The Lonedale Operator

A movie like this could only get away with a 7-out-of-10 rating today, considering its popularity at the time and its historical significance as a D.W.Griffith experience.

This short details a young girl who is operating a train stop when some bandits, or miscreants, or something, begin to threaten her. As she tries to hold them at bay, a train operator comes to the rescue.

Even by today's standards, the cutting of the film makes it relatively intense. Griffith claimed he invented a lot of techniques that he didn't, but perhaps the one thing it cannot be argued he invented is a director's style (auteurship). Early films didn't even have credits attached, and yet audiences recognized a Griffith film anyways.

The same holds today. This is a Griffith film, by and large. Whether it's worth the search to find and watch depends on your interest of the era, Griffith, or maybe silent films as a whole. Otherwise this film is nothing more than a research tool for film classes and cinephiles.

--PolarisDiB

If you were curious about train stations circa 1911, then "The Lonedale Operator" gives us a glimpse. "The Lonedale Operator" had love, technology, crime, and heroism.

The two lovebirds and stars were the Operator's Daughter (Blanche Sweet) and the Engineer (Francis J. Grandon). The Operator's Daughter had to take over operating duties for her sick father. Operating a train station, as was shown in this movie, was sending and receiving telegraphs and exchanging incoming and outgoing packages with the train.

The Operator's Daughter found herself in trouble when two thieves had her trapped and were attempting to break in and steal payroll money from the mining company. It was suspense and drama in the Lonedale train station.

Free on YouTube.

The Lonedale Operator, which is about a young daughter of a rail operator (not on the train, at the nearby station) and how she has to fill in for her sick father (this after an opening where she, uh, flirts with some guy or something, I'm not sure), a couple of thieves plot to steal from the train and so she has to defend herself, albeit fainting for part of the time while the train has to deal with no operator.

It gets good in the second half, when the story actually fully kicks in and Blanche Sweet's fill-in train operator has to fend off a couple of thieves trying to break in (once again with Griffith, like the Lonely Villa and some other shorts he did with this theme of invasion). Sweet's wonderful, but the pacing felt off for me. Not one of the best nor worst, The Lonedale Operator, which features some fine color-tinting for some shots, is OKAY.

This D. W. Griffith short involves a young woman whose father is the telegraph operator in a relatively remote place. Her boyfriend is a railroad engineer. When she takes over the key (the telegraph key), she becomes responsible for a large payroll shipment. Unfortunately, a couple of no-goods want the money and they are going to break into the telegraph shack and steal it from her. The plots revolves around how long she can forestall these men until her engineer boyfriend can bring the train back and rescue her. There is an interesting twist that is pretty satisfying.

Blanche Sweet stars in this film from 1911 by D. W. Griffith made for Biograph. Considering it was made in 1911, and Griffith's techniques weren't quite as advanced, it is very good. However, only a year later, Griffith remade his movie in a 15 minute short for Biograph, and the remake, I have to say, is more refined in techniques. There is essentially more cutting and the pacing is a lot faster (the beginning to this one starts slow). Griffith was probably looking at this film a year later and thinking, "I could've done better. Say, how about doing a remake of this one? And how about a chase towards the end by locomotive?" Thus "The Girl and Her Trust", the aforementioned remake, was filmed.

Now to the comparison. What makes this film not as advanced? Well, no chasing the tramps when they escape with the money. In fact, in here they don't even escape with the money at all. The shots of the interior of the locomotive look cool, but no tracking shot of the outside of the locomotive. That's another memorable thing in the remake. Plenty of cross-cutting, but the tramps peeking through the window bit is not drawn out as long and there isn't as much of that. Griffith was still learning when he made it, but it is still pretty good, and is certainly worthwhile for any Griffith fan. Even though the director became famous for "Birth of a Nation" and "Intolerance", short features like this show how advanced Griffith was with film editing.