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!

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.

Suspense (1913)

**** (out of 4)

This semi-remake of D.W. Griffith's 1911 film A WOMAN SCORNED takes many of the masters best known techniques and adds new one to them making the end result certainly live up to the title. A woman's maid quits without notice leaving her and her baby all alone when a tramp comes upon the house, finds a key under the door mat and decides to come in. The woman frantically calls her husband at work and he must try and get home before the tramp reaches his wife. This is one of the most legendary films from this era and it's easy to see why because not only does it take stuff from Griffith but there's also enough new stuff here that you'd have to wonder if someone like Fritz Lang or Alfred Hitchcock saw this and learned some of their trade. There are so many wonderful moments here including one where the camera is placed above the tramp looking down on him. Another great scene happens when a car accidentally runs over a man and the way it's shot is just breath taking to watch. The most important thing seen here are a couple split screens where the screen breaks down into three sections and we get to see what all the major characters are doing. This is used to great effect when the wife is on the phone with the husband and the tramp cuts the phone line. As was the case in many Griffith films, the ending pretty much has the good guy having to reach the bad guy before it's too late and directors Phillips Smalley and Lois Weber (who plays the wife) do a terrific job at slowly building up suspense and then pushing it into high gear once everything begins to mount up.

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.

As the title may give away this film is a very early example of the suspense thriller. In it a woman is terrorised by a malevolent tramp. He stalks her while she is trapped helplessly in her house with her child. Her husband rushes to the rescue with the police in hot pursuit of him for stealing a car to race home.

It's a tight and well constructed film. It has very well paced editing that alternates from the scene in the house and the high speed car chase. It's shot with some skill too, with some inventive shots. There is a dynamic action shot taken from a moving car, including some stylish shots of the pursuers in the rear view mirror. Given the primitive equipment in those days this is pretty impressive. It also makes great use of the triptych split-screen effect which allows us to see three separate scenes simultaneously, conveying a lot of information simultaneously. This is one of the first examples of this technique. The feel of the film is a good combination of fast action and a brooding menace.

The main creative force behind all of this is Lois Weber, who also starred as the woman in distress. There are hardly any women film directors nowadays - which seems pretty outrageously sexist – Lois Weber was one of the very first though, so can be considered an important pioneer. Although, her gender aside, this remains a good film for its time.