyne's novel was first published in November of that year. Maybe Edward Bell spoke with Kyne about his new movie, and stole the idea for D. W. Griffith. Maybe Kyne saw this movie and decided to make a novel about the subject. In any case, this late Griffith Biograph shows him, as you might expect, in full command of his techniques, with a couple of long shots against the San Fernando Valley's desert lending an air of bleak hopelessness to the the fleeing bandits' situation.

All kinds of Wild West melodrama will be found in this picture, Indians, wild animals, outlaws and the thirst of the desert all conspire, so to speak, to rob the baby of his short life; but fate wills otherwise. It gives a good picture of the desert and has speedy action. In places it is a bit awkward from slow turning on the part of the camera man. Those half-instant scenes, in which we catch a glimpse of quivering fingers and waving arms, but see nothing else, are not very effective. - The Moving Picture World, April 12, 1913

"The Sheriff's Baby" (1913) is a 17 minute short made by Biograph, directed by D. W. Griffith, and it stars Alfred Paget, Lionel Barrymore, Henry B. Walthall, Harry Carey, Sr., Kate Bruce, Bobby Harron, and others. It's marvelously told in one reel, but the real star is the scenery. The sheriff's Alfred Paget. The baddies include Walthall, Barrymore, and Carey, Sr., let alone some Indians, but the worst is the desert itself. Kidnapping, murder - you name it - it's here. The restored Blu-ray print is on the release put out by the Film Preservation Society which showcases "Wolf Lowry" with William S. Hart. Also on the disc is a gorgeously restored print of the William S. Hart short film "Bad Buck of Santa Ynez". Well worth the investment. I really enjoyed this disc a lot! The watch is well worth your time: it shows Griffith knew the Western market because he was creating it! What is interesting is comparing the scenery of something like "Bad Buck of Santa Ynez" and "The Sheriff's Baby". Both seem to have a verisimilitude to the time, the place, and the characters shown in the films. Simultaneously with these films came the rhinestone cowboy Tom Mix and his creation of another kind of Western place and hero. Very interesting contrast!