So many director's could learn from this. White-knuckle suspense, an excellent set-up and pay-off, and it keeps things barebones enough so that you know just enough about the characters to care about them (perhaps unconsciously the children are all dressed in white to emphasize the innocence, might seem obvious or not to some but it's visually a wise decision), and how Griffith keeps up the tension between the woman calling up her man to get help, the attackers breaking in to each successive room, it seems as if this is a landmark in a lot of ways. It's directed without an inch of story fat, and the stakes keep getting tighter as the men go from one room to the next and the women can't keep them out. It may be resolved just a little too quickly, but maybe not. It seems to end at just the point it's supposed to. I love it and it's one of the best of the earliest short films out there (and hey, Mary Pickford!)
Review of The Lonely Villa
