A Smoked Husband

Whereas in days gone past audiences used to be stirred emotionally by the plays of Shakespeare in the theatre, the 33 year old D.W. Griffith provided a voice in the cinema through the camera to communicate narrative. Does this mean that this new medium was superseding the novel and play?

When John Cumpson discovers wife Florence Lawrence has not only bought a new hat -- which the delivery boy demands payment for -- but is having a shocking new dress made up, he goes wild. While the household conspires on how to get the money out of him for these necessities of life, Cumpson hides in the chimney to eavesdrop..... only for a fire to be laid beneath him.

It's an early Griffith short -- he had been directing only for three months by this point -- and so it's still pretty much in the old style, with stagy acting and restricted sets. However, Griffith has already learned how to tell a story visually, and if the humor is rather primitive, with stick-flailing cops and dandies in top hats and checkered pants, you can see signs that Mack Sennett and his ideas of wild slapstick were making their way forward; he plays one of the effeminate dandies.