The Intrigue

Watched "The Intrigue" (1916) with Lenore Ulric, Cecil van Auker, Howard Davies, Florence Vidor, Paul Weigel, and Herbert Standing. This is the lead film on the new Blu-Ray release from Kino Lorber's "Pioneers: First Women Filmmakers". It's a fine film at first, begins with lots of intrigue, just as the title indicates. It gets extremely suspenseful, then suddenly uses every trope of potboilers from time immemorial and closes on a note so far removed from where I thought it might go - or where reality exists. I think we went from Earth to the Moon, then not only came back to earth, but someone pulled the plug on plot and now we're in the bathroom. I was watching great intrigue. Next thing I knew, I was watching a 30's serial. Ended with the sunset of a "B" Western.

Cecil van Auker invents a ray gun that can kill from quite a distance. Our government turns it down; this, when it looked as if he had a contract. So, van Auker goes looking for governments to buy the gun. He finds one. Remember, this film was made during WWI. It looks as if our enemies will buy it. If not, then a government whose politics don't agree with ours. Meanwhile, there's the Countess. Now she gets involved for her government - or is it for the world at large?

Could have been much better than it ends. Still, it's fun to watch. I enjoyed it till the last five to ten minutes. Then - well... Good that the film survives. Good that we're seeing how women were involved even from the outset of films - and now being remembered. Julia Crawford Ivers was heavily involved in this and three other films on the Blu-Ray.

Cecil van Auker has developed a machine to make sheep drop dead and TNT explode at a distance. He offers to sell this to an unnamed foreign country involved in the Great War -- obviously Germany. Another unnamed power -- Russia -- learns of this and sends Countess Leonore Ulric to thwart the plans of Baron Howard Davies to collect the device and kill van Auker. Davies learns of this and tells off a minion to keep an eye on Ulric. She tells her maid to pretend to be her and travel in first class to America, while Lenore puts on a gypsy costume and travels in steerage. She gains the attention of van Auker, who is gallant, and Davies, who offers her a job as a housemaid in his house.

The version I looked at is a snappy 64 minutes with a nice crisis in the last fifteen minutes, as van Auker goes to Davies' house to hand him the instructions, get paid, and killed. The rest of it is rather straightforward and well acted by the standards of 1916. Although the IMDB would have you believe that Frank Lloyd directed, the screen credits clearly list writer Julia Crawford Ivers as the director. Lloyd is the "supervisor", which tended to be the producer. James van Trees, Miss Ivers' son, is the cinematographer.

Kino has just released this movie on blu-ray and DVD in a handsome set that includes three short films by Miss Ivers, a solid score by Ben Model, and a commentary track by Anthony Slide. It's a solid potboiler for anyone interested in movies in that era.