I'm not going to rate this short film because it's more than one hundred years old, so how can we judge it properly? (Was Napoleon a better general than Alexander the Great?) In 1909 the automobile and telephone had only just stopped being novelties. Films themselves were primitive. No roofs, so the shots could use available light. Most of the elements of a modern film are there -- a camera, sets, actors, cross cutting -- but too many are missing -- sound most of all.
It's a melodrama in which a man, presumed to be a doctor, is called away from his home by a false alarm from three thieves. Once the pater familias is out of the house, the three sneaky-looking robbers break into the back room where the safe is. They have to force their way through three -- count 'em, three -- locked or barricaded doors. The terrified wife and the three lovely little daughters in white huddle together. Two of the miscreants make a bee-line for the safe, while the third assaults the wife.
The helpless family is save by deus ex telephone, that marvelous and mysterious invention, for which this film is a kind of advertisement, like Dirty Harry's .44 magnum. The head of the house and some friends burst in and nab the robbers. Fade out on the father with his arms around his shivering but now safe family.
The story reflects the values of D. W. Griffith, and the prevailing values of the period for all I know. I was just a child at the time. The wife is almost as helpless as the little tykes (all female). They need a man to protect them. Grown women are pure. Children are even purer -- pristine, in fact, or else why are they all dressed in white? There are good guys who are men of honor and there are bad guys, with little in between "good" and "evil". Things were only a bit more complicated by 1915 and "The Birth of a Nation."
This short film is an historical curiosity, true, but carry me back to 1909. If only issues were quite as clear as the movies -- then and now -- make them out to be.
Oh, also, at one on-line site at least, while you watch this, you're treated to a great rendition of Bach's magnificent and aptly dramatic Toccata and Fugue in D Minor.
It's a melodrama in which a man, presumed to be a doctor, is called away from his home by a false alarm from three thieves. Once the pater familias is out of the house, the three sneaky-looking robbers break into the back room where the safe is. They have to force their way through three -- count 'em, three -- locked or barricaded doors. The terrified wife and the three lovely little daughters in white huddle together. Two of the miscreants make a bee-line for the safe, while the third assaults the wife.
The helpless family is save by deus ex telephone, that marvelous and mysterious invention, for which this film is a kind of advertisement, like Dirty Harry's .44 magnum. The head of the house and some friends burst in and nab the robbers. Fade out on the father with his arms around his shivering but now safe family.
The story reflects the values of D. W. Griffith, and the prevailing values of the period for all I know. I was just a child at the time. The wife is almost as helpless as the little tykes (all female). They need a man to protect them. Grown women are pure. Children are even purer -- pristine, in fact, or else why are they all dressed in white? There are good guys who are men of honor and there are bad guys, with little in between "good" and "evil". Things were only a bit more complicated by 1915 and "The Birth of a Nation."
This short film is an historical curiosity, true, but carry me back to 1909. If only issues were quite as clear as the movies -- then and now -- make them out to be.
Oh, also, at one on-line site at least, while you watch this, you're treated to a great rendition of Bach's magnificent and aptly dramatic Toccata and Fugue in D Minor.