The Lonely Villa (1909) :
Brief Review -
Griffith's early real time thriller with editorial techniques of new proportions. This is how suspense would have felt in 1909, and Yes it's still thrilling and intense for today's time. In the meantime, it reminded of many one-room thrillers or one-place thrillers made in 40s decade where the survival of people or the lead characters was at stake. What do we call it now, a Survival drama? It was Survival thriller i guess. The Lonely Villa is about a gang of thieves who lure a man out of his home so that they can rob it and threaten his wife and children. The family barricade themselves in an interior room, but the criminals are well-equipped for breaking in. When the father finds out what is happening, he must race against time to get back home. It wasn't much about acting, writting and dialogues in that time and The Lonely Villa is no different. Cinema was preparing to get rolled by inventing new techniques of filmmaking instead of focusing on screenplay and storytelling. DW Griffith does exactly what was needed for the time as he successfully invents cross cutting edits of the scenes while some of them were fastly moving. Apart from that, he keeps the audience guessing on what should happen in the end assuming the certain predictable Happy ending but how should it come on screen was a major invention by him. Those tight thrillers made after 30s and 40s in one room or at one place were highly influenced by The Lonely Villa. Basically, it was a beginning of this new genre, doesn't matter if it was shorter but it gave a hope to new kind of cinema and that's a great achievement in cinema history. Overall, The Lonely Villa is another gambling attempt won by cinematic genius DW Griffith just like he always did.
RATING - 7/10*
By - #samthebestest
Griffith's early real time thriller with editorial techniques of new proportions. This is how suspense would have felt in 1909, and Yes it's still thrilling and intense for today's time. In the meantime, it reminded of many one-room thrillers or one-place thrillers made in 40s decade where the survival of people or the lead characters was at stake. What do we call it now, a Survival drama? It was Survival thriller i guess. The Lonely Villa is about a gang of thieves who lure a man out of his home so that they can rob it and threaten his wife and children. The family barricade themselves in an interior room, but the criminals are well-equipped for breaking in. When the father finds out what is happening, he must race against time to get back home. It wasn't much about acting, writting and dialogues in that time and The Lonely Villa is no different. Cinema was preparing to get rolled by inventing new techniques of filmmaking instead of focusing on screenplay and storytelling. DW Griffith does exactly what was needed for the time as he successfully invents cross cutting edits of the scenes while some of them were fastly moving. Apart from that, he keeps the audience guessing on what should happen in the end assuming the certain predictable Happy ending but how should it come on screen was a major invention by him. Those tight thrillers made after 30s and 40s in one room or at one place were highly influenced by The Lonely Villa. Basically, it was a beginning of this new genre, doesn't matter if it was shorter but it gave a hope to new kind of cinema and that's a great achievement in cinema history. Overall, The Lonely Villa is another gambling attempt won by cinematic genius DW Griffith just like he always did.
RATING - 7/10*
By - #samthebestest