Matrimony's Speed Limit

I'm fond of the double meanings of such a title as Alice Guy's "Matrimony's Speed Limit," referring to both the car-speeding last-minute-rescue parody and the hurry to get hitched, so why not refer to a double meaning of "race" in my review headline. Because, as much as I enjoy making fun of the popular nickelodeon genre--D.W. Griffith being especially well known for such flicks as "The Girl and Her Trust" (1912)--there's also an example of an all-too-common and repugnant racist gag to ruin the fun. It's especially unfortunate given that Guy and her Solax studio also made an early and generally inoffensive "race film" with an all-African American cast, "A Fool and His Money" (1912), the year prior.

In this one, a man refuses to marry a wealthy heiress without being able to financially support them himself, so the woman sends him a telegram lying about him receiving an inheritance if he's married by noon. Cue a race-to-marry scenario similar to and predating Buster Keaton's "Seven Chances" (1925). The trick almost backfires as, pressed for time, the man looks to marry any woman--with the one exception of a veiled African-American woman. And this after he tries to manhandle another woman into marry him. This gag of recoiling at interracial coupling goes back at least to the Edison company's "What Happened in the Tunnel" (1903), and recently I saw it in another Edwin S. Porter film, "Jack the Kisser" (1907).

As for the last-minute-rescue film, it dates back to at least Pathé's "The Physician of the Castle" (1908) and was thereafter popularized by Griffith. Fellow female filmmaker Lois Weber made an especially innovative one, "Suspense" (1913). Nor was "Matrimony's Speed Limit" the only parody of the genre, as Keystone's "Barney Oldfield's Race for a Life" (1913) demonstrates. Technically, these films were mainly remarkable for the advancement of rapid crosscutting. Ordinarily, the set-up was for a damsel-in-distress to be rescued by her beau, with the picture cutting back and forth between her to be imminently attacked by the baddies and the man or men racing by car or some other transportation to get there and save the day. Usually, modern forms of communication also mediated this rescue--the telegraph, telephone, or telegram as here.

Characteristically, Guy reverses the gender roles, having the man needing to be rescued in the form of being wed and the woman racing off in the automobile to save him, as well as controlling the narrative by initiating the plot with the telegram. By the end, the guy gives up and lies in front of oncoming traffic, which, you guessed it, turns out to be his sweetheart's car. The suicide joke comes full circle here after an opening shot where one might've thought he was going to jump out of a window due to his financial distress, and a steamroller is close behind the newlyweds' transport to drive the picture's particular marriage metaphor home.