There are still some folk out there who believe that silent films are all preposterous melodrama with grotesque overacting. This is a film that they should perhaps see. Why? Because it is a preposterous melodrama with grotesque overacting. Or at least the play contained within the film is..because the film is itself a parody of just that kind of nonsense -still very common in the popular theatre.
The melodrama Why Girls Leave Home had appeared at the Star Theater in New York in November 1904 and seems almost immediately to have become a by-word for absurd melodrama.
One of Edison's irritating new rivals, the Kalem company, had produced a film version in 1907 (Gene Gautier, who adapted he pay, had apparently been part of the stage cast) so Edison seized on the opportunity to send the play something rotten in this rather delightful parody. For some reason it seems to have been made primarily for the British market (perhaps Edison feared his compatriots might take it seriously or that he might find himself for once at the wrong end of a law-suit). Hence the presence (supposedly) of little Gertie Potter, a British child-star, presumably playing the daughter of the ruined woman in the melodrama.
Edison was evidently pleased with the result because there was a 191 remake directed by C. J. Williams with an all-star cast. Again seemingly it was aimed at the British and both versions can be found amongst the films posted on youtube by British Pathé.
The 1909 version of the parody is altogether more fun but the two need to some extent to be watched in tandem because the copy of the 1909 version lacks virtually all of the frame story (the minister's entire household, including the cook and the gardener, all sneaking off to see the play) and only therefore has the comically ridiculous play within the film. The 1913 version has the frame (more or less identical but again less fun to judge from the description of the earlier film) but does not have much of the play (which is altogether rather different, no longer really fits the tile and is also much less fun).
Edison's efforts did not kill off the original melodrama; it was remade as a film in 1921 by Harry Rapf and was apparently the only Warner Brothers film to make a profit in the year. It was, however, to judge from the description, a very much altered and modernsied version of the original. But, O tempora, O mores, as far as I know, neither of the "straight" versions of the drama (1907 or 1921) survive. The Rapf film, which starred Anna Q. Nilsson, was unceremoniously "junked" by Warners in 1948. It will probably resurface some day in a film archive in Copenhagen.
Parody as a film-genre was only really beginning to get going at this time; it would only become a really significant film genre in the late teens and the twenties. So bully for Edison yet again; major nuisance that he was where cinema was concerned, he did right to the bitter end have a capacity for producing interesting things when it was least expected of him. And here we have a splendid glimpse of exactly what silent cinema did NOT (even in 1909) consider itself to be. Pass the word.
The melodrama Why Girls Leave Home had appeared at the Star Theater in New York in November 1904 and seems almost immediately to have become a by-word for absurd melodrama.
One of Edison's irritating new rivals, the Kalem company, had produced a film version in 1907 (Gene Gautier, who adapted he pay, had apparently been part of the stage cast) so Edison seized on the opportunity to send the play something rotten in this rather delightful parody. For some reason it seems to have been made primarily for the British market (perhaps Edison feared his compatriots might take it seriously or that he might find himself for once at the wrong end of a law-suit). Hence the presence (supposedly) of little Gertie Potter, a British child-star, presumably playing the daughter of the ruined woman in the melodrama.
Edison was evidently pleased with the result because there was a 191 remake directed by C. J. Williams with an all-star cast. Again seemingly it was aimed at the British and both versions can be found amongst the films posted on youtube by British Pathé.
The 1909 version of the parody is altogether more fun but the two need to some extent to be watched in tandem because the copy of the 1909 version lacks virtually all of the frame story (the minister's entire household, including the cook and the gardener, all sneaking off to see the play) and only therefore has the comically ridiculous play within the film. The 1913 version has the frame (more or less identical but again less fun to judge from the description of the earlier film) but does not have much of the play (which is altogether rather different, no longer really fits the tile and is also much less fun).
Edison's efforts did not kill off the original melodrama; it was remade as a film in 1921 by Harry Rapf and was apparently the only Warner Brothers film to make a profit in the year. It was, however, to judge from the description, a very much altered and modernsied version of the original. But, O tempora, O mores, as far as I know, neither of the "straight" versions of the drama (1907 or 1921) survive. The Rapf film, which starred Anna Q. Nilsson, was unceremoniously "junked" by Warners in 1948. It will probably resurface some day in a film archive in Copenhagen.
Parody as a film-genre was only really beginning to get going at this time; it would only become a really significant film genre in the late teens and the twenties. So bully for Edison yet again; major nuisance that he was where cinema was concerned, he did right to the bitter end have a capacity for producing interesting things when it was least expected of him. And here we have a splendid glimpse of exactly what silent cinema did NOT (even in 1909) consider itself to be. Pass the word.
