The Girl and Her Trust

Before watching this, I had never seen anything from D. W. Griffith. I know, what kind of film buff am I if I haven't seen a single film by that director? I'd heard of him but never watched any of his work. I saw this on Kino's "Movies Begin" DVD set and I must admit the director did a great job. Even though the thing is only 15 minutes, it tells its story very well, with uses of cross-cutting, tracking shots, stunts . . .

The story concerns a telegraphist girl who has to guard a shipment of money ($2,000.00 to be exact). Some tramps find their chance, and attempt a robbery but, the girl is brave and will do anything to stop them. Griffith used some clever techniques to make the story well told. For the locomotive chase, they mounted the camera on a truck and drove along after the train. The cross-cutting between outside and inside the station is also well done and helps build the suspense. Kino also thought to put an orchestral soundtrack which helped make the film even more exciting. It all looks pretty good for the time and even today holds up very well. This isn't "Birth of a Nation" but for what it is it is very good.

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.

A highly attractive telegraphist at a country railway station spurns the suitor who brings her a soda, but allows the station porter several liberties. A message comes through that cash is being delivered. The porter loads his revolver from a box of cartridges, collects the money bag from the train, puts it in the station secure box, then goes off for lunch. Two tramps see the money and try to steal it by getting the box key from the girl. She barricades herself in her office and sends frantic messages down the wires for help. These are picked up at the next station, and an engine is given right of way to go to the rescue. Meanwhile the tramps try to break down the door. The girl puts a cartridge from the box into the keyhole, puts the points of some scissors to the cap and hits the scissors with a hammer. It is interesting that the cartridge case did not fly backwards and injure her. The bullet however fires into the room with the tramps and scares them. They lug the secure box out to a pump action trolley (like the one in The General), and head off. The girl rushes out intent on rescuing the money and is dragged onto the trolley. Meanwhile, the porter comes out of his house with his sandwiches in time to see the trolley vanishing. A few minutes later the rescue engine arrives; he jumps on and the chase begins. These railway scenes were especially well done, with a tracking shot of the racing engine taken from a parallel road, and shots both of the engine cab and the trolley taken from above. Eventually the tramps tire and the engine catches up with them and they are caught. In the final scene the porter and the telegraphist sit on the buffer beam of the engine as it backs up the line. They share his sandwiches, then a kiss which is shrouded in steam. That romantic ending has hardly ever been bettered.

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.

Girl and Her Trust, The (1912)

*** (out of 4)

D.W. Griffith short has a female telegraph operator being held up by a couple tramps who plan on stealing $2,000. Once again seeing a Griffith film from this period compared to what else was around just shows why they say the man invited film. Here Griffith uses the editing to build nice tension and some real excitement as the tramps kidnap the woman and head off with the good guy following. The train sequence is brilliantly done and this is 15 years before Buster Keaton's The General.