Adventures of Dollie

This is where it began: The first picture of arguably the most important director – if not the most important single figure – in cinema history. Is it any good? Well, no, of course not. No genius ever arrived on a scene fully formed. Considered in itself and of its time it is much like anything else an inexperienced director might have produced for the Biograph company in 1908. But with hindsight… DW Griffith's background was in theatre, which set him apart because many of the earliest film pioneers were essentially technicians. This is in part the reason why a lot of visual effects were perfected before narrative and acting style. Silent cinema as it was then however differed little from stagecraft, especially since mime was then a lot more common, and with this crudely melodramatic tale Griffith is essentially directing broad pantomime, full of exaggerated gesture to overcompensate for the lack of speech.

However, Griffith appears to acknowledge one difference between cinema and theatre, one that was to become key to his style ever after, and that is the use of depth. Virtually all the movement in The Adventures of Dollie is towards or away from the camera, as oppose to across it. The long static takes particularly highlight this approach. This is before editing within a scene or using inserts were common methods, and this means we get some odd-looking (and very theatrical) set-ups, as in the scene where Dollie is kidnapped, the father walks away and the gypsy approaches all within the same shot, meaning our sense of logic tells us that the father can't be more than a dozen paces away when his girl is snatched. Griffith is still using the concept of stage wings for entrances and exits, imagining that once someone has walked out of sight they are out of the scene, which looks unnatural for cinema. However, rather than having them at left and right as on a stage, the father exits walking straight into the foreground, while the gypsy emerges from the bushes in the background. It still looks illogical, but it shows a willingness to work on solutions towards a non-theatrical style.

In doing this, Griffith is showing nothing entirely new and certainly nothing exceptional, but he is showing a certain tendency, a particular way of thinking about the medium that would later lead to amazing things. And Griffith also displays his quality as an ideas man that transcends all technique and experience. For example, when the father searches through the gypsy caravan, the gypsy is resting his foot on the barrel in which Dollie is hidden, cockily flaunting the secret before his enemy. It's little touches like this, giving a scene that little bit of character, that separate the great directors from the merely good ones.

The Adventures of Dollie (1908) : Brief Review -

This is where the Legacy of The Father Of The Cinema Begun. A quintessential human drama of historical importance. D W Griffith, the father of cinema, who established so many dramatic genres and sub-genres in Cinema World begin his unbeatable career with this short. In the same year he shot 48 shorts for a studio but for historical notes, The Adventures of Dollie stands as a highly important film. The film tells the story of a young girl who, after being kidnapped by a gypsy peddler, ends up trapped in a barrel as it floats downriver toward a waterfall. Within 13 minutes, Griffiths closes on deal with so many substances such as family, emotions, gypsy, thrill and happy ending. That scene when the gypsy tries to rob the woman, he does, the woman fights back, the small girl also throws her hand at him and the husband comes from behind and beats the bad guy. This all happens within 15 Seconds, yes that's the thing to notice. Its not the end but even the later part builds a strong story of commonalty, which, certainly wasn't common for 1908. Griffith's editing also packs a great punch while telling this quintessential storyline in thrilling manners. Well, 1908 wasn't the time where one would have given solid acting performance as the motion pictures were just started learning to take a breath so let's not talk about that and to be frank i couldn't even recognise their faces as there were no close-up shots. It is hard to rate the films made before 'Birth Of A Nation' (1915) because everything was at learning stage then. So, don't take the rating much seriously as i just had to rate it something, somehow. It's a primary schooling for us Movie Buffs where acknowledging and understanding cinema matters more than the Grades.

RATING - 7/10*

By - #samthebestest.

Having previously played a man whose son gets kidnapped in Rescue from an Eagle's Nest, for his first work behind the camera, D. W. Griffith tells a story in which a father and mother's daughter gets kidnapped by a gypsy. This was quite a straightforward narrative that doesn't seem much different from other films during this time (once again, there are no close-ups) but there's some excitement especially concerning the object the daughter gets stuck in as we follow that object's journey. And Griffith got great help from co-director G. W. Bitzer who'd eventually be his cinematographer. All in all, The Adventures of Dollie was an enjoyable beginning for Griffith's new career.

The year of 1908 was certainly an important one for a 34 year old playwright named D.W. Griffith, because that was the year he decided to try his luck in films with an adaptation of "Tosca" that he wrote specially for the new movie industry. However, success didn't came quick for the young writer, as literally nobody saw any potential in his work; the only one who saw any kind of potential in him was film pioneer Edwin S. Porter, but his eyes weren't in Griffith's writing skills, but on his acting, and send the young man with director J. Searle Dawly to make some shorts. While disappointed, Griffith kept acting to pay the bills, until later that year, he was finally hired for something other than as an actor: American Mutoscope & Biograph was looking for young directors and D.W. Griffith took the job. 1908's short film, "The Adventures of Dollie", was the humble debut of a director that would be known as a legend.

