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| D. W. Griffith: The Stolen Jewels (US 1908). Restoration comparison photo: Film Preservation Society. |
US © 1908 American Mutoscope & Biograph Company.
Dir: D. W. Griffith. Story: ?. Photog: Billy Bitzer. Cast: Harry Solter, John R. Cumpson, Florence Lawrence, Linda Arvidson, Charles Inslee, George Gebhardt, D. W. Griffith.
Filmed: 24.8, 15.9.1908 (NY Studio; New York Curb Exchange, NYC). Rel: 29.9.1908.
Copy: DCP (4K), 11'12" (from paper print, 630 ft, 16 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: Philip Carli.
Viewed at Teatro Verdi with e-subtitles in Italian, 11 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): "Here is a little film with much to offer: a crime drama with no crime, and a mystery that is no mystery at all. And that is the charm of the thing. A little girl stuffs her mother’s jewels into a candy container/toy dog. The family believes them to be stolen. The market crashes and hard times follow: furniture is repossessed and the father’s brokerage business goes bust."
"All through these trials, Griffith keeps the jewel-filled toy in our view. We know it is the solution to the family’s crisis, but they do not. Florence Lawrence, at the height of her despair, clutches the toy, and actually twists its head back and forth. One can just picture the audience crying out “Look in the dog!”, the way modern audiences call out to the screen in horror films today."
"The exteriors are also of interest. In the curb market on Broad Street we see Griffith himself, enacting a shoving match with Harry Solter." (Tracey Goessel)
AA: Tom Gunning in his 1997 essay for The Griffith Project registered in The Stolen Jewels an inversion of Betrayed by a Hand Print (released four weeks earlier). In both films, the audience knows where the jewels are and who took them. In The Stolen Jewels, there is no crime, but the loss of the diamond necklace becomes a catalyst to disaster.
The stockbroker Robert Jenkins loses everything, including his home and all his belongings. Only a chair and the little toy doggie of Baby Jenkins remain. From the doggie's belly the diamond necklace is found. The toy has been in plain sight all the time.
Because The Stolen Jewels is not a whodunit, it becomes a psychological study about a family in catastrophe. Their life is destroyed, but they have each other and true friends like Smithson. There is a happy final plot twist, but their true strength has already been proven. They face disaster together, they find joy together.
Mastery of the plan-séquence. Intimate home scenes are intertwined with epic crowd scenes of market panic. "The curb market" is a piece of fascinating arcana in the history of finance. The sense of cool observation anticipates A Corner in Wheat.
The Stolen Jewels is one of my favourites in the year 1908 of Griffith and his great team.
A copy of nice visual quality has been redeemed from paper print origins.
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I saw The Stolen Jewels in GCM's Griffith Project (DWG 55), pomeriggio 15 Oct 1997 at Ridotto del Verdi on 16 mm at 630 ft /15 fps/ 9'30" without intertitles and Donald Sosin at the piano.
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Moving Picture World synopsis from Biograph Bulletin, No. 174, 29 Sep 1908: "It would have taken more than the wonderful powers of deduction of a Sherlock Holmes to dispel the mystery that shrouded the disappearance of a case of jewels at the home of wealthy stockbroker Robert Jenkins, and although they were eventually brought to light, it was through a most remarkable accident.""Mr. and Mrs. Jenkins are getting ready for an evening at the opera, and as usual Mrs. Jenkins is tantalizingly slow in her preparations, and is almost carried out of the house by the impatient Jenkins. Baby Jenkins is very much in evidence, and requires a bribe to induce her to remain contented with the maid. This Mrs. J. furnishes in the shape of a papier-maché doggie, the head of which is removed to find its interior filled with candy."
"Mrs. Jenkins is inclined to deck herself out in her diamonds, and takes the case from the strong-box, but in her anxiety to appease her husband's flustering, she hurriedly kisses baby and departs, forgetting all about the jewels. They are not long in the theater before the thought of the diamonds comes to her, and the awful possible result of her carelessness. She will not rest until Mr. Jenkins takes her home."
"On arriving there, sure enough her worst fears are apparently confirmed. There on the desk lies the jewel case empty. Good heavens. what's to be done? No one was in the house but the baby and nurse, both of whom are now abed. There is no trace or sign of the entrance of a thief. How did it happen?"
"Well, the detectives are summoned and put to work on the case, but without success, although a reward of $10,000 is offered for the apprehension of the robbers and return of the jewels. The detectives finally give the matter up."
"Poor Jenkins is certainly up against it, for the loss of the jewels is the beginning of a streak of wretched luck. He is beaten on all sides in the stock market until at length he is forced to the wall. Poverty, disgrace and even starvation stare him and his loved ones in the face."
"Forced to sell his house and then the furniture to satisfy his creditors, he is in the depths of despair as he stands and views his precious little one playing on the floor with her doggie, unconscious of the anguish of her father. Piece by piece the household effects are seized, until there remains but a couple of chairs, on one of which Baby places her doggie."
"At that moment the door opens and Smithson, Jenkins' friend, enters to offer his sympathy and aid. Smithson is a good hearted, blustering fellow, and in the enthusiasm of his friendship, flusters about, finally throwing himself into the only chair in the room, not noticing the toy, of course crushing it to atoms."
"Leaping to his feet, he is profuse in apologies, when, lo and behold. there among the fragments of the broken dog lay the diamonds. The clouds that hung over the household are dissipated and the little family may start anew. There are many sensational incidents in the course of the film; one showing the curb market of New York is most unique." —Moving Picture World synopsis from Biograph Bulletin, No. 174, 29 Sep 1908
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