Rescued by Rover

The Great War wrecked the European film market, allowing the US to become the dominant film-making nation, and it has remained so to this day. Pathé of France, for a time, was the largest producer of films, and continued to be successful during the war due to its American subsidiary. British filmmakers, however, advanced the art form the most during the early nineteen-naughts (Georges Méliès and Edwin S. Porter were, more or less, national anomalies), reaching something of a national peak with "Rescued by Rover." Cecil Hepworth managed the most prominent British film company of the period, and they managed to stay successful during the war, before being outdone in the 1920s.

From what I've read in "The Oxford History of World Cinema," Hepworth was outdone partially because the editing in his films became incoherent (fades being used where cuts should be and vise-versa). Rather odd considering that editing is part of what makes "Rescued by Rover" a landmark in film history. Hepworth and director Lewin Fitzhamon wisely use simple cuts in this rescue picture. "Rescued by Rover" was a great commercial success; so much so (again, according to the afore cited source), that Hepworth had it remade twice to supply enough prints (presumably because the negatives wore out). I watched one of the remakes. (I'll relay details to the alternate versions section of this website.) Hepworth sold 395 prints, which was very good for the era (Chanan, "Early Cinema").

The story of "Rescued by Rover" is in the early film tradition of temperance and bourgeois fear of the poor; an alcoholic vagrant abducts a baby from a neglectful nurse, so a cute dog must rescue the child. After the dog gets the aid of a man, the man uses a boat to cross an inlet. I'm not sure the man had to use the boat when two bridges are visible within the frame. I guess it's part of the absurdity and lingering of the film. A dog is the rescuer, and the camera sits around patiently for the action to proceed, which, of course, is usual for the period. That the film doesn't do anything Griffith-like to hurry up with the suspense doesn't bother me--it's a short film, after all.

The continuity of the pace is the remarkable thing. Cuts for smooth transitions, panning to keep action within frame, a match cut to a closer look in the final scene, in addition to the similarity of indoor and outdoor lighting, make for a fluent film. In contrast with the lengthy rescue shots, the first and final ones aren't long enough. There's one or two jump cuts, too, or it could be just flickers. The worst problem, however, is the missing walls. It's probably feckless to mention it; not until filmmakers like Orson Welles came about would interior spatial dimensions be explored.

(Note: This is one of four films that I've commented on because they're landmarks of early narrative development in film history. The others are "As Seen Through a Telescope," "Le Voyage dans la lune" and "The Great Train Robbery".)

The story of "Rescued By Rover" is simple, but it's told quite well for its time. There is good action, good continuity from one scene to the next, and most of the shots are carried off well. It takes a somewhat predictable (and perhaps implausible) story and gives it energy, using occasional cross-cutting and mixing some indoor and outdoor scenes.

The story is the kind of melodrama that was very common in the earliest years of narrative films, but it also features some imaginative touches in the details. Most of the characters are rather plain, so the dog is the liveliest member of the cast. It was probably rather an achievement to get "Rover" to behave so well, and his actions come across as quite believable.

While the story is of a now-familiar kind, it was probably more novel at the time, and in any case this remains a worthwhile example of rather good early story-telling technique.

The opening shot is that of Rover sitting near the baby of the family, probably just to establish that there is a close and protective relationship there.

Next the nurse is seen taking the baby for a stroll in his carriage. A woman comes up to the nurse and begs for money and is refused. When the nurse's attention is diverted, the angry woman steals the baby. The nurse is rightfully distraught and tells the mother. Rover overhears and goes out to search for the baby. In one of the first cases on film of a dog stereotyping he first searches the local tenement because he assumes a poor person did this. Not being a cop he can just bust down door after door looking until he comes upon the baby. The kidnapper shoos the dog away then gets drunk and goes to sleep. The dog then goes to get the parents so they can retrieve the baby.

It really was all in the family here. Cecil Hepworth directed the film and Mrs. Hepworth wrote the script. Cecil, his wife, and their baby star as the family in the film. Blair, who plays Rover, was the Hepworth family dog. Hepworth continued making films into the 1920s but could not make the transition into longer films with more complex narratives and his business went bankrupt in 1924.

This film does a good job of building suspense - the audience does not know where the kidnapper has taken the child or what she wants with her.

Probably influenced more by Edwin Porter than D W Griffith this early chase movie shows how far film had come since the one shot actualities of the first few years of the century. Interesting studio sets, especially the arclit attic, and remarkable smooth editing. Also makes use of planting, in this case a seemingly innocuous boat, that will play an important role in the latter part of the film. Notable also for an outstanding performance by Blair, the dog, who hits every mark on cue and whose understated performance puts the hammy humans to shame.

Rescued By Rover is indeed a milestone in cinematic history in so many ways. Today's audiences may not appreciate the simple story of a dog sniffing out a family's missing baby, but there are several historical aspects of this 1905 film worth noting.

If you somewhat familiar with earlier films coming from Biograph and Edison Studios (the primary film production companies making movies in the early 1900's), a large sampling are "chase" films such as "The Escape Lunatic," "The Moonshiner" and "Personal," all released a year earlier. Since film language was still evolving, these older movies would follow a long string of events which wouldn't conclude until every participant was completely passing by the camera.

In the Hepworth's film one notices the crisp clips that didn't devolve into seemingly unending segments of people going through their paces. Slicing 20 shots into the movie, Cecil Hepworth and primary director Lewin Fitzhammon created a natural flow so appreciated by today's standards. The scenes of the dog tracking the baby zipped along, cutting out unnecessary elongation of extended scenes. Maybe having an animal, with a short attention span, required these scenes to be short. Whatever the reason, Rescued established a new way of editing at a much faster pace.

This was also one of the first movies to use Peter Cooper-Hewitt's new Mercury Vapor Lamps to illuminate an interior movie set. Previously, filming had to be done under the sun in open air or glass studios. One can see the lights plugged in and used during the attic scenes where the drunken woman is with the baby.

Rescue today is primarily known for being the first movie to portray as its hero an animal. The loving family dog of the Hepworth's, Blair, is the star here, a pioneering showcase of an animal carrying the story, a la a Lassie or a Flipper. In addition, the film, according to the Guinness Book of Records, is the cheapest movie ever produced, tabbing at a minuscule $37.40. Much of the expense I would imagine was paying for two of the actors, the baby's kidnapper and a soldier.

One last noteworthy aspect is that the film existing today was likely not the original one. Rover was so successful that the Hepworths wore out two other negatives making hundreds of prints for a demanding public and had to reshoot the scenes. The print seen here is likely the third effort of making a new negative for reprints.