Smartorhypo
Highly Overrated But Still Good
MamaGravity
good back-story, and good acting
Plustown
A lot of perfectly good film show their cards early, establish a unique premise and let the audience explore a topic at a leisurely pace, without much in terms of surprise. this film is not one of those films.
Logan
By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.
boblipton
Although this one-minute short from Griffith in his first year as a movie director is not very interesting to the modern eye -- the copy I viewed on Youtube was faded and may have been a cut-down -- it shows good composition thanks to Arthur Marvin's camera-work, and clearly shows that Griffith already knew how to cut for the purpose of telling a story.There isn't much of a story, though. It is your basic melodramatic race-to-rescue-a-girl piece as the girl, who seems to have been tied up by Chinese abductors, probably for the White Slavery trade, is rescued by the police. Nonetheless, there is a nice variety of scenery, including a bit at a trolley-car stop, and nice intercutting of he police racing to her rescue.Griffith would perfect and elaborate on the model for most of his career at Biograph. Here it is at the very beginning.
Single-Black-Male
This one-reeler is regarded as a Griffith thriller (if there is such a thing). It engages with the Chinese White slave traffic (what?) from the perspective of a female detective, Marion Leonard, whose assignment is to expose and break the traffic ring. A bit complex for a short film!