An Unseen Enemy

Lillian and Dorothy Gish made their film debuts in An Unseen Enemy (1912), one of the best of DW Griffith's short film work.

The two women show their acting chops here as two terrified teenagers cornered by villains. Their performances are not as refined as those they would give in the future, but the power and effectiveness of their pantomime and body movements forecast that well.

I'm not the biggest fan of Griffith's features, but his shorts are amazing. He packs a lot of suspense and melodrama into one reel. The editing and pacing of these films dash the impression of early film as exclusively slow-moving and crude, an impression given off by early feature films such as the nightmarish and dull Queen ELizabeth (1912), starring theater legend Sarah Bernhardt.

An essential for movie buffs and lovers of cinematic history.

To make newcomers-to-film Gish sisters, Lillian and Dorothy, ages 19 and 14, show fear in their movie debut, September 1912's "An Unseen Enemy," Biograph director D. W. Griffith drew out his gun and chased them around the studio room, shooting into the ceiling. The ploy must have worked since what the viewer sees on the screen reflects two young girls in fear for their lives.

The Gishes were literally brought up on the stage. With a father deserting them early on, the sisters with their mother moved from the Midwest to New York City in an attempt to elevate their theater acting. They became good friends with their next door neighbor, Gladys Smith, aka Mary Pickford. Getting modeling jobs as well as stage work, the Gishes were introduced to D. W. Griffith by Pickford in 1912. Biograph signed the two to contracts, with their first movie scheduled to be "An Unseen Enemy."

Griffith thought they were twins when he first saw them, despite their age difference (19-year-older Lillian lied about her age being 16 at the time). On the set he tied a blue ribbon in the hair of one and a red ribbon on the other. When he wanted to direct one of them to do something, he would say, "Red, do this," or "Blue, do that."

After humiliating the sisters with the ribbons and the firearms shooting, Pickford took Griffith aside and asked him not to treat her friends like that ever again. And he didn't.

As for "An Unseen Enemy," the movie is almost a carbon copy of Griffith's 1909 "The Lonely Villa." Both have robberies taking place in female-only occupied houses, with the males summoned by phone miles away to come and rescue them. At this stage of his career, Griffith was becoming tired of Biograph Studios restraint on limiting the director to stick with just one reelers--about 15 minutes in length. While longer feature movies were being produced with greater frequency, Griffith would begin to search for new avenues to gain more freedom behind the camera. But "An Unseen Enemy" does show his expertise in cross-cutting with dual scenarios playing out at the same time.

An Unseen Enemy is probably most notable for being the first film of the Gish sisters, Lillian and Dorothy. It's also a rather good short in its own right, being the latest in a series of increasingly adept reworkings of Griffith's trapped heroine/ride-to-the-rescue drama.

When Griffith first met the sisters, he seems to have been attracted to the idea of casting them as endearing twins, here dressing them identically. It is actually younger sister Dorothy who is foregrounded – often literally – but Lillian's is the standout performance. She reacts convincingly and lends an air of credibility to an otherwise very hammy melodrama. The worst offender in the hammy stakes by the way is Elmer Booth, who would later give a great turn in The Musketeers of Pig Alley, but here just does the old wide-eyed-panic-in-close-up routine that is the staple of so many silent melodramas.

In spite of the illustrious acting debut, this is still very much Griffith's show, the director having by now honed a precise formula for this type of film. The set-up is rather concise, and the action finale actually takes up around half the picture. Griffith weaves together various different strands to make a four-way crosscut, perhaps his most complex ride-to-the-rescue thus far. He also throws in various little twists to ratchet up the tension – the car being delayed by the swing bridge, the phone line going dead and, of course, that menacing gun. It may look rather corny, almost surreal in fact, but there is something very creepy about the close-up in which the gun slowly emerges through the hole in the wall.

An Unseen Enemy is a decent Biograph short, very typical of Griffith's output around this time. Lillian Gish was clearly already one to watch, although it's worth remembering that she only had a handful of big roles in the Biograph shorts, and it was only once Griffith began making features that she emerged as his main leading lady.

Great early film short, directed superbly by D.W. Griffith. In it, Lillian and Dorothy Gish play sisters (is that ever inspired casting?) terrorized by a wicked housekeeper and her male companion. They have the Gish sisters locked in a room, and terrorized them by firing a gun through a hole in the wall. It doesn't sound like much, but the direction makes in exciting (there is a race to rescue them after they are able to make a phone call).

Lillian and Dorothy Gish look extraordinary on film, together, in "An Unseen Enemy"; though, the situation more than a little implausible. Still, the Gish sisters are radiant. Also noteworthy are the scenes with Robert Harron which open and close the drama, earning him a Kiss from Dorothy Gish. The three of them are natural actors, which Griffith (and audiences) could plainly see in this film. Great photography.

D.W. Griffith, Lillian Gish, Dorothy Gish, Robert Harron, and G.W. Bitzer - making the screen magical in "An Unseen Enemy"...

********* An Unseen Enemy (9/9/12) D.W. Griffith ~ Lillian Gish, Dorothy Gish, Robert Harron, Elmer Booth

The quality in which Biograph pictures most excel is the atmosphere of individuality that surrounds each player, making him or her distinct from all others. In no other make of picture is it so marked. There is much of it in this very effective release, but not as much as usual. The object of the picture is to create a feeling of dread and the means it uses is to place two little girls in a locked room, and put them in danger from an "unseen enemy" in the adjoining room. This enemy is a drunken maid, who, with another rough character, is bent on blowing up a safe. There is a hole in the wall made for a stove pipe and the woman can thrust her arm through this and shoot, but she can't see to aim, because the hole is too small. Her purpose is to keep the children from using the telephone. But it lies on the floor where the eldest girl had dropped it and the sound of the shots is more eloquent to bring help than words. The little girls are charming; they are not yet actresses, but in a good place to learn acting. The photography in many scenes is not up to standard. - The Moving Picture World, September 21, 1912