User Reviews

Odd to see an American movie in which Mexican gun runners into the States are portrayed as heroes, but that's what we have here in Kenean Buel's short. The director chooses his shots well, although it's clear that the train on which some scenes are filmed is crawling along at a snail's pace rather than thundering past as we're supposed to believe. The film also fails to adequately deal with its bad guy.

This short can be found in the recently released DVD collection "Treasures of the West"---a collection of mostly short films from the earliest days of movies until 1938. It's quite unusual because it is an American film that is very sympathetic to the Mexican uprising that began shortly before the film was made. For the most part, Americans wanted the US to stay out of the affair and only cared that some Mexicans (such as the troops of Pancho Villa) made incursions into the US but the people who made the film felt otherwise. In fact, the bad guys in this film are with the US government!

The film begins with Mr. Alvarez and Pedro receiving a coded message to transport weapons across the border to aid in the Mexican Revolution. However, the evil Monte refuses to help is obviously a jerk--though no one takes much notice of him. This is a big mistake, as he soon becomes a traitor and approaches the US Secret Service to betray his supposed friends (boo, hiss!).

For the most part, the film is a bit surprising not only because it is pro-Mexican Revolution, but because it portrays the Mexicans (aside from Monte) positively--as well as showing an amazingly spunky woman. For this reason, the film is pretty interesting and worth your time. Not a brilliant film but a good one from this early silent era. The only real negative is that the very end of the film seems missing, as it ends very abruptly--though it's well after the plot has concluded.

The Mexican Revolution in the 1910s was not the first war captured on film -- the Boer War and the Spanish-American War were both film subjects with views of battles released soon after they were fought. Of course, most of those battles were actually fought in New Jersey for land battles, with the occasional bath tub and toy boat standing in for Dewey's fleet at Manilla. Likewise, this story of was shot in Glendale, California. Within a couple of years there would be battles shot with Pancho Villa playing himself in battles fought for the movie camera. In the movies it's important to make things look real to an audience and reality sometimes lacks the verisimilitude.

It's rather difficult to recognize Alice Joyce here. She usually played sedate Anglo beauties in the 1920s in films like THE GREEN GODDESS and STELLA DALLAS. She wears make-up and a shawl in this 1911 Kalem film about gun-running across the border. It also shows that despite the often turgid compositions and infantile story-telling of much of Kalem's movies -- often directed by Sidney Olcott -- Kalem's other units knew how to compose a shot and direct actors as well as Griffith at Biograph. Interestingly, while Biograph's compositions emphasized the right wall to frame the composition, here and in next-year's THE CONFEDERATE IRONCLAD -- also directed by Kenean Buel, there is definitely a left wall.

Of all the Patent Trust companies, Kalem's output has probably the lowest survival rate. Little exists except for the awful Ham & Bud comedies that kept the company afloat for its last four years and a few Olcott products. It's worth looking at this one to learn that there's more to American film-making in 1911 than Griffith.

Mexican Filibusters (1911)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

The setting is the Mexican Revolution and friends Pedro and Alvarez get a message to transport some weapons across the border. As the other reviewers have pointed out, this is a rather interesting film because of it being sympathetic to Mexico and the people fighting in the uprising. Usually these early silent films are always pro-America and it's strange to see that the secret service are played for the bad guys. You might expect something like this out of a Mexican film but this here was produced and shot in the United States. It's also worth noting that the film features the talented Alice Joyce, a fine actress who is pretty much forgotten today. Overall I thought the film was good enough to make it worth viewing once but there are still a lot of issues. I thought the direction was rather lacking as there's never any real excitement or drama going on with what we're seeing. I think a better director (cough Griffith) could have milked some more suspense out of the material and especially the ending. The film is at least well shot and features some fine performances.