Claire McDowell Movies
Descended from an old, well-established performing family, American actress Claire McDowell was one of those weathered character players who seemed to have been born at the age of 50. Only 32 years old when she first stepped before Billy Bitzer's camera at Biograph studios in 1910, Ms. McDowell almost immediately found herself playing everyone's mother. She spent the next four years working for D.W. Griffith before retiring to raise a family; her husband was fellow Griffith player Charles Hill Mailes. Back in films in 1917, McDowell continued her celluloid maternal career. Perhaps her most celebrated matriarchal role was as John Gilbert's mother in The Big Parade (1924), in which she has an unbearably poignant scene as she embraces her amputee son, recalling in flashback when her infant boy took his first steps. Ms. McDowell also has some potent sequences as Ramon Novarro's mother in Ben-Hur; stricken with leprosy, she dares not embrace her sleeping son, but instead kisses the stones upon which he lies. Semi-retired when talkies came in, Claire McDowell occasionally emerged to play bits, often in the company of her husband (as in Murder By Television [1935]). One of her last last notable roles, albeit unbilled, was as the ailing mother (again!) who faints on the bus in It Happened One Night (1934). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide- 1910
Long before his epic Birth of a Nation, D.W.Griffith was turning out such one-reel Biograph Civil War melodramas as The Fugitive. The story focuses on two soldiers, one a Yankee, the other a Confederate. When the Yank shoots down the Southerner, he is targeted for arrest and execution. Ironically, he is saved by the mother of the man he has killed. As was customary in Griffith's Civil War films, there were no heroes or villains: the "heavy" of the piece was the War itself. Dorothy Davenport and Eddie Dillon were among the featured players, in The Fugitive, which was partially lensed on location in Fishkill, New York. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1910
Peggy (Mary Pickford) is a strong-willed young woman who lives during the 18th century. She is not attracted to any of her suitors, but an English Lord becomes intrigued with her and convinces Peggy to marry him. However, Peggy's earthy manner doesn't blend well with the cultured nobility, and she is embarrassed at a party. She flees the party with the Lord's cousin, but the Lord is worried that the cousin will make advances to her, so he follows them. When the cousin does make a pass at Peggy, she loses her temper and throws things at him, and the Lord is reassured that she loves him after all. While Peggy does submit to a man long enough to get married, she does as she pleases for most of the film. Mary Pickford gives another strong performance as an independent woman. ~ Bruce Calvert, All Movie Guide
- 1910
No relation to the 1910 D.W.Griffith production of the same name, the 1913 release The Iconoclast was a three-reeler from the Thomas H. Ince film factory. The title character is a Mexican aristocrat who fancies himself an atheist. In addition to his constant tiltings with the Church, the Iconoclast is also a bully and a despot, inciting the local Indians to war so as to drive the railroad people out of the territory. Meanwhile, the landowner's beautiful daughter falls in love with a pious young sculptor. In typical Ince fashion, the story (credited to William H. Clifford ends tragically -- and spectacularly so. The direction for The Iconoclast was credited to Thomas Ince himself, though chances are it was actually helmed by one of his many assistants. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1910
The Biograph melodrama Two Little Waifs was partially filmed on location in Greenwich, Connecticut. Placed in an orphanage, the two title characters pine away for their recently deceased mother. Meanwhile, a wealthy woman mourns over the loss of her only daughter. It is only a matter of time before the woman and the two waifs will meet, become enchanted with each other, and live together happily ever after. The film was a blatant and shameless tug at the audience's heartstrings, and few directors could have pulled it off with as much taste and finesse as D. W. Griffith. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1910
His Last Burglary was also director D. W. Griffith's last location jaunt to Coytesville, New Jersey. Unhinged by grief after the death of his baby, a young husband Henry B. Walthall becomes a burglar. When his wife finds out, the husband promises to end his life of crime. He does, however, commit one last burglary, but his intentions are honorable; his "swag" consists of a cherubic infant who has been unfairly snatched from the arms of its poverty-stricken mother. Such was the dramatic impact of this Biograph one-reeler that the critic for the trade magazine Variety claimed that he could see as well as hear the baby's gurgles. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1910
Among the many villains in D.W.Griffith's 1916 epic Intolerance were those self-styled "social uplifters" who presumptuously impose their moral values on others. Six years before Intolerance, Griffith gave these uplifters a good going over in his Biograph one-reeler A Simple Charity. In this instance, a poor scrubwoman is targeted for "redemption" by a pompous charitable organization. Rather than help the woman, however, the do-gooders hurt her by insisting that she put her life and future entirely in their hands. By film's end, the well-meaning uplifters are shown the error of their ways. A Simple Charity was partially filmed on location at Fort Lee, New Jersey (the current home of the CNBC and MSNBC cable TV networks). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1910
The outskirts of Paterson, New Jersey proved an interesting substitute for 18th-century Paris in Biograph's French Revolution melodrama The Oath and the Man. A band of Revolutionaries is led by a man with strong religious convictions. Though he does so at great personal risk, the hero resists all temptations to be dissuaded from his solid Christian values. Thus, when the crowd cries out for the blood of the captured aristocrats, their leader refuses to acknowledge their demands, preferring mercy over revenge. Films like Oath and the Man can now be regarded as warm-ups for D.W.Griffith's 1921 French Revolution epic Orphans of the Storm. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1910
Always fascinated with Native American mythology and folklore, director D.W. Griffith turned out no fewer than six "Indian" pictures in 1910. A bigoted white medicine man refuses to come to the assistance of an ailing Indian child. But the man's wife is a bit more humanitarian; unbeknownst to her husband, she sneaks into the Mohawk camp and administers the necessary medicines and poultices. The child lives, and as a result the grateful Mohawk chieftain abandons his plans to massacre the white settlement. One of these was the one-reel The Mohawk's Way, filmed "way out West" in Water Gap, New Jersey. Among the "Griffith players" in the film was future comedy producer Mack Sennett. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1910
This D.W.Griffith-directed Biograph melodrama is set during the Russian Revolution. No, not the successful 1917 coup, but one of the many failed 19th-century uprisings. After conducting a raid on a Rebel camp, a Czarist officer discovers that his wife has joined the revolutionaries. Out of loyalty to his wife, the officer resigns his commission and escapes with her to America. Several years later, the ex-officer is gainfully employed as a waiter in a Russian restaurant. For the sake of his grown son, who is engaged to marry a wealthy socialite, our hero pretends to be a man of great wealth and prestige. The truth is revealed in the final scene, but "Waiter Number 5" is saved from disgrace by the timely arrival of his former superior officer. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
