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The Musketeers of Pig Alley (1912) : Brief Review -

Griffith sows an Unbelievable idea of Goodwill in One of the First Gangster Film Ever Made in Cinema World. Largely known as The First (or one of the first) Gangster film Ever made, The Musketeers of Pig Alley is still very exciting even without long runtime and heroic/villainous dialogues. I have seen lots of Crime/Gangster dramas till date and have always wondered why there was no film made ever made which could have used goodwill for the sake gangster's character to give him a deserving chance? At last, i found my catch here. The idea i have been looking for was already sown by Genius Griffith way before audience started loving crime dramas i.e post 1930s. A young wife and her musician husband live in poverty in a New York City tenement. The husband's job requires him to go away for for a number of days. On his return, he is robbed by the neighborhood gangster. A highly predictable drama (for today's time i mean) follows the rest of the narrative and the allegorical climax of 'deserving chance' ends this film on a high note. As it states, "One good turn deserves another" and "Links in the System", you can't stop clapping for Griffith here. I couldn't stop gushing over Lillian Gish, as she looked so Cute (in every film she looked cute, damn!). Walter Miller was good at his part but the gangsters leader Elmer Booth literal took my breath away with his ferocious looks and attitude. Overall, The Musketeers of Pig Alley is a great watch to learn many sensible ethics that were never used in any Gangster film. I wish somebody had the same brain as Griffiths to make similar intellectual drama in talkies era. Don't miss this another fantastic film of Griffith.

RATING - 7/10*

By - #samthebestest

In what may be the first mob film DW Griffith establishes some of the genre nuances that remain staples to this day. The Musketeers of Pig Alley is a tense action filled study in nostalge de la boule, father of The Roaring Twenties grandfather of Mean Streets.

A struggling musician on New York's Lower East Side goes on tour and and a local thug tries moving in on wife who in return rebuffs him. He robs the husband upon return but also gets her out of a jam at great cost. In the interim a gang war breaks out.

Musketeers presents inner city life in graphic terms of overcrowding and squalor. Griffith does a fine job of balancing the two major story lines that intersect and further helped along by the innocent beauty of Lillian Gish and charismatic evil of Elmer Booth for casting Cagney. There's a well done suspense building montage into a gunfight (including a jarring close-up of Booth) along with a series of other moments that must have given pause to the folks out in the country to visit the Big Apple. Pig Alley is an an American pioneer.

Musketeers of Pig Alley, The (1912)

*** (out of 4)

D.W. Griffith film, which is considered to be the first gangster movie ever made. Griffith does a nice job showing off poor people back in the day and seeing NYC in 1912 is another added bonus. The performance by Dorothy Gish is very good and the supporting players are nice as well. The shootout in the alley remains exciting to this day.

Highly entertaining early film.

Also check out Regeneration (1915).

This is available through Kino, Image and Grapevine.

There had been movies about criminals before 1912, but they were solitary bad guys who worked their illegal activities alone. When D. W. Griffith''s "The Musketeer of Pig Alley" was released in November 1912, it set off a new genre in cinema: the gangster movie.

The term gangster derives from the term "gang," to which a criminal being a member of a criminal organization was a gangster. Here we have actor Elmer Booth, the Snapper Kid and the Musketeers gang leader (this is before Disney) wrecking committing illegal acts in a New York City neighborhood. His gang not only performs petty theft, like stealing the wallet of Lillian Gish's husband, but is in constant turf battles with rival gangs.

Elmer Booth's personality on screen as a cocky, bravado hoodlum served as a prime example for future actors who played gangsters to emulate, including James Cagney and Edward G. Robinson. Booth faced a brilliant future as an actor, but three years later he was killed in an automobile accident in a car driven by future "Dracula" director Tod Browning.

"Pig Alley" played a huge influence on director Martin Scorsese when he was creating his megahits "Goodfellas" and "The Gangs of New York."

The movie is also noted for filming the first "follow focus" shot in cinema. D. W. Griffith asked his cameraman, Billy Bitzer, to focus on Elmer Booth, leaving the background blurry as the gang members creep alongside the alley building walls. The story has it that Bitzer was confused how out of focus the frame should look like with just Booth sharply filmed. Supposedly Griffith took Bitzer to a local art museum posting artwork with fuzzy backgrounds the director was looking for (probably Impressionist paintings). The cameraman must have understood since the famous shot appears at the 13 minute mark of "Pig Alley," a sequence so influential that moviemakers duplicate the style today. Also known as rack focus for changing focal points, the technique is effective when performed properly.

I'm not going to go into the story because, in the IMDb plot summary, there is a thorough explanation of this tale provided by "American Mindscope and Biograph Co." It covers everything in this short, silent D.W. Griffth movie. I hadn't a silent film in a while, at least since watching most of Buster Keaton's and Harold Lloyd's comedies, so I had forgotten what a pretty woman Lillian Gish was in her youth. What confuses me, though, is that younger sister Dorothy is listed in the opening credits, not Lillian. What's the deal with that? Since Dorothy would have been about 14 at this time, it had to be Lillian in the lead role, as listed here by IMDb. At any rate, Lillian and the faces of the gangsters are really fun to watch. We get closeups of "The Snapper" and his really wild-looking sidekick, played by Harry Carey. Famous actor Lionel Barrymore also has a short role in year but, frankly, I didn't recognize him. By the way, I think Dorothy was one of the people in the crowd early on her brushes up against her sister, who then gives her a look. It was almost like an inside joke. Overall, this a bit confusing in parts because things happened pretty fast. I enjoyed the faces in here more than the story. A gave it a second look, trying to spot Dorothy and to understand the plot better. Afterward, however, I found this IMDb summary to be most helpful.