D. W. Griffith: One Touch of Nature (1908) 2026 digital restoration Film Preservation Society

ONE TOUCH OF NATURE (US 1909) dir: D. W. Griffith. story: ? photog: Arthur Marvin, G. W. Bitzer. cast: Arthur Johnson, Florence Lawrence, Marion Leonard, Charles Inslee, Mack Sennett, Harry Solter, George Gebhart, Gertrude Robinson, Jeannie MacPherson, Dorothy West. prod: American Mutoscope & Biograph Company. filmed: 13-18.11.1908 (NY Studio). rel: 1.1.1909. copy: DCP, 12'18" (from paper print, 724 ft., 16 fps); titles: ENG. source: Film Preservation Society, Los Angeles (DCP); Library of Congress National Audio-Visual Conservation Center, Packard Campus, Culpeper, VA (paper print). Digital restoration, scanning: 2026. Intertitles written by Film Preservation Society

    Le Giornate del Cinema Muto, Pordenone 2026: The Biograph Project.

    Grand piano: Philip Carli.

    Viewed at Teatro Verdi, 3 Oct 2026

Tracey Goessel (GCM 2026): "Here is an improbable melodrama, encompassing the death of one child, the catatonic state of her mourning mother, and the mother’s restoration with the rescue of a battered orphan. While Griffith cross-cuts effectively we should also acknowledge his staging of the street sequences. "

"The first such scene includes a family playing ring-around-the-rosy; a drunk falling on his backside; our evil hag and hapless orphan; multiple bowler-hatted pedestrians; and a trotting newsboy. The subsequent shot has its own micro-dramas. Russell Merritt (The Griffith Project, Vol. 1) writes, “Griffith sets the scene by having three chorus girls dropped off by escorts at the stage door. Each departure, quick though it is, is made distinctive: the first woman gives her man a warm goodbye kiss, the second couple is merely polite, the third positively surly.” What his view of the smeary paper print did not provide was the recognition of the third chorus girl. Under a heavy veil, we see Florence Lawrence serving as an extra, in addition to the female lead. It is, perhaps, a measure of how the industry had yet to acknowledge how recognizable these faces would become. The star system was not yet born. But we are up to 1909. And Mary Pickford was coming soon."

AA: Made in the tradition of the Sunday school play, proceeding in tableaux, reduced to the essentials, contrasting a happy family and a miserable family, both with a child. The child of the happy family dies, and the child of the doomed family is in danger, as well, but in a last minute rescue she is adopted to the happy one. Plausibility is not pursued, but room to powerful visions is opened. The mother's mental breakdown when her daughter dies. The unflinching account of the violence against the cursed family's daughter. Such scenes may be digested more easily within the melodramatic mode than in a realistic storyline. Again, a miracle happens: as soon as she receives a new daughter, the mother is cured and the girl is saved. Happiness is back. The film might be called a fairytale, just like The Christmas Burglars.