La vipère noire

Black Viper, The (1908)

*** (out of 4)

A man dressed in black attacks a woman as she is leaving church and beats her down onto the ground. Another man comes up to save the day but later the man in black, with the help of a couple friends, kidnaps the man and plan on killing him but the police follow to save the day. This is an early short that features Griffith as a director and it also has him playing a small role as one of the rescuers. His direction is very good throughout making for some nice scenes including one where the bad guys are climbing up the side of a mountain and throwing stones down at the police. The violence is pretty good as well and this all leads to the finale, which has two men fighting on top of a home, which is also on fire. Mack Sennett also has a small role as one of the rescuers.

Griffith needed a job. American Biograph needed a director, since theirs was leaving. Griffith took the job on the understanding that if it didn't work out, there would be no hard feelings. He would still get work as an actor. So for a month or two he co-directed films with Wallace MacCutcheon Jr., who taught him everything he knew; thereupon Griffith bullied the entire industry into doing things his way.

In this one we can see the errors of the old style: huge acting, boring, unmoving compositions and primitive editing. The chase that takes up more than half of this one-reel drama might have been lifted from 1904's "How a French Nobleman Got a Wife Through the 'New York Herald' Personal Columns".

Despite this, there is a seed of things to come; Mack Sennett is on hand, as is Edward Dillon and a couple of other members of what would become Griffith's staff of actors and directors. Bitzer and Marvin are handling the cameras. Finally, there is the dramatic race to rescue the victim from the hands of the dastardly villain. It would become the core of Griffith's storytelling.

Here, though, it's badly handled. Well, it was only Griffith's fourth film and his first month.

"The Black Viper" was one of the first films of D. W. Griffith and for an attempt at an early drama it actually isn't that bad. To be sure, the film lacks the excitement and intensity of later films ("The Girl and Her Trust" is a great example) because of how straightforwardly shot it is, but the story is milked for what it's worth and there are some excellent action scenes for the time. Also apparent in watching the short is already some emerging technique, impressive considering this was such an early effort and proof that Griffith was already at work revolutionizing film as it was then known.

The short deals with a thug who attacks a woman who is rescued by another man. The thug vows revenge and kidnaps the man, and so begins a chase sequence that ends in a burning building. (Admittedly, I was somewhat confused initially seeing this likely because I wasn't paying enough attention, but looking back the story was pretty straightforward and I must not have been paying attention). There are some great fight scenes including one on a roof and the part that really stood out was the cross-cutting in the scene where the thugs throw rocks down upon their pursuers as they are chased up a cliff. The cutting consistently between the top and bottom of the cliff as the stones are thrown down is skillfully done and as a whole the film does a good job telling its story. A remarkable early effort from Griffith.

A simple action movie from D. W. Griffith. A thug and his cronies kidnap a man who prevented the thug from beating up a woman who resisted his advances, and is pursued to a cabin in the mountains by the victim's neighbours. A little unusual in that it's the damsel in distress who engineers the rescue of the hero, The Black Viper expands on the popular chase movie by having the villains rain rocks down upon their pursuers as they scale a hill and concluding with a rooftop fight that must have appeared incredibly thrilling to audiences of the day.

Having styled himself as a writer who can act, reluctantly, the 33 year old D.W. Griffith was given the opportunity to direct his own films. It was a gamble. He was married to Linda Arvidson and needed a secure income to pay for rent and food. After 'The Adventures of Dollie', he proved that he could be a lucrative investment.