An Unseen Enemy

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Lillian Gish and Dorothy Gish in An Unseen Enemy (1912)

A brother and his two younger sisters inherit a modest amount from their father. When the brother is away, their shady housekeeper decides to take it for herself.A brother and his two younger sisters inherit a modest amount from their father. When the brother is away, their shady housekeeper decides to take it for herself.A brother and his two younger sisters inherit a modest amount from their father. When the brother is away, their shady housekeeper decides to take it for herself.

See production info at IMDbPro

IMDb RATING

6.4/10

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See production info at IMDbPro

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Trivia
Lillian Gish and Dorothy Gish both started working for D.W. Griffith in the early days of American Mutoscope & Biograph. While it's been claimed that Griffith was immediately infatuated with Lillian, in their first film for him, Biograph's An Unseen Enemy (1912), he thought they were twins. According to Lillian's autobiography, he had to tie different colored hair ribbons on the girls to tell them apart and give them direction: "Red, you hear a strange noise. Run to your sister. Blue, you're scared too. Look toward me, where the camera is.".

Connections
Featured in Hollywood (1980)

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Featured review

9/10

Lillian and Dorothy Ace Their Biograph Entrance Exam

If this wasn't a deliberate test by D.W. Griffith of his new actresses, it should have been. Griffith calls upon Lillian and Dorothy Gish to act in more or less of a vacuum, against a pistol stuck through a hole in the wall. And they pass with flying colors, hitting just the right note of terror, and demonstrating (especially Lillian) a captivating screen presence.

Meanwhile, Griffith passes his own test, elevating a fairly ludicrous premise to become, by turns, funny, tense, and (in one of his trademark races to the rescue) suspenseful and exciting. All in all, a taut and thoroughly fun example of the state of the art of American filmmaking in 1912.