The Girl and Her Trust

Before watching this, I had never seen anything from D. W. Griffith. I know, what kind of film buff am I if I haven't seen a single film by that director? I'd heard of him but never watched any of his work. I saw this on Kino's "Movies Begin" DVD set and I must admit the director did a great job. Even though the thing is only 15 minutes, it tells its story very well, with uses of cross-cutting, tracking shots, stunts . . .

The story concerns a telegraphist girl who has to guard a shipment of money ($2,000.00 to be exact). Some tramps find their chance, and attempt a robbery but, the girl is brave and will do anything to stop them. Griffith used some clever techniques to make the story well told. For the locomotive chase, they mounted the camera on a truck and drove along after the train. The cross-cutting between outside and inside the station is also well done and helps build the suspense. Kino also thought to put an orchestral soundtrack which helped make the film even more exciting. It all looks pretty good for the time and even today holds up very well. This isn't "Birth of a Nation" but for what it is it is very good.

The Girl and Her Trust, like all films made in the early 1900s, is very simple and very short, but Griffith introduces a number of filmmaking techniques that remain widely in use to this day. Earlier films generally played like a stage play, with minimal cutting or editing, and each scene taking place in the same location and generally in the same shot. The Girl and Her Trust was one of the first films to suggest that editing could create artificial environments by linking sets together, and it also gave a better idea of what exactly was going on (the close-up of the girl as she places the bullet in the keyhole is a great example).

Besides that, this film also had a very well-made chase at the end, in which the good guys are in a locomotive chasing the bad guys (the guys who stole the $2000 from the girl - her 'trust') who are pumping furiously on a railroad handcart. Although technically crude by today's standards, this scene had every necessary element of a good chase sequence, and it works very well. The film also introduced the idea of cross-cutting in filmmaking, as well as the idea of filming outdoors (a technique barely and clumsily employed by Edwin Porter in The Great Train Robbery). The Girl and Her Trust is a historic film, but as with all films that were made in the early 1900s, you need to keep its age in mind. It's not going to blow you away with visuals or sound, but if you keep in mind the time period in which it was made, you can begin to really appreciate its innovation.

This is a pretty good silent short from D. W. Griffith, as it features bandits, a steadfast and good heroine and some nifty action. While it isn't the deepest film I have ever seen, it does make for a good film because it has a well-developed plot and is paced very well. Unlike some other films of the same period, this film has a definite beginning, middle and end and is quite watchable in the 21st century. Part of this is because the acting is somewhat restrained for 1912--being a little less over-done than you might often see at the time. Instead of hysterics, the lady in the film is cool-headed and does her best to stop two evil tramps from stealing the payroll. Pretty old fashioned, but still well made and watchable.

This short drama is quite a masterpiece for its time, using every available technique along with great skill in story-telling and photography, all of which take a fairly simple story and make it interesting, believable, and exciting. There is good detail that helps define and explain the characters, expert use of cross-cutting and editing to heighten the suspense, and a nice variety of indoor and outdoor settings. Dorothy Bernard also deserves credit as the young woman willing to risk danger in order to fulfill her trust.

Many of Griffith's short films show not only masterful technique, but also an impressive efficiency that wasn't always present in his later, longer features. "A Girl and Her Trust" is one of the best of all his shorter movies, and it deserves its place as one of the best-remembered and most praised movies of its era.

Girl and Her Trust, The (1912)

*** (out of 4)

D.W. Griffith short has a female telegraph operator being held up by a couple tramps who plan on stealing $2,000. Once again seeing a Griffith film from this period compared to what else was around just shows why they say the man invited film. Here Griffith uses the editing to build nice tension and some real excitement as the tramps kidnap the woman and head off with the good guy following. The train sequence is brilliantly done and this is 15 years before Buster Keaton's The General.