The Painted Lady

I think the main strength here is Blanche Sweet's performance (if you've seen Death's Marathon it's the same actress, and she's fairly distinct at least in the eyes). Anything that's asked of her to do she performs it with a degree of subtlety that wasn't common during the silent period. If she does have to react BIG, it still is done for moments that are big emotional moments (there's a moment by the stairs that she's told something by, uh, her father I think, whoever it is with the beard), and yet I believe her in that moment as well as the others when she's acting with smaller physical gestures and something close to naturalism as possible.

The story is a little too scattered and the message is dated; this is a case where I actually wished for one or two (or three of more) title cards to show certain moments of dialog. The main core of the story is understood as that Sweet is a young woman who doesn't wear make-up (the story description here says her father forbids it, but I got the sense that she just doesn't like it, or doesn't conform). She goes out to some fair and she doesn't get as much attention as the other men.

But she does get into a conversation with one man and it appears he likes her for who she is... that is until it's revealed he's a burglar (what?) and breaks into her home. She doesn't know it's the same guy since he has a mask, she shoots him (sort of by accident), and when she discovers it she's sad. And then the rest of the movie is... her being even sadder. Was she traumatized by killing him? She then has fantasies of meeting someone who isn't there. And then at the end of the story she, uh, puts on make-up. Is it supposed to be a warning to women to put on make-up, to conform? Or is it a story where it's more personal, that this particular person didn't conform to societies standards of beauty and paid a personal price?

There's a hysterical undercurrent (and I mean that not in the funny way but in the old-time way that the word was used with women), and I'm not sure if this holds up very well. I was with the short at first as it was detailing a simple premise, and then it lost me a bit with the burglar component (I also didn't know her father was supposed to be a rich man or whatnot). Things like this make such a silent short dated despite the fact that Griffith's storytelling as director, as much as it's a mightily flawed story, is terrific and he has a great lead. It goes to show that even in 1912 if you haven't got a coherent story, you haven't got anything, all the technical prowess and fine acting besides.