US © 1908 American Mutoscope & Biograph Company.
Whatever we think about the artistic merits of the movie, its compactness is impressive, though far from the parables of Jesus.
Dir: D. W. Griffith. Story: ?. Photog: Arthur Marvin, Billy Bitzer. Cast: Linda Arvidson, Harry Solter, Charles Inslee, George Gebhardt.
Filmed: 17-18.7.1908 (NY Studio; Fort Lee, New Jersey). Rel: 14.8.1908.
Copy: DCP (4K), 13'48" (from paper print, 776 ft, 15 fps); titles: ENG.
Source: Library of Congress National Audio-Visual Conservation Center, Packard Campus, Culpeper, VA.
Film Preservation Society / Tracey Goessel / digital scan 2017. Given the absence of original intertitles, new ones have been written by the Film Preservation Society. 2024 edition.
43rd Le Giornate del Cinema Muto (GCM), Pordenone: Early Cinema - The Biograph Project.
Grand piano: Stephen Horne.
Viewed at Teatro Verdi with e-subtitles in Italian, 7 Oct 2024.
Tracey Goessel (GCM, The Biograph Project 2024): "The Man and the Woman is the first of several melodramas Griffith would produce in which the heroine is tricked into a false marriage by a scoundrel. As such, this film serves primarily as a basis by which we can observe how Griffith grew in his storytelling skills, culminating, of course, with Lillian Gish’s abandoned mother in Way Down East (1920)."
"Still, there is already evidence that, while not yet running, Griffith is at least contemplating a crawl. As Cooper Graham (The Griffith Project, Vol. 1, p. 79) points out, Griffith’s exterior shots are closer to the actors than in his single interior."
"And in the marriage scene he has his characters leave the scene by approaching the camera instead of exiting stage left or right. His work is leaving us hints of what will come."
AA: A Sunday school play, a temperance drama, a tale of sin, betrayal and redemption.
Linda Arvidson, one of the first American film stars, and the wife (during 1906-1936) of D. W. Griffith, had already played in The Adventures of Dollie, The Bandit's Waterloo, The Helping Hand, Balked at the Altar, After Many Years, The Taming of the Shrew and A Calamitous Elopement. Quoted in The Griffith Project Volume 1: Films Produced in 1907-1908, she states: "In the beginning Marion Leonard and I alternated in playing 'leads.' She played the worldly woman, the adventuress, and the melodramatic parts, while I did the sympathetic, the wronged wife, the too-trusting maid, waiting, always waiting, for the lover to come back. But mostly I died".
I pause at this notion and the absoluteness of the film title The Man and the Woman. Expressed also in the recognizable Griffith style in intertitles: "His mother blind to everything, including his nature". And the blunt, direct way of the melodrama: right after the fake wedding ceremony, Tom starts to drink, and the first domestic quarrel begins. Father shows the door to Gladys who appears with a baby.
A decent visual quality on the DCP, with good black levels.
...
I saw The Man and the Woman for the first time. I missed it in GCM's The Griffith Project (DWG 36), pomeriggio 13 October 1997 at Ridotto del Verdi on 16 mm at 281 ft /15 fps/ 12 min without intertitles and Edward von Past at the piano.
Moving Picture World synopsis from Biograph Bulletin, No. 161, August 14 1908: "BIOGRAPH STORY OF A MINISTER AND HIS WAYWARD BROTHER. "Lead us not into temptation". What a sermon there is in this appeal, and this subject shows the awful result of not heeding the warning voice of Divine Providence."
"John and Tom Wilkins are brothers and most divergent in natures. John is a clergyman and a noble, upright fellow, while Tom is a scapegrace, wild, reckless and unscrupulous. Not having the parental guidance so essential in youth, his father being dead and his mother blind, he drifted into bad company, the contaminating influence deeply affecting his susceptible nature."
"Despite the earnest pleading of his brother John he sank lower in morass of transgression, spending most of his time at the ale house drinking and at cards. All this John has succeeded in keeping from his dear mother, whose blindness is almost a blessing, for a mother would rather her eyes be sightless than to view the indiscretions of her loved ones."
"So she possessed the blissful impression that her boys were both paragons of righteousness. God's mercy is unfailing; you will admit this Divine Charity. In the village there dwelt, as neighbors to Wilkins, Farmer Tobias and his wife, and their daughter, Gladys. Tom and Gladys grew up together, and were child sweethearts, which grew stronger with Gladys as time went on. So deeply did she love the handsome Tom that she put her entire trust in him, feeling sure that he would reciprocate her sacrificial devotion with the honorable obligation it merited."
"But, oh, how mistaken she was, and only after prayers and tearful entreaties does he agree to marry her, and then only upon condition that she elope. To this she consents most reluctantly, for which act she is disowned by her parents. The villainy that is wrapped up in the black heart of Tom. Truly a marriage ceremony is performed, but it is by a rowdy friend of Tom's, disguised as a clergyman, in fact, a mock marriage."
"For a time Gladys lived in ignorance of the truth, but it at last came out when Tom deserts her. Back to her home she trudged carrying her infant, and at the door she is met by her mother with open arms but when the father appears, he, still obdurate, drives her away."
"She then goes to John Wilkins, and tells her sad story. He calls Tom and demands he make immediate reparation. Tom treats the matter lightly and the brothers are on the verge of blows when the blind mother, like a ministering angel, appears, and Tom's heart is at last softened. He takes Gladys and their child to his bosom, while they receive the benediction bestowed by their priestly brother." —Moving Picture World synopsis
