This is an early Griffith effort -- when you're turning out eighty or ninety movies a year, you look everywhere for a story. A full reel, this was an immense production in Griffith's schedule and it shows. Although it is shot in simple long takes and the crowd scenes are staged well but not as amazingly so as later efforts would do, this has a full and beautiful set, in an era when set dressing was practically non-existent. The acting is broad in the comedy scenes, and more controlled in the romantic scenes. Notice the background actors gesticulating wildly in the kitchen scene (and the trademark 'AB'!) which looks looks a lot like Sennet's later Keystone style.
Although Griffith directed more than five hundred pictures, almost all of which survive, he has a vast corpus of works that are rarely seen, because so many people concentrate on his best features and perhaps a dozen of his best-known shorts. Kino is to be applauded for including this in their silent OTHELLO dvd and for hiring John Mirsalis to do the delightful, simple score.
Although Griffith directed more than five hundred pictures, almost all of which survive, he has a vast corpus of works that are rarely seen, because so many people concentrate on his best features and perhaps a dozen of his best-known shorts. Kino is to be applauded for including this in their silent OTHELLO dvd and for hiring John Mirsalis to do the delightful, simple score.