The Lonedale Operator

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.

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.

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.

Cinema hadn't quite seen the rapidity of edits in a movie as contained in Biograph Studio's March 1911 "The Lonedale Operator." Cross-cutting between two separate scenes, director D.W. Griffith used over 100 edits, an unusual amount of cuts during that time.

"The Lonedale Operator" begins lazily with long sequences, showing the love interest of Blanche Sweet and her train engineer boyfriend. She eventually fills in for her ailing father, the train station's telegraph operator. During late afternoon, a train arrives with a pouch full of money for the local mine's payroll. There's no secure safe to place the money in, but not to worry since the train station is relatively isolated with no one around, except for two drifters who have followed the payroll as it leaves the train into the hands of the Lonedale Operator.

As the film proceeds, Griffith quickens the pace of his edits as he juxtapositions between two separate plots: the robbery and the rescue, where the train with her engineer boyfriend is miles away. The video link below provides an explanation on what cross-cutting, or parallel editing, is all about as Griffith employs the technique to amp up the suspense.

"The Lonedale Operator" is also notable for a rare closeup of a prop, pivotal to the story. It wasn't the first cinematic closeup, as several articles allude to, but it was one of the first that provided a bit of comedy relief after such a harrowing story had unfolded.

Lastly, this was one of the first films Blanche Sweet appeared in. She was a very successful silent movie actress throughout the 1910's and 1920's. But Ms. Sweet could not make the transition into sound films, playing in only three before she retired from Hollywood.

This is a very good drama with a fine performance by Blanche Sweet who, almost unbelievably, was only 15 at the time. If D.W. Griffith had not remade it the following year (as the fine feature "The Girl and Her Trust), then Sweet and "The Lonedale Operator" might be better remembered.

The story is very similar to that in the better-known remake, with Sweet playing the daughter of a telegraph operator, who takes over when her father becomes ill, only to find herself thrust into a highly dangerous situation. The scenario was written by Mack Sennett, which makes it very interesting to imagine Sennett and the somber Griffith working together. It's surprisingly tight, and only a funny bit at the end (which works well) breaks the tension.

If you've seen and enjoyed the remake, this one is also well worth watching. It's less complex, but it's quite good in its own right. Sweet gives the heroine a different nature than does Dorothy Bernard in the remake, and both of them are quite good in the role, with no need at all to choose one or the other as the 'best' of the two performances.