Suspense

This film was included in the three DVD set "Saved From the Flames"--a collection of mostly ephemeral movies that have managed to avoid turning to powder, catching fire or melting--something that usually happened with the nitrate film stock used up through the 1950s.

This is a feature film included in the collection--though feature film in 1913 often meant 10-15 minutes. It wasn't until a couple years later that true full-length films were created. So, this meant that a complete story had to be told quickly and efficiently.

"Suspense" begins with a servant sneaking away from her employer's house. Apparently the place is too isolated and dull and she can't stand the place any more. However, being called 'Suspense', you just know something will happen to the lonely wife who is still at home with her baby--especially when her husband calls to say he'll be coming home late. What happens next you'll just need to see for yourself---let's just hope they can save them! I really admired the style of this film--such as the nice use of the multiple split-screen. It also really helped that the Flicker Alley folks included a very nice musical accompaniment that seemed both fitting and appropriately tense. Well constructed and effective...and it seems to illustrate the 1910s perception that hobos are a menace!

This silent drama short was directed by Phillips Smalley and his wife Lois Weber who also appears. She plays a woman with a baby left alone in the house after her maid leaves a notice of her quitting. A wandering tramp finds the key under the outside mat left over by the maid. When the mother realizes her situation she calls her husband at work who rushes in a stolen car with police and car's owner in pursuit...While melodramatic, this was quite an exciting thriller for the early days of cinema that still provides some moments today. And how fascinating to see one of the earliest uses of the split-screen in seeing various actions happening simultaneously which in this instance is in three ways in what was called the triptych. So on that note, I highly recommend Suspense.

The title tells it all. A woman and her child are alone at the house because the hired help decides to take off. Her husband is at work. She realizes there is a man outside, a hobo. He gets into the house after she has called her husband. Then we have the classic "Will he get there" plot. He steals a car and leaves he driver, who immediately gets the police involved. This was directed by a woman and for a short film is edited very well and tells a convincing story.

Carl Laemmle of IMP and several smaller film studios banded together in 1912 to create a movie distribution firm called The Universal Moving Picture Company. One of Universal's first movies the new corporation distributed was Rex Motion Picture Company's July 1913 "Suspense." Written, acted and directed by Lois Weber, one of the most creative forces in early cinema, "Suspense" has its narrative threads similar to D. W. Griffith's "The Lonely Villa (1909)" and "An Unseen Enemy (1912)." What makes "Suspense" unique is Weber's cinematography and editing that forged new camera techniques.

Despite claims she invented the three-split-screen--that goes to Denmark's 1910 "The White Slave Trade"-- she did come up with the first "triangular" there-split screen, showing three events occurring at once: the hobo breaking into an isolated house, the mother, played by Weber, who is talking with the husband from that house, and the husband at work. Another novel camera placement was an overhead shot of the hobo approaching the house and looking up at the mother, who is on the second floor.

Once the husband realizes his wife is in danger, he steals a car in front of his shop and races on home, only to followed by a squad of police. Weber uses the camera, situated in the husband's vehicle, to frame him driving as well as to capture the approach of the police in the sideview mirror. Absolute genius.

Weber wasn't the first female director in cinema. That distinction goes to Alice Guy-Blanche. But she did amass quite a reputation as a filmmaker. She explains: "I grew up in a business when everybody was so busy learning their particular branch of the new industry, that no one had time to notice whether or not a woman was gaining a foothold."

"Suspense" would put Weber in the same aesthetic level with Griffith, according to some. Witnessing the innovativeness she exhibits in this 1913 film, it's hard to dispute the claim.

Looking through keyhole for the first time in cinema history? Servant, apparently bored in the "lonesome place", picks up and leaves, leaving the wife and infant child home alone. Hobo, lurking outside, sees the servant leaving and breaks into home.

Prism in centre of the frame, with man in it, talking to wife on telephone, in upper left corner, hobo sneaking in house in upper right corner. Later, man in centre of prism, wifey in upper left, hobo sneaking into house in top right as he cuts the phone line. He chops down and punches down the door, while wifey frantically calls hubby to come to the rescue.

Noticeably filmed out of doors, as wind picks up and blows paperwork off desk, several early uses of mirror reflections, all to good effect. Good trick shot of a guy being hit by a car during pursuit.