 |
| D. W. Griffith: Balked at the Altar (US 1908). Hezekiah Hornbeak, Artemisia Sophia Stebbins (Mabel Stoughton) and her father Obediah Stebbins. This screenshot found in the web does not reflect the quality of the restoration we saw. |
US © 1908 American Mutoscope & Biograph Company.
Dir: D. W. Griffith. Story: ?. Photog: Arthur Marvin. Cast: Mabel Stoughton, Arthur Johnson, George Gebhardt, Robert Harron, Linda Arvidson.
Filmed: 29-30.7.1908 (NY Studio; Fort Lee, New Jersey). Rel: 25.8.1908. Copy: DCP (4K), 12'30" (from paper print, 703 ft, 15 fps); titles: ENG.
Source: Library of Congress National Audio-Visual Conservation Center, Packard Campus, Culpeper, VA.
Film Preservation Society (FPS) / 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: Günter Buchwald.
Viewed at Teatro Verdi with e-subtitles in Italian, 8 Oct 2024
There is no credit information in the film itself, just the title card with the year of copyright and the name and the address of the American Mutoscope & Biograph Company, like in The Adventures of Dollie.
Tracey Goessel (GCM/FPS The Biograph Project 2024): "This early Biograph is notable primarily for Griffith’s first use of an insert shot of an actor. It is the final shot in the film, echoing Edwin S. Porter’s use of a cowboy firing into the camera at the end of The Great Train Robbery (1903)."
"What, besides the final shot, is of interest in this 700 feet of dreck? The answer lies in Way Down East, a melodrama that originated on Broadway in 1898, but which had Broadway revivals in both 1903 and 1905. While Balked’s plot bears no relation to the wronged-woman story, a line can be drawn directly from the main characters here and the supporting characters in the play: the comic spinster, the country farmer, the rube. Griffith was to film Way Down East in 1920, but here, 12 years earlier, are the same characters. Griffith had made no progress vis-à-vis plot preference in those dozen years; but he was to progress centuries in terms of narrative form."
AA: Cooper Graham registers Balked at the Altar as Griffith's first rustic comedy. It is a crude farce in the most primitive mode of early cinema based on cardboard figures. The overdone caricatures include the Spinster, the Blackface and the Sissy. The stock situations include a shotgun proposal (see photo above) and the groom's escape from his own wedding. In the epic chase sequence the wedding crowd turns into something like a lynch mob. This was a standard comedy routine in early farce from Edwin S. Porter to André Deed until it was alchemized into gold by Keaton in Seven Chances.
Griffith was not a master of comedy, but he was able to play subtly on the thin line between the sublime and the ridiculous. He had his own unique sense of humour, but it is not on display in Balked at the Altar.
Cooper Graham singles out the last shot where the leading lady resumes reading Three Weeks, Elinor Glyn's bestselling novel about a sex relationship lasting only the titular weeks but with everlasting consequences. It is a bust portrait shot of the lady, nothing new (Graham quotes The Irwin-Rice Kiss and the ending of The Great Train Robbery), but maybe the first close-up directed by Griffith.
The copy on display was decent - a marked improvement to what we saw in 1997.
...
I saw Balked at the Altar in GCM's Griffith Project (DWG 39), mattino 14 October 1997 at Ridotto del Verdi on 16 mm /15 fps/ 12 min without intertitles and Neil Brand at the piano. The visual quality: barely visible.
Moving Picture World synopsis from Biograph Bulletin, No. 164, August 25 1908: "BIOGRAPH COMEDY OF A NEAR-WEDDING. Artemisia Sophia Stebbins was a lovelorn maiden who had delved deep into the mysteries of "Three Weeks," as well as being conversant with the teachings of Laura Jean Libby."
"Her one hobby was to possess a hubby. Many there were whom she tried to hook, but in vain, for truth to say. Arte was of pulchritude a bit shy. She had the complexion of pale rhubarb and a figure like a wheat sack. Still her motto was "nil desperandum," and she was ever hopeful."
"One thing in her favor, her father. Obediah Stebbins, avowed his aid. Of the visitors who called at the Stebbins' domicile, Hezekiah Horubeak seemed the most probable to corral, so Artemisia set to work. Hez at first was a trifle recalcitrant, but was soon subdued by Obediah's gun, which we must admit possessed egregious powers of persuasion."
"The day for the wedding was set, and to the village church there flocked the natives to witness this momentous affair. All was progressing serenely until the all-important question was put to Hezekiah, and instead of answering "Yea," he kicked over the trace and tried to beat it."
"His escape by way of the door was intercepted, so it happens that the little church is in sore need of a stained glass window, for Hez took a portion of it with him in his haste. Out and over the lawn he gallops with the congregation at his heels, Artemisia Sophia well in the lead."
"Down from the terrace onto the road they leap and across the meadow until they come to a fence, on the other side of which are two boys shooting crap. Over this hurdle they vault coming plump down on the poor boys, almost crushing the life out of them. Regaining his equilibrium, Hez forges on coming to the very acropolis of the town. The descent therefrom is decidedly precipitous and makes Hez hesitate for a moment, but only a moment, for the howling horde is still in pursuit, so down be goes in leaps and falls to the bottom, followed by a veritable avalanche of human beings."
"Owing to this mix-up Hez has a chance to distance them a little, and being almost exhausted, he attempts to climb a tree, but too late for the gang is soon upon him, and carry him back to the church where the ceremony is started again, and when he is asked that all-important question he fairly yells, "Yes, b'gosh!""
"Artemisia is now asked the question, and to the amazement of all present she says, "Not on your county fair tintype," and flounces haughtily out of the church, leaving poor Hezekiah in a state of utter collapse, surrounded by sympathizing friends."—Moving Picture World synopsis from Biograph Bulletin, No. 164, August 25 1908
No comments:
Post a Comment