An Unseen Enemy

Lillian and Dorothy Gish made their film debuts in An Unseen Enemy (1912), one of the best of DW Griffith's short film work.

The two women show their acting chops here as two terrified teenagers cornered by villains. Their performances are not as refined as those they would give in the future, but the power and effectiveness of their pantomime and body movements forecast that well.

I'm not the biggest fan of Griffith's features, but his shorts are amazing. He packs a lot of suspense and melodrama into one reel. The editing and pacing of these films dash the impression of early film as exclusively slow-moving and crude, an impression given off by early feature films such as the nightmarish and dull Queen ELizabeth (1912), starring theater legend Sarah Bernhardt.

An essential for movie buffs and lovers of cinematic history.

The quality in which Biograph pictures most excel is the atmosphere of individuality that surrounds each player, making him or her distinct from all others. In no other make of picture is it so marked. There is much of it in this very effective release, but not as much as usual. The object of the picture is to create a feeling of dread and the means it uses is to place two little girls in a locked room, and put them in danger from an "unseen enemy" in the adjoining room. This enemy is a drunken maid, who, with another rough character, is bent on blowing up a safe. There is a hole in the wall made for a stove pipe and the woman can thrust her arm through this and shoot, but she can't see to aim, because the hole is too small. Her purpose is to keep the children from using the telephone. But it lies on the floor where the eldest girl had dropped it and the sound of the shots is more eloquent to bring help than words. The little girls are charming; they are not yet actresses, but in a good place to learn acting. The photography in many scenes is not up to standard. - The Moving Picture World, September 21, 1912

It's hard for me to be objective about the merits of this particular Biograph short because my first viewing of it was such a memorable experience: I was fortunate enough to see D.W. Griffith's An Unseen Enemy in the presence of one of its featured players, Miss Lillian Gish. Perhaps I should add that the two of us had some company, in fact there were several thousand others present, as well. Over a period of several days in March of 1987 four famous silent feature films were shown at Radio City Music Hall in NYC, each accompanied by a full orchestra conducted by Carl Davis, and each introduced by someone associated with the production in some way. Two of John Gilbert's movies were introduced by his daughter, Leatrice Gilbert Fountain; Douglas Fairbanks Jr. introduced his father's classic The Thief of Baghdad; and the magnificent drama The Wind was introduced by its star, 93 year-old Lillian Gish, who was greeted rapturously with a roaring standing ovation.

First, however, we were treated to a short film. An Unseen Enemy marked the premiere screen appearances of Lillian and Dorothy Gish in featured roles -- that is, after a stint as crowd extras in another short, which in effect served as their screen test. The very first image we see is a shot of these two beautiful girls, still in their teens, portraying sisters who are in mourning for their recently deceased father. We note right away that Lillian's grave, mesmerizing beauty is already in full bloom, and that both girls seem perfectly natural and at ease on camera. The film's plot is rudimentary, and easily conveyed with a minimum of title cards: the girls have inherited a small sum of money, which is deposited in a safe in their home by their brother who then leaves for work. Unfortunately, the sisters have been left in the care of a low-life housekeeper, who promptly goes after the money. Meanwhile we meet Dorothy's boyfriend Bobby, who is about to leave for college but is unhappy that Dorothy is too shy to give him a farewell kiss. Before long, the wicked housekeeper has enlisted the help of an equally disreputable partner, who sets about cracking the safe while she locks the girls in a small room and keeps them covered with a pistol, which she points through a stove port in the wall. The girls' brother, summoned by a frantic phone call, commandeers an automobile and races to the scene, but it's Bobby who manages to save the day, and earn that postponed kiss from Dorothy.

The race to the rescue was already a Griffith specialty by the time this film was made, but while there are other Biograph shorts that offer more elaborate and exciting versions of the device, the brief chase in An Unseen Enemy is well-edited and effectively suspenseful. The most memorable image from this film is the rather bizarre sight of Lillian and Dorothy being kept at bay by that pistol, held by a gloved hand sticking through a hole in the wall. The girls cower in a corner for an extended period although it appears from the way the scene was staged that the woman holding the gun could not possibly see them. When I saw this movie at Radio City the audience viewed it with respectful interest, generally speaking, but I have to admit this sequence generated some unintended laughter, as did the title card identifying the housekeeper as "the slattern maid."

When Miss Gish stepped out onto the stage, moments after this short drama had ended, she made only a couple of cursory remarks about it and then quickly turned to discussing Victor Sjöström's The Wind, which she told us she considered a great film. It surely is, but for viewers interested in Gish's and Grifith's early work An Unseen Enemy is well worth viewing in its own right, allowing for its simple technique and modest production values. This is a well-constructed and interesting short, and the fact that it showcases the Gish sisters at the dawn of their film careers is reason enough to see it.

This short feature has a very melodramatic story, but it builds up some good suspense and also gets hold of your emotions as you watch. Griffith was quick to develop effective techniques for first making his characters sympathetic, and then placing them in situations in which viewer concern for the characters adds to the tension.

The setup introduces us to two young girls who are presented very sympathetically, and when they are then menaced by "An Unseen Enemy", it is very effective despite some holes in the plot. The situation that arises is creative, if somewhat offbeat, and the suspense is heightened by the use of cross-cutting when the tension reaches its peak.

Of course, it does not hurt at all that the two girls are played by Lillian and Dorothy Gish, who add considerably to their characters' appeal. Despite some flaws, this movie really pulls you in, out of concern for the characters and outrage at their enemies.

An Unseen Enemy is probably most notable for being the first film of the Gish sisters, Lillian and Dorothy. It's also a rather good short in its own right, being the latest in a series of increasingly adept reworkings of Griffith's trapped heroine/ride-to-the-rescue drama.

When Griffith first met the sisters, he seems to have been attracted to the idea of casting them as endearing twins, here dressing them identically. It is actually younger sister Dorothy who is foregrounded – often literally – but Lillian's is the standout performance. She reacts convincingly and lends an air of credibility to an otherwise very hammy melodrama. The worst offender in the hammy stakes by the way is Elmer Booth, who would later give a great turn in The Musketeers of Pig Alley, but here just does the old wide-eyed-panic-in-close-up routine that is the staple of so many silent melodramas.

In spite of the illustrious acting debut, this is still very much Griffith's show, the director having by now honed a precise formula for this type of film. The set-up is rather concise, and the action finale actually takes up around half the picture. Griffith weaves together various different strands to make a four-way crosscut, perhaps his most complex ride-to-the-rescue thus far. He also throws in various little twists to ratchet up the tension – the car being delayed by the swing bridge, the phone line going dead and, of course, that menacing gun. It may look rather corny, almost surreal in fact, but there is something very creepy about the close-up in which the gun slowly emerges through the hole in the wall.

An Unseen Enemy is a decent Biograph short, very typical of Griffith's output around this time. Lillian Gish was clearly already one to watch, although it's worth remembering that she only had a handful of big roles in the Biograph shorts, and it was only once Griffith began making features that she emerged as his main leading lady.