An Arcadian Maid

The more you watch of Griffith the more you notice the themes of sin and religion. In it of itself not bad morals to peddle, but sometimes it becomes a bit see through what is going on and that Griffith clearly had agendas with his film and/or was told to add these morals. This movie was so close to be mediocre to above average, but the final scenes were just too much for me, so it fell down an ouch, even though this is overall a fine little film.

A woman who starts working, is meet by a traveling salesman that promises to run away with her if she steals money from the farm she works at.

I liked the overall idea here. A simple sin narrative, this time focusing on drinking and gambling and the art of stealing and lying. A lot of sins at play here and it lends itself to a fine little narrative where you understand every characters action, even if the main girl is a bit too gaolable, but I understand her choices from her perspective as a hard worker, being told an easy way out of hard work.

The ending though did not click with me at all. It is too much and I was about to walk away from this movie kind of satisfied until the final 20 seconds. It simply is too much for a narrative that was easy to read for us the audience.

The dapper jacket on the peddler though looks cool

Again a rather simple feature, not a lot to add but it was so close to be mediocre since it is not doing anything that special, but is enjoyable enough and a well-rounded and well told narrative, but that ending man, too much.

I think that "An Arcadian Maid" is a film that is meant to reinforce stereotypes of the day--that traveling salesmen, and perhaps Gypsies, are bad and are not to be trusted. I know this message seems very simplistic and silly, but such messages seemed pretty common in the older silent films.

A young maid (Mary Pickford) is wooed by an evil peddler (Mack Sennett--yes, THAT Mack Sennett). He really cares nothing for her and has no intention of marrying her, but lies and convinces her to steal from her employer--and he plans on using the money to pay off his bad debts and blow town. However, because he is evil and D.W. Griffith's films are quite moralistic, by the end of the film, he is exposed and the lady learns her lesson and returns the money.

Overall, the story is very simple and reinforces some old prejudices. Not terribly exciting or compelling, though it was nice seeing the peddler tossed off the train!

Arcadian Maid, An (1910)

*** (out of 4)

D.W. Griffith film about an out of work maid (Mary Pickford) who gets a job and soon starts getting hit up on by a playboy. This is fine with the maid until she learns the man is talking about her to his friends. Here's another Griffith film that's pro-woman and anti-man as the men in the movie are pretty cut and dry villains while the Pickford character is seen as an angel. There's nothing wrong with this as it adds to the story and Griffith certainly knows how to handle it.

You can view this title at various online places like YouTube.

This D.W. Griffith feature -- for 1910, this 13-minute movie ranks as a feature -- manages to combine most of what Griffith had learned of film-making by the point, except for his handling of crowd scenes. Mary Pickford and company are excellent in this melodrama with comic overtones, from the ironic title -- there is nothing blithe about Mary's life as she suffers a life of hard work on a farm -- to the occasional gawkiness she displays when she is seduced by a hard-living traveling salesman. Finally, when she recognizes the situation, she finds unsatisfactory solace in religion.

The performances are a little slow to the modern eye, but fulsome. The camera work is wonderful, as you might expect from Billy Bitzer in this period. While this is not a key work, it is well worth the time of anyone interested in silent movies.

Fate sometimes overtakes those who betray trusting innocence and does it so forcibly that there can be no question of the result. Here is a villain who induces a trusting girl to commit a robbery. But his ill- gotten gains do him no good. In a brawl on the train he either falls or it thrown out, and later falls dead at the feet of the girl he has deceived. Just how he got to where the girl was in the woods is not quite clear, but perhaps for dramatic purposes it is not altogether necessary. She, realizing the probable results of taking her employer's money, secures it from the body and returns it before the loss is discovered. In so much the audience can rejoice. If the object of the film is to show how easily innocence may be entrapped into wrong doing the success is marked. If it was the intention to show that punishment is almost certain to follow such villainy it is equally successful. Dramatically the film is good, and photographically it is up to the Biograph standard. - The Moving Picture World, August 13, 1910