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[donnie]

Thanks for your work on this!

Some comments about the quality of the film (not the physical quality of the film itself, which I thought was actually quite watchable), but regarding the acting and directing:

First, some of the scenes are really confusing in terms of who is who and who is doing what, i.e., there are a large number of actors in the frame and it's difficult to distinguish where the focus should be. Also, some of the scenes go on for a while, and although is a lot of movement and gesticulation, it's hard to tell whether anything significant is changing. (The scene just after Hur is released from prison is an example.) I've noticed this in several films of that era, and I'll admit that to some extent it may just be my failure to zero in on things properly.

Another thing is that the acting here is really stagey, with an unusual amount of full arm gesturing everywhere. Maybe they thought it was needed due to the epic nature of the story?

The chariot race was a disappointment, being all crowd reaction and very little race. This was 1907, and I didn't expect the thrill of some of the later versions, but still...

All in all though, a really interesting thing to watch from a historical standpoint. Thanks for posting!

[dustin@harpodeon.com]

Yeah, a lot of the action is just wildly flaying your arms while milling around for no obvious reason. Presumably this was more or less just a filmed, greatly abridged version of a live performance. The live show, I’m sure, would have been more comprehensible.


Heaven Will Protect a Woiking Goil (Vogue, 1916)

In this parody of Victorian melodramas, country girl Nell travels to the heartless city to find her drunken father. While there, she falls into the clutches of a mustache-twirling villain. When she rejects his advances, he and a crooked cop chase her down and tie her to the railroad tracks as a train speedily approaches.

Starring Priscilla Dean and Russ Powell
Directed by John Francis Dillon

This will play on the “Perilous Railroads” program of this year’s Maine Silent Film Festival.

[donnie]

That's a really active one! Almost resembles a Keystone, in many respects. The concluding scenes were really funny.

I loved the Hearts and Flowers theme. The only trouble is, now I've got it stuck in my head and can't get it out.

[dustin@harpodeon.com]

Yeah, I do love Hearts and Flowers, too. It being such a cliché I don’t get too many opportunities to use it but I do when I can. Woiking Goil is interesting because nearly all of the title cards are referencing some pop song of the time and I tried to use them wherever I could. I couldn’t find any songs that “the yawning chasm” might allude to but I think I found everything else.

Woiking Goil is undoubtedly my favorite of this sort of parody. It plays up other tropes of Victorian melodrama that, say, Barney Oldfield’s Race for a Life or Teddy at the Throttle don’t. The drunken father, the naïve country girl lost in the city, the lecherous employer, the heartless landlord and his suicidal tenant, etc.


The Sawdust Ring (Kay-Bee, 1917)
Janet sets out to find her circus ringleader father, who her mother abandoned believing him to be unfaithful. Along the way, Janet and her friend Peter join Colonel Simmonds’s circus, she as a trick horse rider and he as a clown, but Janet cannot help but wonder why she finds Simmonds so familiar.

The original, feature-length release of The Sawdust Ring is not known to survive. This video was assembled from two home movie abridgments, one released in 1926 and another in 1929.

Starring Bessie Love
Directed by Charles Miller and Paul Powell


The Sawdust Ring will play at this year's Maine Silent Film Festival as part of the first day's program, "Horse & Marriage".

[donnie]

Enjoyed watching that one again!

[dustin@harpodeon.com]

Spying the Spy (Ebony, 1918)

Amateur detective Sambo Sam sets out to round up German spies, but his bungling leads him to the Coffin Club, a fraternal organization with a morbid sense of humor just itching to have some fun at the would-be sleuth’s expense.

Starring Samuel Jacks
Directed by Charles N. David

[donnie]

Wow, what an odd one. I never did understand what the sleeping minister had to do with the whole thing...

[dustin@harpodeon.com]

It is a strange film, and I don’t have much more of an idea what the initiating a minister stuff was about. I’ve also got another Ebony film, A Reckless Rover, but I think this is the better of the two.

Every Inch a Man (Vitagraph, 1912)

After catching a cattle rustler, Bob thinks he is destined to be a detective and wants to join Welsh’s agency. His father, not wanting to lose the boy, conspires with Welsh to frighten Bob and send him back home.

Starring Wallace Reid
Directed by William Humphrey

[donnie]

I enjoyed this one Wallace Reid is really young there. It seems the experiment actually failed, as Bob wasn't frightened at all, but proved himself effective at capturing the "criminals"; so why did he acquiesce and return home?

[dustin@harpodeon.com]

My thoughts exactly—he certainly seemed more than up to the task. I suppose that, after learning the lengths his parents and the detective went through, that he realized he was more wanted at home than he’d ever imagined. Anyway, that’s my guess.


Ride on a Runaway Train (Educational, 1921)

A runaway train speeds down the track in this blend of animation and travel photography.

Starring Lyman H. Howe
Directed by Lyman H. Howe

It’s claimed that this was a lost film until a print surfaced in New Zealand in 2010. And, well, no. I’ve long had a print as well, but my print is complete and the New Zealand one is missing a substantial amount of footage—important footage, like how the train becomes a runaway or how it ultimately comes to a stop.