The Musketeers of Pig Alley

This prototypical gangster movie is justly one of the best-known of Griffith's Biograph shorts, and may be his literal best. In it we see the director at his most confident and his most precise, as well an early opportunity to see Lillian Gish in a lead role.

The first half of the Musketeers of Pig Alley shows off some of Griffith's most finely crafted shot compositions. Working with several increasingly complex crowd scenes, he manages to keep each one unique, and continually draws our eyes to the most important part of the action, in spite of the degree of complexity. He daringly puts bits of business at the very edges of the frame – a puff of smoke stylishly announces the arrival of Elmer Booth, and later the barman offers a backhander from off-screen. Griffith even works in a joke on his own sense of formal symmetry when, in one street scene Lillian meets her sister Dorothy coming the way. As the two women pass each other, they pause, throw each other a quick glance, then carry on.

In the second half, we see what is arguably the finest use of parallel editing in all of Griffith's Biograph career. As with shot composition, the action climax here is laced with symmetry. Rather than a nail-biting ride-to-the-rescue, this is a tense clash between two opposing forces. Griffith matches up shots of the two rivals gangs as they seek each other out, gradually building up the tension before releasing it in a lightning-fast gunfight. It looks incredibly simple, yet it's so effective. This is the ancestor of John Ford's Western shoot-outs, and Sergio Leone's Mexican standoffs.

The acting is top-notch throughout, and only a few sparse intertitles are used to help the plot along. Gish proves herself adept at the slow, subtle style that was by now the standard at Biograph. Elmer Booth, who had floated around Biograph for a number of years making little impression, at last hits his stride here with a role that is perfect for him. In one memorable close-up during the build up to the shoot-out, he acts brilliantly with his face, looking menacing but also conveying a hint of fear. He also gives a great comic turn in the final scene. Had he not died a few years later he could have been a kind of James Cagney of the silent era – he has that same mean-faced gangster look.

If there is one weakness in The Musketeers of Pig Alley it is that Griffith sometimes actually seems to expect too much of his audience. There is a lot to take in, and some of the plot points are conveyed extremely subtly. Still, it has a terrific impact even on a first viewing, and remains one of the most ageless of all Griffith's pictures.

Early crime film directed by D.W. Griffith. Hyped in the subtitle as "Unparallel drama inspired and played on the streets of the American city - Bold - Truthful"! Lillian Gish lives with her musician husband Walter Miller near Pig Alley, an area frequented by gangsters. The head Musketeer is Elmer Booth. Gangster Booth tries to put the make on Ms. Gish, and mugs Mr. Miller as he returns home with his hard-earned pay. Stumbling into a gang shootout, Miller recognizes Musketeer Booth as his mugger. What will he do?

Here, in "The Musketeers of Pig Alley", Gish and Miller are better than when they are threatened by the temptress in "The Mothering Heart" (1913). The acting is more natural, and you really sympathize with the couple. Booth is an endearing "Little Caesar". The shootout is lively, and the thugs creeping along the alley walls into close-ups is quite memorable. The ending is played more for humor; it's not bad, but it breaks the mood of the movie.

****** The Musketeers of Pig Alley (10/31/12) D.W. Griffith ~ Lillian Gish, Walter Miller, Elmer Booth

A pioneering short by filmmaking giant D.W. Griffith, "The Musketeers of Pig Alley" is a decent flick featuring one of the first depictions of gangsters onscreen and one of the early uses of follow focus. A series of events portray the life of the poor in all its rough messiness: death, arguments, gang wars, fistfights, shootouts, date rapes, crowded and dirty streets, shabby lodgings, etc.. Elmer Booth personified the image of the gangster of early film with his cocky and self-assured jauntiness setting the stage for future tough guys like James Cagney and Edward G. Robinson. Lillian Gish was lovely as her usual ethereal self showing that she was Griffith's muse from the very start. Like most films of this vintage the main appeal is the view into the distant past, a time travel seeing people and their surroundings from long ago. Added to the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress for its historical importance, this is an interesting artifact from a bygone time that is still viewable for its historical interest and artistic quality.

In what may be the first mob film DW Griffith establishes some of the genre nuances that remain staples to this day. The Musketeers of Pig Alley is a tense action filled study in nostalge de la boule, father of The Roaring Twenties grandfather of Mean Streets.

A struggling musician on New York's Lower East Side goes on tour and and a local thug tries moving in on wife who in return rebuffs him. He robs the husband upon return but also gets her out of a jam at great cost. In the interim a gang war breaks out.

Musketeers presents inner city life in graphic terms of overcrowding and squalor. Griffith does a fine job of balancing the two major story lines that intersect and further helped along by the innocent beauty of Lillian Gish and charismatic evil of Elmer Booth for casting Cagney. There's a well done suspense building montage into a gunfight (including a jarring close-up of Booth) along with a series of other moments that must have given pause to the folks out in the country to visit the Big Apple. Pig Alley is an an American pioneer.

There had been movies about criminals before 1912, but they were solitary bad guys who worked their illegal activities alone. When D. W. Griffith''s "The Musketeer of Pig Alley" was released in November 1912, it set off a new genre in cinema: the gangster movie.

The term gangster derives from the term "gang," to which a criminal being a member of a criminal organization was a gangster. Here we have actor Elmer Booth, the Snapper Kid and the Musketeers gang leader (this is before Disney) wrecking committing illegal acts in a New York City neighborhood. His gang not only performs petty theft, like stealing the wallet of Lillian Gish's husband, but is in constant turf battles with rival gangs.

Elmer Booth's personality on screen as a cocky, bravado hoodlum served as a prime example for future actors who played gangsters to emulate, including James Cagney and Edward G. Robinson. Booth faced a brilliant future as an actor, but three years later he was killed in an automobile accident in a car driven by future "Dracula" director Tod Browning.

"Pig Alley" played a huge influence on director Martin Scorsese when he was creating his megahits "Goodfellas" and "The Gangs of New York."

The movie is also noted for filming the first "follow focus" shot in cinema. D. W. Griffith asked his cameraman, Billy Bitzer, to focus on Elmer Booth, leaving the background blurry as the gang members creep alongside the alley building walls. The story has it that Bitzer was confused how out of focus the frame should look like with just Booth sharply filmed. Supposedly Griffith took Bitzer to a local art museum posting artwork with fuzzy backgrounds the director was looking for (probably Impressionist paintings). The cameraman must have understood since the famous shot appears at the 13 minute mark of "Pig Alley," a sequence so influential that moviemakers duplicate the style today. Also known as rack focus for changing focal points, the technique is effective when performed properly.