This 1911 two-reeler from Griffith may be a little slow for the modern viewer, but it will reward the silent enthusiast.
I have two points I think worthy of remark. The first is that Griffith has cameraman Billy Bitzer make a point of this being shot in the California mountains by an early setting shot that is highly reminiscent of the portrait shots from his version of RAMONA. Griffith took his company out to California to shoot while the weather back east was bad and the different background was a major point of these movies.
The other interesting point is when Florence Barker hears and then holds at gunpoint her disguised father, who is stealing money from his prospective son-in-law to get drunk. It starts out with a series of alternating viewpoint cuts, in which we see events from one side of the door and then the other. Griffith -- indeed, his predecessors at Biograph -- had been working on this sort of cut for half a dozen years and had perfected it for the race-to-rescue-the-girl-in-peril sequence. This use of cutting, however, was a bit different and he would use it in other works, most notably in the next year's AN UNSEEN ENEMY.
As for the rest of the movie, it is a standard, albeit typically superior Griffith melodrama, with a bit of a social point -- the evils of drunkenness -- and his usual uncertainty of solution. Griffith never came up with clear solutions to any of the ills he documented and occasionally mocked reformers with their simplistic views.
I have two points I think worthy of remark. The first is that Griffith has cameraman Billy Bitzer make a point of this being shot in the California mountains by an early setting shot that is highly reminiscent of the portrait shots from his version of RAMONA. Griffith took his company out to California to shoot while the weather back east was bad and the different background was a major point of these movies.
The other interesting point is when Florence Barker hears and then holds at gunpoint her disguised father, who is stealing money from his prospective son-in-law to get drunk. It starts out with a series of alternating viewpoint cuts, in which we see events from one side of the door and then the other. Griffith -- indeed, his predecessors at Biograph -- had been working on this sort of cut for half a dozen years and had perfected it for the race-to-rescue-the-girl-in-peril sequence. This use of cutting, however, was a bit different and he would use it in other works, most notably in the next year's AN UNSEEN ENEMY.
As for the rest of the movie, it is a standard, albeit typically superior Griffith melodrama, with a bit of a social point -- the evils of drunkenness -- and his usual uncertainty of solution. Griffith never came up with clear solutions to any of the ills he documented and occasionally mocked reformers with their simplistic views.
