The Necklace

Not quite sure why this one needed to be so long, but it tells quite an affecting tale of a couple who spend most of their lives slaving to pay off a huge debt they incur in order to buy a necklace to replace one they borrowed from a friend which was stolen. Rose King's overacting is a distraction even for 1909.

There isn't much that you can do with Maupassant's work. Either you like him or you don't.

This small offering neither endeared me to Maupassant or Griffith because there was no substance in it that I could take away either as entertainment value or cinematic significance.

The one thing that did strike me whilst watching it was that the 34 year old D.W. Griffith created a vocabulary for making the transition from stage to screen, and then immortalizing oneself in celluloid. This was an inspiration to both Charlie Chaplin and Cecil B. DeMille.

There was a lack of diversity in the story, proving once again that the sin of omission is a uniform utopia.

Herbert Prior and his wife, Rose King, have been invited to an elegant party. They buy new clothes and, show off their appearance to their neighbor, Caroline Harris, who lends Rose her expensive-looking necklace. When they return from the party, they are reminiscing, when Rose realizes the necklace is missing. What to do?

It's a heartfelt and well-acted movie based on a de Maupassant story, about honest people in an unkind world, Given the source, Griffith presents it without much adornment, albeit updated to 1910.

Miss King was a stage and vaudeville performer who was appearing for a year in the flickers. Mr. Prior, on the other hand, was a well-regarded screen actor, who moved from one company to another: Griffith, Edison, Majestic... he seems to have peaked within a few years. By 1925, he was appearing in uncredited bits. He retired from the screen in 1934 and died 20 years later, far from his native England