When a trading post is robbed and its manager disappears, it takes two young girls to find the clues and set matters aright.
This is an interesting, well composed and, at the appropriate moments, exciting short subject from Alice Guy, the first woman motion picture director and arguably the first motion picture director. Yet, despite its excellence in many regards, it reveals a shortcoming that I see in many of Mme. Guy's later pictures. The acting is too broad.
Had Mme. Guy been directing so long that she could not adjust to the new, subtler pantomime that was becoming popular? I suspect the answer is simpler: Alice Guy was a Frenchwoman and this movie was a Solax Production, based in Fort Lee, New Jersey. Her actors were Americans. I suspect they were miming in their native style, but Mme. Guy was "reading" them in French, so, for her to pick up what they were indicating, they had to mime broader.
That issue aside -- and it is a considerable one -- this is a well-made and often exciting movie. If you wish to see it for yourself, a good print is available at the Eye Institute site on YouTube.
This is an interesting, well composed and, at the appropriate moments, exciting short subject from Alice Guy, the first woman motion picture director and arguably the first motion picture director. Yet, despite its excellence in many regards, it reveals a shortcoming that I see in many of Mme. Guy's later pictures. The acting is too broad.
Had Mme. Guy been directing so long that she could not adjust to the new, subtler pantomime that was becoming popular? I suspect the answer is simpler: Alice Guy was a Frenchwoman and this movie was a Solax Production, based in Fort Lee, New Jersey. Her actors were Americans. I suspect they were miming in their native style, but Mme. Guy was "reading" them in French, so, for her to pick up what they were indicating, they had to mime broader.
That issue aside -- and it is a considerable one -- this is a well-made and often exciting movie. If you wish to see it for yourself, a good print is available at the Eye Institute site on YouTube.