Alfred Paget Movies
English-born leading man and character actor Alfred Paget got his start in early silent films. He is best remembered for his portrayal of Belshazzar in the Babylonian segment of Griffith's Intolerance (1916). ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- 1908
In this four hanky early silent melodrama, Ruth tries to survive amidst tragedy and toil on New York's Lower East Side. It all begins as Ruth's mother dies. Just before she expires, she hands her daughter a beautiful locket to help her remember that hope exists. Afterward, Ruth returns to working beside her father in his pawnshop. The two have a terrible falling out when she chooses to marry an impoverished bookseller. Her enraged father casts her out and tells her never to return. Ruth and her husband are happy and she bears a daughter. Later, her husband dies in an accident and she is left destitute. Soon poverty takes its toll and Ruth is deathly ill. Desperate for money, she gives her beloved locket to her daughter and instructs her to pawn it. The daughter ends up wandering into the store of her grandfather, whom she's never met. He sees the locket, has a change of heart and runs to help his daughter. Unfortunately, Ruth has gone, leaving the grandfather to raise the girl himself. ~ Sandra Brennan, 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
Thanks to constant television exposure in the early 1950s, The Message of the Violin is one of the best-known of D.W. Griffith's Biograph films. Popular Griffith ingenue Stefanie Longfellow headed the cast of this one-reel romantic drama. The hero, a sensitive violinist, is constantly browbeaten by his drunken lout of a father. Only when he is with his sweetheart does the violinist ever find true happiness, but she cannot abide the boorish behavior of his father and walks out on him. Eventually, the old man dies during a particularly vicious attack of delirium tremens. Taking to the streets with his violin, the hero plays his former sweetheart's favorite song -- and, right on cue, she materializes out of nowhere for a climactic embrace. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1910
In his characteristic fashion, D.W.Griffith attacked modern-day hypocrisy and bigotry by using a historical example in Rose o' Salem Town. The story takes place in Salem, Massachusetts, during the era of the Witch Trials. When his romantic advances are rebuffed by the heroine, a lecherous Puritan elder accuses the girl and her mother of witchcraft and sentences them to be burned at the stake (and never mind that the "witches" of Salem were all hanged, not burned). Though the mother dies in the flames, the girl is rescued by her sweetheart, with the help of a tribe of friendly Indians. This last plot wrinkle would resurface nearly ninety years later in the Demi Moore version of The Scarlet Letter. Rose o' Salem Town was filmed on location at Delaware Water Gap, New Jersey. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1910
This 989-foot D.W. Griffith production was advertised by its home studio of Biograph as a "contemporary melodrama." Most of the story takes place at night, as three bold burglars attempt to rob the home of a wealthy banker. The crooks are foiled by the resourcefulness of the banker's courageous daughters, who not only prevent the theft but also manage to hold the villains at bay until the cops arrive. The trade magazine Variety noted that the story was "far-fetched," a common failing of the Biographs of this period. But with D.W. Griffith at the helm, The Banker's Daughters could not be accused of being dull. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1910
This Biograph "temperance melodrama" was filmed at the company's Bronx Studios, with location work completed in Cuddebackville, New York and Fort Lee, New Jersey. Charles West and Stephanie Longfellow head the cast in this story of a poor farm girl who hopes to escape her shabby environs by running off with a city slicker. Alas, the heroine's new beau turns out to be an alcoholic, and a violent one at that. Fatally injured in a barroom brawl, he gasps out his regret and begs the girl to forgive him. Grief-stricken, she returns home, where she in turn is forgiven by her father and brother. D.W. Griffith manages to transcend the melodramatic excesses of the story with his usual directorial expertise. ~ 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
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
