User Reviews

Filmed by soon-to-be Griffith collaborator Billy Bitzer, this ultra-short comedy is reasonably amusing. It was probably considered quite risqué back in 1905, and no doubt did nothing to elevate the reputation of movies, which were looked down upon by the upper classes. It all looks fairly tame today, but considering the fact that respectable women never showed a leg in public back then the sight of an actress pulling her dress all the way up to her (gasp!) knee must have caused quite a stir. Lord only knows what reaction the sight of a pair of bare legs protruding from a subway train's window must have elicited - and what a let down the discovery that they were fake must have been. The film was obviously made with the intention of getting a reaction from its audience, but it's still an entertaining little morsel.

I found '2 a.m. in the Subway' interesting for two reasons. Firstly, this 1905 movie (nominally a comedy) was made less than a year after the opening of the New York City subway, which clearly had already become a source of some amusement and derision. Secondly, this film was shot by G.W. 'Billy' Bitzer, who is now remembered solely as D.W. Griffith's cameraman, yet who (as this film demonstrates) was already an experienced movie veteran before he came to work for Griffith. Many of the cinematic innovations which are credited to Griffith were in fact devised by Bitzer, or by the two men in tandem.

All of the people seen here are clearly actors playing roles. A couple of comedy constables, looking rather more realistic than Keystone Cops, are on a subway platform where they contend with two smartly-dressed young ladies and their companion, an older man who is clearly the worse for drink. I expected the young ladies to be prostitutes or pickpockets intending to rob this man, but I wondered how this development would be conveyed to the delicate sensibilities of a 1905 audience. As it turns out, I was mistaken.

One of the fair young ladies pauses to adjust her shoe and stocking. In so doing, she steps away from the other people on the platform -- but directly towards the camera -- and raises her floor-length skirt to a surprising height ... nearly up to her knee! In 1905, plenty of American men (including husbands) went days or even weeks at a time without seeing any female leg farther north than the ankle, so I can imagine what the reactions must have been to this. Her stocking has an extremely decorative pattern, prompting me to wonder what her undergarments look like.

SPOILER COMING. The cops bustle this trio aboard a subway train, clearly hoping they'll ride into some other precinct and become some other cops' problem. At this point, a pair of shapely female gams protrude from the subway doors. Stop the train! But it turns out that these are, in fact, phony legs which the trio have brought along as a joke.

I found this ending a 'cheat'. It's just remotely possible that the second lady (the one who didn't flash her stocking) was smuggling these two fake limbs under her own large skirts and petticoats of the type which were customary for 1905 ladies. But I doubt that this was the case ... so the legs must have been waiting offstage on the train, as props for the actors to use at the appropriate moment. This gimmick ruined what had been up until that moment, for me, a realistic 'slice-of-life' performance by a cast who are clearly actors rather than cinema-verite 'real' people.

For its historic value (and out of respect for Bitzer's achievements), and in appreciation for that glimpse of a shapely female leg, 1905 vintage, I'll rate this brief movie 8 out of 10.