William Christy Cabanne Movies

Though its script is credited to D.W. Griffith, The Lamb is actually a film adaptation of Winchell Smith's Broadway play The New Henrietta. In his screen debut, Douglas Fairbanks plays a wealthy wastrel who is framed in a stock swindle. To prove his innocence, Fairbanks is plunked into several situations requiring him to display both his athletic and intellectual prowess. Seena Owen plays the girl who knew Fairbanks was a stalwart fellow all along. The Lamb was remade in 1921 as The Saphead, with Buster Keaton assuming the Douglas Fairbanks role. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Conservative Biograph Studios, having galloped to prominence on the coattails of their star director D.W. Griffith, refused to allow Griffith to make any film longer than two reels. Ignoring this edict, Griffith permitted his Biblical epic Judith of Bethulia to stretch to four reels; Biograph's reprimands were so blistering that the director quit the studio, setting up his own independent operation. While of great historical value, Judith of Bethulia is, truth to tell, not one of Griffith's best efforts. Among other things, the film is hampered by uninteresting exterior locations and a storyline that switched dramatic gears far too often. The basic story of young widow Judith (Blanche Sweet) offering herself to Assyrian leader Holofernes (Henry B. Walthall) in order to kill the man and thus avenge the subjugation and slaughter of her countrymen was strong enough on its own to carry the day. It was hardly necessary for Griffith to concoct a last-minute-rescue subplot involving Bethulian warrior Robert Harron and damsel in distress Mae Marsh. Historians have suggested that Griffith, impressed by the recently released Italian spectacular Quo Vadis, may have conceived Judith as an American "answer" to that film--an ill-advised decision, since the plotlines of the two properties bear precious little resemblance to each other. Still, it is fascinating to watch Griffith experiment with many of the story elements and techniques that he'd later hone to perfection in such films as Birth of a Nation (1915), Intolerance (1916) and Orphans of the Storm (1916); it's also an enjoyable film-buff exercise to spot such Griffith regulars as Lillian and Dorothy Gish and Harry Carey in minor roles. Biograph--whose fortunes diminished after Griffith's departure--reissued Judith of Bethulia in 1917 in an expanded version titled Her Condoned Sin, using outtakes that Griffith had wisely jettisoned back in 1914. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

This tragedy is set in the Algerian desert and begins as a selfish French Foreign Legion officer abandons the native girl he impregnated. Now all she has left of him is the Legion of Honor medal, he gave her. She dies during childbirth and her son is raised by a gentle old Algerian. He too has a son, and the two are raised as brothers. They grow up and fall in love with the same young woman. Unfortunately, the adopted brother's father has since been appointed Governor of the colony. When he sees the woman, he too wants her and demands that she be brought to him. The angered brothers retaliate by starting a violent rebellion and it is during this struggle that father and son finally meet. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

Cherubic character actor Otis Harlan stars as Goodrich Mudd, the "black sheep" of the film's title. The bane of his prominent family's existence, Goodrich brings even more embarrassment upon his loved ones when he gets mixed up with a seedy burlesque troupe. Before the inevitable "redemption" scene, there are several slapstick highlights, all of them played to the hilt by the star. The film takes particular advantage of Harlan's stage specialty, his "kidney feet," in one crucial scene, wherein Goodrich cavorts drunkenly onstage with a line of chorus girls (this sort of routine would later be de rigueur in the 2-reel comedies of Leon Errol. The Black Sheep was based on a stage farce by Charles Hoyt. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi