The Ocean Waif

Alice Guy-Blache' (1873-1968) was not only the world's first woman film director but quite possibly the first film director period. Her work as Alice Guy for Gaumont predates Fantasy filmmaker Georges Melies by several months. Her earliest film LA FEE AUX CHOUX/THE CABBAGE FAIRY dates from 1896. After coming to America in 1907 with her husband Herbert Blache', she starts up her own studio in 1910 and opens her major studio called Solax in Fort Lee N. J. in 1912. Among the people who work for her is a young actress/writer named Lois Weber who would also develop into a major director.

THE OCEAN WAIF survives as a fragment of the original. It is a little over 41 minutes long and suffers from nitrate decomposition in many places. However the skill of Alice Guy-Blache' still shines through in the restrained performances from the actors (remember this is 1916) and the strong visual composition of the shots. Sadly this is her only feature film to survive and it's incomplete. There are still several of her short films but for someone so important to film history, it's a sad legacy and a sad comment on how the films of independent producer-directors were treated. As an example of that, the other film on the disc Ruth Ann Baldwin's 49-17 which was made for Universal in 1917, survives in virtually pristine condition. It has the added attraction of an early film appearance from the great Danish born actor and later humanitarian Jean Hersholt.

Thanks are due to producer Jessica Rosner, Kino International, and pianist Jon Mirsalis for putting together and then releasing this FIRST LADIES: EARLY AMERICAN FILMMAKERS series on DVD. They look as good as they possibly can and are indispensable to students of film, people interested in women pioneers, and of course silent film aficionados. Rounding out the series is Dorothy Davenport Reid's THE RED KIMONO. To find out more about Alice Guy-Blache' check out Alison McMahan's thorough biography of her, ALICE GUY-BLACHE': LOST VISIONARY OF THE CINEMA. Kino Lorber has now issued a 3 DVD box set GAUMONT TREASURES 1897-1913 with Disc 1featuring several Alice Guy short films...For more reviews visit The Capsule Critic.

Alice Guy-Blanche was one of cinema's true pioneers, yet it seems as if her work barely gets any recognition. Kino has released quite a few of her films on DVD (including this one), which I'm definitely pleased to see. But even with quite a few of her films being available on disc, she still doesn't have as big a following as she deserves. From my point of view, she belongs on the same list as great early film pioneers like the Lumiere brothers, Georges Melies, D.W. Griffith, and Edwin S. Porter. She was one of the first female filmmakers, and a lot of her films are truly amazing, from the 1906 epic "The Birth, The Life, and the Death of Christ" to the sweet 1912 drama that is "Falling Leaves", she left quite a legacy behind her. A legacy that deserves more attention.

What about THIS Alice Guy Blanche film? Is it any good?

It certainly is very good. In fact, it's MAGNIFICENT!!!

There's just something about this film that I found to be very beautiful. It's hard to put into words the beauty of "The Ocean Waif", I'd recommend you see it for yourself just to take in the experience. The truly impacting experience.

If I had to put into words what makes "The Ocean Waif" so beautiful to me, it would be the pure sweetness of it. It's just so sweet and lovely! The characters are so charming and likable (except for the antagonist), the humor is so funny, and the emotion is so strong. There's scenes that are intense, there's scenes that are hilarious, and there's scenes that are just plain romantic.

It never really gets all too melodramatic like some silent films seem to do. It manages to be a very calm and peaceful film for a majority of its running time. The plot is simple, the length is short, and it never goes over the top with drama. Sure, there's drama, but that drama manages to be very well written and well shot. Everything works on both technically and script wise. To me, it was all around perfect.

After 100 full years of existence, "The Ocean Waif" still manages to be charming, funny, heartwarming, and unspeakably beautiful...and on top of all of that it's only 40 minutes!

A true masterpiece, if there were only more films like it!

The Ocean Waif (1916)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

Silent melodrama about author Ronald Roberts (Carlyle Blackwell) who gets word that his latest book is a huge seller so he's asked to write another. He winds up in a small location to write but he ends up getting involved with a young woman named Millie (Doris Kenyon) who is trying to get away from her abusive father.

Alice Guy directed this film, which has enough good moments to make it worth viewing, although there's no doubt that it's still far from being a classic or even a good movie for that matter. I think the main reason to watch it is for the performances that are actually pretty good. Blackwell certainly makes you believe his character but it's Kenyon who steals the picture. I thought she was very good no matter what type of emotion her character was playing and I especially liked the chemistry of the two actors.

The film features some nice cinematography and there's no doubt that Guy has a good way to build up the relationship. With that said, even for 1916 standards the story itself really isn't anything we hadn't already seen and there's no question that it's quite predictable. Fans of silents will want to check it out.

Frederic Chapin who wrote the story and Eustace Hale Ball who wrote the screenplay have put together a very hybrid concotion here. The ocean waif part of the story is lkie somethig out of a Mary Pickford film while the plot about the novelist coming to write in a haunted house is straight out of George Cohan's hit play of 1913, Seven Keys to Baldpate which was actually filmed in 1916 in Australia and would be filmed again, with Cohan himself in the lead, in 1917. It's quite neatly done if one ignores those very tiresome close-ups that were fashionable in nearly all US films 1915-1918. The best thing is perhaps Londoner Edward Norton doing the "British servant" act that he would continue to do for in umpteen films for three further decades......

The glaring close-ups contribute to the even more glaring predictability of the rest of the plot.

About 43 minutes of a 5 reeler exist. Story by Eustace Hale Ball tells of a waif (Doris Kenyon) who escapes a brutal stepfather and hides out in an abandoned house only to see a writer seeking solitude (Carlyle Blackwell) move in shortly thereafter. Of course he falls for her although he is engaged to be married. She goes back to her home and needs to be rescued from the clutches of her stepfather.

There are some beautiful scenes and pictorial compositions, but director Alice Guy undermines the story by presenting Kenyon's waif as the film's central character (though Blackwell gets top billing). In Hale's story, the writer is the protagonist and in the film, Blackwell also serves this function despite Guy's focus on Kenyon. Bottom line is that too much of the film focuses on Kenyon's antics in the abandoned house, which might be charming but do nothing to advance the story. There's also a silly bit in which the servant (Edgar Norton) thinks the house is haunted.

A rather dour Lyn Donaldson (aka Lyn Donelson) plays the jilted fiancée, William Morris is the stepfather, and Fraunie Fraunholz plays Sem, a sort of village idiot. Blackwell and Kenyon are certainly watchable and were big stars of the time.