Kansas Saloon Smashers

About the turn of the twentieth century, Carrie Nation was a self-appointed morals policewoman whose duty was to destroy "demon liquor". Her m.o. was to walk into bars wielding a hatchet and she'd tear the place apart. Well, this was big news but the problem was that with this and other cool news stories (such as the execution of the man who murdered President McKinley), there was no live film footage--and the public was clamoring for it. So, studios staged the events again and actually claimed to have real footage. Today, it all looks obviously fake and cheesy (like this film) but back in those days, people often fell for it. Or, even if they didn't, it was a nice way to dramatize the events.

This film is only a minute long--finishing in less time than it might take to read this review. Before the actress playing Nation comes in, you see some people at a bar. One is a very stereotypical Irishman and when Nation appears, she tosses his bucket of beer on him and begins wrecking the place. At the end, as the police are leading her away, you see one of the coppers trip in the beer on the floor--probably not staged, but back then when mistakes like this took place in these mostly unscripted films, they just left it in and hoped no one would notice.

Overall, a pretty typical recreation for 1901. For a much more interesting film, see the parody (also by Edison Manufacturing Company) entitled "Why Mr. Nation Wants a Divorce"--showing the poor husband of Carrie Nation stuck at home with the kids while his wife is out "saving the world".

By the way, this film is part of a DVD set entitled "Treasures III"--a set of four DVDs all about social issues and reform. The second disk (where you'll find this one) is about women's issues in particular.

Kansas Saloon Smashers (1901)

*** (out of 4)

This Edison short features Carrie A. Nation, a female rights person who made a name for herself by going around to various saloon's and smashing up the bottles. She also wasn't afraid to throw a few punches at the men if she needed to. This short runs just over a minute and takes place at a saloon where Nation goes into destroy things. There's nothing overly special about this short but it does have a certain charm to it and the entertainment value is certainly high considering the film only lasts for a minute. The cinematography by co-director Porter is also very nice.

What can we say. The film quality is quite good. It involves a group of women who are fed up with men drinking so much and causing damage to an establishment. I guess we were told in those days that this was actual footage of an event.