The Painted Lady

A brave attempt from D. W. Griffith to examine the psychological frailty of a plain girl who mistakenly believes she just might have found love. Blanche Sweet, as the older wallflower sister of the popular 'Painted Lady' of the title, handles a demanding role with skill and sensitivity, but Griffith struggles with the complexity of her character's disintegration, and would have been better off making a longer picture of the subject a few years later.

After a year or two of working with very small casts and perfecting his direction of actors, Griffith was by this point starting to work his way back towards the larger scale pictures, but still retaining the intimate, human focus. The Painted Lady demonstrates how he could make such an individual drama against the backdrop of crowds and moments of action.

This is a film about madness and isolation. Griffith demonstrates that isolation in a crowd shot early on. As opposed to the rather cluttered and confusing crowd scenes of Griffith's earliest works, the focus here is very clear. Blanche Sweet literally stands out from the crowd, a passive and solitary figure against a backdrop of much activity and excitement. Later, he repeatedly uses the very plain bridge location which forces us to focus totally upon her.

Although the Painted Lady does contain an action sequence of the kind that might normally be the climax of a Biograph short, Griffith instead makes it the catalyst for the final act. He doesn't dwell on it, and so it doesn't overwhelm the second half of the film. The slowness of the final scenes forms a balance with the first half, and they have a greater impact as a result.

Prior to this, while the acting in Griffith's shorts was becoming increasingly naturalistic, his actors still often slipped into over-the-top pantomiming when their characters' emotions ran high. Here however, in a picture that has a lot of scope for melodrama with its murder and madness, Sweet surprisingly manages to keep it relatively real. Importantly Griffith also encourages a deep performance from her by doing very long takes of her madness scenes.

The Painted Lady has aged better than most Griffith pictures, and is still very effective today mainly thanks to Blanche Sweet's acting. It goes to show that the depiction of a deranged loner unable to connect with society goes back a lot further than Travis Bickle.

This short feature is filled with drama, but it also combines some preachy parts with some rather ambiguous messages. It's eventful, and at times gets your emotions involved, but it seems uneven, and when it is all over you don't really know what to think of it all.

Thanks to Blanche Sweet, the main character is mostly convincing. Sweet plays an older sister who wants to resist becoming a "Painted Lady", and much of the story revolves around issues that likely were more topical at the time than they would be now (or, at least, the issues involved would be much different in another era). That in part makes it of less interest than many other dramas of the time.

There are some good touches to the story, as in practically any Griffith short, and it holds your attention. But in the end, the movie leaves you feeling rather confused - it's hard to figure out what he was trying to say - and it's not one of his best.

Miss Blanche Sweet's portrayal of a mad girl in this picture seems to reach a higher plane of art than any of her previous characterizations, and she has done good work in many diverse roles. The film presents a psychological study of character dramatically, and gives a fresh criticism of life. The subtlety of it makes it a hard picture to comment on; one hesitates as before jumping into a very deep pool. But very crudely we may say that it draws for us a not very well balanced girl. She is somewhat morbidly conscientious and, consequently, not popular; but the humanity of her heart, as shown by her longing for friends, her longing to be understood, makes us deeply interested in her. Very logical is her reaching out to her new friend, her first sweetheart, and since he is what he is, a tragedy of some sort is imminent. The suddenness with which it comes shatters her mind. It is a picture that most certainly ought to be liked. No mechanically working mind could possibly have conceived it and we commend it as a work of art. A strong offering. - The Moving Picture World, November 9, 1912

Do appreciate silents and also old short films. Some of the best came from DW Griffith in the 1910s. He was not one of my favourite directors, but his short and feature films are really well worth seeing (the best musts) and he was an interesting director. Two of his best ever short films came from 1912, one being 'The Mothering Heart' and the other being the more ground-breaking 'The Musketeers of Pig Alley'. Both highly recommended.

'The Painted Lady' isn't recommended as enthusiastically. It is definitely interesting and there is a good deal to like about it, it is also a lot better than the rating here suggests. 'The Painted Lady' at the same time is not one of Griffith's best short films and nowhere among the best of his entire filmography, and is somewhat uneven. It's well directed, looks good and has a great lead performance, but the story and messaging are rather patchy in my view.

Am going to start with the good. The best thing about 'The Painted Lady' is the deeply felt and never over-melodramatic (something that could have easily been the case with this premise) performance of Blanche Sweet, who has such telling eyes and affecting facial expressions. Griffith's visual directing is very accomplished and he has a good eye for atmosphere.

Furthermore, 'The Painted Lady' looks pretty good visually, and is designed and photographed beautifully and atmospherically. A lot is packed in and it doesn't get dull, also thought it starts great.

However, it is hard to not wish that the second half lived up to it or at least was as strong. For me sadly, the second half felt very muddled and rushed. Like there was too much going on in a too short space of time, which is not usually the case with Griffith's short films and the coherence is affected as a result. Some of the goings on in the house are downright odd in a way that felt overdone.

While the messaging is well intended, it is also rather heavy-handed and feels out of date. While the rest of the acting is competent enough (nobody or nothing is terrible), nobody else is on Sweet's level and lacks her subtlety.

Overall, decent if patchy. 6/10.