The Female of the Species

Subtitled "A Psychological Tragedy", this one's about four survivors of a deserted mining camp making their way across a hot and windy western desert. Claire McDowell leads the group; alongside her are: her ailing husband Charles West, and her sister Mary Pickford. Before leaving, Ms. McDowell invites abandoned woman Dorothy Bernard to join the group; and, she gratefully accepts. As they journey, Mr. West's health falters, and Ms. Bernard is rebuffed for showing him some possible affection.

At their first rest stop, lady leader McDowell takes Ms. Pickford out to fetch some water, leaving husband West alone with the comely Bernard. Pickford has already begun to suspect Bernard is making advances on her brother-in-law, and persuades her sister to sneak back and catch the twosome. Sure enough, they discover Bernard and West trysting - however, it was West who initiated the contact, not the suspected Bernard. After West dies of his ailments, McDowell and Pickford become obsessed with vengeance, disbelieving the innocent Bernard…

A atmospherically visual treat from D.W. Griffith, G.W. Bitzer and the good folks at Biograph; "The Female of the Species" is filmed in warm and windy California. The performances of the lead actresses McDowell, Pickford, and Bernard are outstanding. The story is not up to snuff, however - the "womankind" strengths are unbalanced by some odd motivations and situations. Perhaps the most implausible moment occurs when husband West's "dominant vagary" temporarily cures whatever is ailing him, so he can vigorously attack his alluring prey. Obviously, somebody needed to bottle vagary!

****** The Female of the Species (4/15/12) D.W. Griffith ~ Claire McDowell, Mary Pickford, Dorothy Bernard

Seven stars. Mainly for it's utter bizarreness. The set-up makes no sense. Why are these four people still there, in this scene of devastation? And the ensuing action is so arbitrary! I think this is the earliest substantial part I've ever seen Mary Pickford play. And she did the best job of conveying what she was up to. Claire McDowell, as 'The Miner's Wife', just seemed deranged. But that could have been the idea. Everyone else just showed up, and did random stuff. Okay, just sit back, and watch this surreal kaleidoscope of events swirl in front of you for 15 minutes. At that level, it was entertaining. But, no matter what, DON'T try to make any sense of it! Take a look at one of the oddest films Griffith ever made. 7 February 2024.

A picture giving us a remarkable psychological study. It is very effectively and vividly presented and will probably cause a good deal of discussion. It is acted for the most part by three players, and these roles are taken by the three best known ladies of the Biograph Company. The background is the desert and we are given remarkable views of it, with its cutting sand dust, its strange growths, cactus and the like, and its deadly thirst. The action that the picture shows transpires while these three women are crossing the desert toward civilization. Its object, very roughly speaking, is to bring out dramatically two or three considerations that strongly affect the female of the species in her attitude toward life. The picture is clean-handed, artistically strong and unusually interesting. The photographs are excellent. We call it a feature and think it would serve as such almost anywhere. - The Moving Picture World, April 27, 1912

Female of the Species, The (1912)

**** (out of 4)

D.W. Griffith short about a miner (Charles West), his wife (Claire McDowell), her sister (Mary Pickford) and another woman (Dorothy Bernard) traveling across the desert after a local mine closes. Along the way the wife begins to think that the other woman is having an affair with her husband and she wants vengeance. Here's one of the best Griffith shorts I've seen with the director perfectly blending the suspense and sentimental aspects. The four performers do a terrific job in their roles. Once again the locations are really beautiful. A historical sidenote is that this film was released theatrically the day after the Titanic sunk.

The Female of the Species is one of many remarkable Biograph shorts from the year 1912, and certainly represents a great leap forward in screen acting and direction of actors.

Griffith temporarily abandons his own rule of three-quarter length shots, with everyone cut off below the knees, instead framing the actors from the waist up in most shots. The crucial difference here is that the faces become much clearer, and the physical acting becomes that much less important. It's my belief that a large part of directing of performances comes from where you place the camera. Actors will play to the camera, so if they know their face is being focused on they will act with it. Griffith obviously cast the actors here for their faces too. Dorothy Bernard's face is a picture of distraught innocence, and Claire McDowell proves particularly good at conveying contempt. It's also interesting to note how the minor characters – the Indian family and the two cowboys – are filmed in Griffith's more familiar mid-shot, so they don't intrude upon the drama of faces going on between the three leads.

Everything else is left to Griffith's usual care in construction. The psychological impact of his staging of shots is important here. For the bulk of the film the actors are moving towards us – all the better to see those faces, of course, but the fact that they are constantly advancing upon the audience gives a more menacing quality to the film. In the final shot, the storyline resolved, they walk away from us, giving a sense of change and completion. Griffith was also by now adept at balancing and pacing a story. For example, he adds a moment of frantic action two-thirds of the way through, when the Indian father is shot. Griffith knows that the very slow pace of the film couldn't be maintained without the audience becoming bored, no matter how engrossing the acting is, so it was necessary to give the pace a little boost at that point.

From this point on, faces would become increasingly important in Griffith's work. He had been using close-ups for a while, but they were mostly functional ones, showing us objects or actions in more detail. Now, he was on the verge of showing how close-ups of faces could be used for emotional and psychological impact.