The Girl and Her Trust

As I was watching this I thought, 'Wait... have I seen this before? I could've swore I saw this exact same scenario in another silent short, even directed Griffith himself. This is uncan... oh, yeah, the Lonedale Operator!' Suddenly going back through my recent roladex or whatever of silent shorts I've been watching I discovered I recently watched the 1911 short, also from Biograph, called the Lonedale Operator, and as it turns out these two shorts have practically the same plot: girl is running an office for a train station, bandits come and are going to pull a robbery. The difference is that in 'Lonedale' a sick/dying father left the job for his daughter to do, and here she's just already on the job.

It might not matter to most though, since I'm sure if you're digging in to DW Griffith short films from over a century ago continuity isn't that important, so one might see this before Lonedale. I just find it lacks a certain core-story imagination, despite the fact that Griffith is certainly up to the task of creating suspense out of how the bandits come to the station and terrorize the girl. Now, it is different actresses in both (Blanche Sweet is lacking here, but Dorothy Bernard is alright), but again, I can't help but feel like if you've seen one semi-not-quite-almost helpless woman operator terrorized by thuggish bandits with a train robbery plot short film, you've seen em all.

All this said... I think I might like this one a little more if only because of the second half of the short when things ramp up and there's a sequence involving one of those things on the tracks that two people operate to move along (with the 'girl' along with, she shows some courage for her trust you know!), and this given parallel editing to the oncoming train.

This is a pretty good silent short from D. W. Griffith, as it features bandits, a steadfast and good heroine and some nifty action. While it isn't the deepest film I have ever seen, it does make for a good film because it has a well-developed plot and is paced very well. Unlike some other films of the same period, this film has a definite beginning, middle and end and is quite watchable in the 21st century. Part of this is because the acting is somewhat restrained for 1912--being a little less over-done than you might often see at the time. Instead of hysterics, the lady in the film is cool-headed and does her best to stop two evil tramps from stealing the payroll. Pretty old fashioned, but still well made and watchable.

This short drama is quite a masterpiece for its time, using every available technique along with great skill in story-telling and photography, all of which take a fairly simple story and make it interesting, believable, and exciting. There is good detail that helps define and explain the characters, expert use of cross-cutting and editing to heighten the suspense, and a nice variety of indoor and outdoor settings. Dorothy Bernard also deserves credit as the young woman willing to risk danger in order to fulfill her trust.

Many of Griffith's short films show not only masterful technique, but also an impressive efficiency that wasn't always present in his later, longer features. "A Girl and Her Trust" is one of the best of all his shorter movies, and it deserves its place as one of the best-remembered and most praised movies of its era.

I've just recently come across this tile while watching the Landmarks of Early Film and I must say I'm completely taken by it.

OK, the visual effects are very dated, but then again, the effects themselves are not what makes the movie.

The thing that really impressed me was the character development of "The Girl". At first we see a girl working at the railstation and being the one who's in charge of keeping the money (one would more likely expect a man doing that in the wild west, not a woman). Next we see a man who fancies this girl and she's concerned for the money. He calms her down. I was sure that she'd be a helpless damsel in distress and he'd come in and rescue her. And here's the thing that surprised me most - it gets deeper then that.

The girl locks herself inside as the two tramps try to steal the money. She has the key to the strongbox. Handing the key over would surely save her, but she keeps to it. Also after locking herself into the room she doesn't faint or starts panicking. No! She actually tries to get help by telepraph. One of the tramps realizes it and cuts the line. Then she even finds a way to scare them off! Amazingly she puts a bullet into the keylock, places the scisors at the back and hammers away to fire the bullet off (something even MacGyver would be quite proud of).

And when the tramps take the strongbox she chases after them! She is a real heroine. But she is overpowered and the man from earlier on (with the help of rail employees) chatches the bad guys in a locomotive/handcart action chase sequence. And to make it a truly happy ending, they even have a little romantic scene when the girl is saved and the guy offers her lunch at the front bumper of the locomotive.

Brilliant.

OK, it's shorter, black and white and with no sound effects at all, but at points it reminded me so much of the panic room... You know... People on the outside trying to get to what a "helpless" woman has in a room they can't break into. And over 100 years old - I was breathless!

The Girl and Her Trust, like all films made in the early 1900s, is very simple and very short, but Griffith introduces a number of filmmaking techniques that remain widely in use to this day. Earlier films generally played like a stage play, with minimal cutting or editing, and each scene taking place in the same location and generally in the same shot. The Girl and Her Trust was one of the first films to suggest that editing could create artificial environments by linking sets together, and it also gave a better idea of what exactly was going on (the close-up of the girl as she places the bullet in the keyhole is a great example).

Besides that, this film also had a very well-made chase at the end, in which the good guys are in a locomotive chasing the bad guys (the guys who stole the $2000 from the girl - her 'trust') who are pumping furiously on a railroad handcart. Although technically crude by today's standards, this scene had every necessary element of a good chase sequence, and it works very well. The film also introduced the idea of cross-cutting in filmmaking, as well as the idea of filming outdoors (a technique barely and clumsily employed by Edwin Porter in The Great Train Robbery). The Girl and Her Trust is a historic film, but as with all films that were made in the early 1900s, you need to keep its age in mind. It's not going to blow you away with visuals or sound, but if you keep in mind the time period in which it was made, you can begin to really appreciate its innovation.