Two Men and a Girl

From 1911, this is the earliest of would-be-star Francis X. Bushman's pictures that I've seen now, as well as being credited as the debut for co-star Dolores Cassinelli, whom I'm not as familiar with, and, frankly, the film's not good. A laughably-slow bicycle chase and pulled punches in a pathetic excuse for a fight between the two men over the girl hardly recommend it. The print available, retitled from the already prosaic "Two Men and a Girl" to the worse alternative of a cliché, "Love Conquers All," also appears to include subsequently-redone title cards that attempted a couple bad jokes in a failed effort to enliven the scenario.

Besides competent basic continuity editing, the only thing recommending the film is its bit of an inversion of gender expectations in such love-triangle scenarios. The rejected rival suitor, who we know is bad because he has a mustache, is portly and not as attractive as Bushman--hey, I don't write these movie stereotypes--sets his sights of revenge on Bushman's character. Hence, the bicycle chase. The gender reversal being that the girl rescues him with her gun, shooting the baddie's knife from his hand. Not exactly a feminist masterpiece, but at least it's short at seven minutes.