Cast:
Henry B. Walthall (The Nephew), Blanche Sweet (His Sweetheart), Spottiswoode Aitken (The Uncle), George Siegmann (The Italian), Ralph Lewis (The Detective), and Mae Marsh (The Maid) Written, Produced, and Directed by D. W. Griffith (#415 - America, #695 - Broken Blossoms, and #1317 - Way Down East)
Review:
You have to remember that film is an old medium, one that had to evolve beyond shorts and productions made in humble little studios. This is how it works out for horror, which has been there in some shape and form from the beginning, although we are here to talk about features because of their depth, regardless of the notability that came with early ones such as The House of the Devil (1896) or Frankenstein (1910). One of the people at the forefront of doing films that became more than what they were was D. W. Griffith, who went from failed attempts at script-writing to acting in 1908 only to become a director of shorts in that same year for Biograph Company, and it was he who became one of the first directors of films produced in the States alongside one of the first feature-length movies in Judith of Bethulia (1914). His disputes with the company over wanting to make features along with budgets and cast listing made him leave the company in 1914, taking his troupe of actors with him. Six months after the release of this film (the ninth he did in this year, keep that in mind) came The Birth of a Nation (1915) ...and you get the idea about Griffith being a name not long forgotten among cinema. The movie is based on two works by Edgar Allan Poe: the 1843 short story "The Tell-Tale Heart" and the 1849 poem "Annabel Lee". If one is curious about the film, it is widely available in the public domain for all to check out, and an alternate title is presented in the opening as The Avenging Conscience: or 'Thou Shalt Not Kill'.
You may remember that the Heart story was about a man killing someone and then being tormented by the thumping he hears from somewhere that sees his sanity unravel over where the body is. As for the poem, it was a lament for a departed woman that left someone, and certain lines from the poem are shown as intertitles in the film. So yes, this is how Griffith tries to make a bit of material rise out of loose story elements for 78 minutes of staging, complete with a lead character that is depicted as having a liking for Poe (right down to showing a picture of him). It results in a film that seems a bit corny now but surely must have been quite the interesting one for diverting time in 1914. Walthall makes a quality focus, conveying the spooked desires and regrets required in the role to make tension without overextending himself. He fidgets and makes you think about fidgeting without giggling. Sweet plays the role of affections and all that jazz, while Aitken makes a quality target foil for someone meant to exist as both a grump, alive or dead. The effect to show the ghost of the dead soul isn't anything spectacular, but it gets the basic job done in trying to set some sort of unease in a film that also shows a spider catching a fly and visions of Death and demons (and, perhaps not surprisingly, religious overtones). As hammy it is in actually setting up the story you are here to see, there is something curious in getting to the road of desire and tortured regret that Griffith makes work in enough ways to offset the actual ending. If you think "it was all a dream" seems a bit cliche now, imagine how it must have sounded 108 years ago, one that is both cheap for narrative purposes and the Poe story as a whole (but hey, if you are doing a story "inspired by Poe" where a Poe devotee happens to get in a situation similar to a story, who is the real winner here). As a whole, it might not exactly rank highly as a great horror feature, but as a curiosity for where the steps to get to seeing further chills for the audience in the pre-1930 era, it makes a good start.
Overall, I give it 7 out of 10 stars.
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