Execution of a Spy

Soldiers place a coffin down, a man comes out with a priest in attendance. The soldiers shoot and he falls to the ground.

That pretty much sounds like a spy being executed, and let it go at that. It's shot by Arthur Marvin, who would serve as D.W. Griffith's second cameraman when he took over production in 1908. As this one stands, it's pretty poor for 1902, with all the action concentrated in about four feet; the rifles of the shooting soldiers practically touch the doomed spy It's also quite clearly shot on a set, although that might not have been clear to contemporary audiences.

I expect this was intended as a bit of bloodlust for the audience. It seems unlikely to be a cautionary tale, warning the audience not to become spies lest they be shot.

It's very difficult to understand and/or appreciate a short such as this one when its taken out of context. A man is shown placing a casket on the ground and then another man is placed with his back against a nearby wall. He is given his last rites and then summarily shot by a firing squad.

What makes the whole thing rather surreal is that the guy clutches his chest with one hand and quite dramatically lurches his other hand outward. It's like one of those truly awful death scenes that is still parodied to this day. It ruins any chance of generating anything but a snicker from the viewing audience.

This print is featured as an unadvertised bonus to Kino's magnificent collection "The Movies Begin: A Treasury of Early Cinema in the second volume, namely "The European Pioneers." The reason they call this an unadvertised bonus is because the print survives in a most blurry condition, thus it is below Kino's standard quality.

In this exploitative film, we witness a violent execution of a so-called "spy" (as you can imagine) by firing squad. Executions was another popular film subject at the time so I guess this was an attempt to create controversy. Nowadays, we don't only film executions, we also try to tell a story. In the meantime, there's movies like these which concentrate more on getting reactions than trying to have a plot.

(Note: I would like to sometime like to review all ten of the unadvertised bonus features. This is the fifth of the ten, so I'm half way through).