A really well-done early Griffith melodrama, this little Indian thriller, shot entirely out of doors in extremely well. chosen locations, compares very favorably with far more elaborate essays along the same lines. The plot, involving romantic jealousies and inter-tribe intrigues, is frankly a little involved, and the lack of the original titles doesn't help to clarify matters any. However, it doesn't really matter too much who does what to whom; of far more importance is the well photographed and directed action. Mabel Normand makes a very lively heroine, doing all the athletics herself, and there's an interesting performance by one of the earliest movie Indian actors - Dark Cloud - already in his sixties when this film was made.

Like The Perils of Pauline linked by an overall theme about an inheritance swindle, What Happened to Mary was generally less melodramatic than the Pearl White film that followed. Generally Mary tended to use her brains rather than her brawn, and this particular episode, with its escape from a high window, has more melodrama than most of the other episodes that we've seen. It's a neat little film, bringing its immediate story-line to a conclusion, while leaving the general theme still very much in the balance.

Such rarities as His Bitter Pill, Teddy at the Throttle and Barney Oldfield's Race for Life excepted, the pre-20's Sennett period was generally a pretty barren one - and a vastly over-rated one, especially by European critics who found a "poetry" in the Keystone knockabout farces that Sennett himself has been the first to disclaim. The surprising thing is that one almost never comes across what is considered a "typical" Sennett! The good Keystone Cops chases were few and far between, and the custard-pie slinging seems to have been almost non-existent, if the couple of hundred Sennetts that I have looked at over the past year are any criterion. However, Dizzy Heights and Daring Hearts is just what people have in mind when they use the phrase "typical Sennett comedy". It is fast, inventive, packed with speed and pep. It has crudity of execution and vulgarity of content, but that too is "typical" Sennett. This is certainly one of the best of the earlier Keystones, by no means the equal of His Bitter Pill, but far and away superior to the general run of often excruciatingly unfunny pre-1920 Sennetts.

Along with The Leatherpushers (a Reginald Denny series), The Collegians were tremendously popular two-reelers put out by Universal in the 20's. We've run several before, and are glad to add one more to the list. This time, freshman Benson (George Lewis - still active in "Zorro" on tv) pulls Calford through to victory once again, in a nice two-toned original print.

At a time when fast-action westerns were commonplace on the screen, Universal's gentle, humorous, and slowly paced Hoot Gibson two-reelers were quite refreshingly different. The formula worked well for Gibson, whose later features were constructed along the same lines. Today, admittedly, the slightness of story and lack of real action make them seem strangely pedestrian for westerns, but they do retain much of their old pleasant appeal, and Gibson's personality comes through well.

Another in Turpin's series lampooning the Stroheim of Foolish Wives (When a Man's a Prince is perhaps the best-known in this group) is a strange mixture of wonderful gags (the pantomime with the fly, for example) and old and obvious ones (the hornet-nest routine - never a funny gag anyway, but a slapstick staple for years). Turpin's fooling is fine, and Ruth Taylor (who was here only a year away from Gentlemen Prefer Blondes) is again so pretty and able a comedienne that it remains a puzzle why she faded so quickly. Incidentally, this print is entirely bereft of titles, but we don't think you'll have any trouble following the plot, especially as all the inserts (letters, etc.) are in place.

A vigorous and gutsy sea melodrama in the Jack London tradition, The Sea Ghost packs in a mutiny, a typhoon, the hero being set adrift in a sealed barrel, romance on a desert island, and ultimate retribution -- enough plot material for a full feature. Its story stretches coincidence a little too much perhaps, but it makes for lively entertainment, and is beautifully photographed by one of the best cameramen in the business, Joseph August. And it was all made for a little over a thousand dollars. Incidentally, this was one of the prints that had to be reassembled for our show; it literally had to be put together from scratch, and while the original order of everything seems to have been restored, we may have misplaced an odd scene or two. So if there's a jumpy piece of editing, please blame the Huff Society and not Mr. Ince.

We have never before presented any film at this society with so little data as to its origin, director etc. Frankly it was a case of being caught napping, with program-note-time rolling around and immediate identification through the reference books on hand not paying off. We'll issue some more statistical information on this film with our next set of notes, and will just say now that it appears to be middle or late twenties, and was apparently not released in this country. Our version is obviously but a fraction of the original, and is a 16mm blow-up from a British 9.5mm print. All things considering, the quality is quite good, and while obviously such a version cannot hope to do justice - dramatically, or pictorially - to the original, nevertheless within the 3-reel framework, the editing has been intelligently done. One would give much to see the original, for the camerawork occasionally has an intriguing mystical quality, and the production seems to have been on an extremely lavish scale. There are also interesting plot elements not present in other versions of this many-times filmed tale (there have been American, German, French, Mexican, Philippino, British versions -- and doubtless others too). Since it is a somewhat static tale, almost always told in the same way, freshness of approach via the stylish camerawork indicated here can make a tremendous amount of difference and this may well have been one of the more interesting versions of all.