When his fiancee hands back her ring, Arthur Johnson swears off women. When her fiance dumps her, Mary Pickford cries and gives up men. When they sit next to each other on a train, though, everything mistakes their shy attitudes for that of newlyweds.
I think that the reason that so few of D.W. Griffith's comedies for Biograph have been available until now (this and several other rare films have just been posted to the Library of Congress' National Screening Room site), is in part that he used his more elaborate techniques in his dramas, while the comedies depended more on his players' acting; in part because of the snobbish attitude that drama is serious and comedy is ... well, silly, and not art; in part because he handed the comedy over to Frank Powell and Mack Sennett; and in large part because his comedies were rarely the laugh-out-loud farces and burlesques that overwhelmed movie comedy when Sennett struck out on his own. Given his Victorian standards of story-telling, he seemed to be uneasy with making people, particularly young women, the butt of jokes; his comedies were structural, rather than risible.
Occasionally, though, he could turn out a good one, particularly if he had the right actors. He has them here in his two young leads.
I think that the reason that so few of D.W. Griffith's comedies for Biograph have been available until now (this and several other rare films have just been posted to the Library of Congress' National Screening Room site), is in part that he used his more elaborate techniques in his dramas, while the comedies depended more on his players' acting; in part because of the snobbish attitude that drama is serious and comedy is ... well, silly, and not art; in part because he handed the comedy over to Frank Powell and Mack Sennett; and in large part because his comedies were rarely the laugh-out-loud farces and burlesques that overwhelmed movie comedy when Sennett struck out on his own. Given his Victorian standards of story-telling, he seemed to be uneasy with making people, particularly young women, the butt of jokes; his comedies were structural, rather than risible.
Occasionally, though, he could turn out a good one, particularly if he had the right actors. He has them here in his two young leads.