In "The Adventures of Dollie", a family of three goes out for a nice trip along the riverside during a sunny summer's day. A gypsy (Charles Inslee) walks by them, and attempts to sell his baskets to the family. The Mother (Linda Arvidson) doesn't want to buy anything from him, and attempts to move on, but this angers the gypsy, who begins to attack the mother and her daughter Dollie (Gladys Egan) until the Father (Arthur V. Johnson) appears and drives the gypsy off. Even more angered, the gypsy decides to kidnap Dollie and hide her inside of a barrel to be able to escape unnoticed. When her parents notice she's been kidnapped, they organize a rescue party, but it's too late: the gypsies have escaped and the barrel where Dollie is hidden is on their wagon. However, this is only the beginning, as the barrel falls from the wagon and falls into the river. Dollie's real adventure is just about to begin.

Written by Stanner E.V. Taylor (his first real work as a scriptwriter), "The Adventures of Dollie" is a very simple tale of action and adventure on a style that was made very popular in that year after the release of J. Searle Dawly's "Rescued from an Eagle's Nest" (the movie where Griffith debuted as an actor), in fact, the plot of both films are so similar that it's clear that this movie was made to cash on Dawly's success (both films are about kidnapped childs). Still, what made this movie a bit different was that this time the focus was on the kidnapped kid instead of the rescuers, as we follow Dollie (or better said, the barrel that contains her) through the film. Some have labeled the movie as racist towards the Romani people (gypsies), but I find such comments out of place as the story simply reflects the ideas of its time, as gypsies weren't seen on a good light because of their nomadic lifestyle.

In this his modest debut as a director, there are already some early touches of Griffith's genius through the movie. While an amateur following the conventions he has learned from his work as an actor (as well as from codirector and future collaborator G.W. Bitzer), Griffith already begins to show his ideas about storytelling in film and his creative use of editing to create emotions on the audience. The effective use he gives to Arthur Marvin's cinematography helps to keep the film dynamic, away from the theatrical style that was common in those years. True, the film is pretty typical and follows an already stablished ideas about film narrative, but credit must to Griffith for making such an accomplished film with almost zero experience behind the camera.

One of Griffith's most famous traits can also be seeing in this movie, and that is his great skill to get natural performances from his actors. As written above, the movie moves away from the stagy style of film-making of the time, and Griffith takes this ideal to his cast too, as he decides to get a more realistic approach in their performances. Arthur V. Johnson and Linda Arvidson (Griffith's wife) are good in their performances, although Johnson tends to overact a bit (understandable as he had little experience on film). Gladys Egan, who plays little Dollie is also very good, although her role is considerably simpler. As the gypsies, Charles Inslee and Madeline West are OK, although like Johnson, they tend to overact a little bit, although that would be natural, since they are playing the common stereotypes of gypsy people.

"The Adventures of Dollie" is not exactly a movie that one would expect from legendary director D.W. Griffith, but then again, most debuts tend to be mere shadows of the future ahead. Later that very same year Griffith would start making some serious experimentation on this very same plot line, and would create some really innovative films in a very short time. Movies like "The Red Man and the Child", "For a Wife's Honor" and "The Lonely Villa" would introduce new and highly inventive ways of storytelling that would further develop film-making as an art. While many of the techniques he used weren't exactly new, he combined them and put them together in a way that later would be considered as the definitive narrative language of cinema. While there are many better Griffith shorts (even from the same year), this movie is a must see if only because it represents the humble start of a master's career. 6/10

It's not anything new to say the early works of D. W. Griffith weren't anything spectacular. In fact, films like "The Adventures of Dollie" are what the majority of his output consists of: short, 10-15 minute film dramas often featuring a simple story that is told through the standard monotonous long shots that each film consisted of back in the day. This early on, there's absolutely no hint whatsoever of the suspenseful sort of storytelling later films, such as the brilliant "Birth of a Nation" and "Intolerance" would feature. However, considering the rest of the movies during this time looked the exact same in technique as this one, there's really no reason to complain.

"The Adventures of Dollie" is about a little girl who is kidnapped by gypsies and ends up going on a crazy ride in a barrel. There's really little else to it than that, although there is some nice cinematography involved and the story works for what it is. That being said, the film is really only worth seeing for historical reasons as it doesn't contain the excitement and buildup of his later material, and it would take until 1912 or so before Griffith would begin shooting more advanced, better crafted shorts.