A Beast at Bay
About A Beast at Bay
An escaped convict (Alfred Paget) overpowers a guard, swaps clothes, and takes the rifle. A young woman (Mary Pickford) has been calling a new acquaintance (Edwin August) her ideal. When he will not join a street fight she calls him a coward, drops him off, and drives on alone. The convict hijacks her car. August sees it and chases them, using a train as well as the road. He breaks in and is losing the fight when the guards arrive and take the convict. She kisses him.
Cast & crew
More about A Beast at Bay
D. W. Griffith directed. George Hennessy wrote it. G. W. Bitzer photographed it. Biograph released the two-reeler on 27 May 1912. It runs 17 minutes. Mae Marsh plays the woman's friend, Robert Harron a farmer, W. Christy Cabanne the station master, and Henry Lehrman, William A. Carroll, and Charles Hill Mailes are guards.
Themes
Making
Bitzer cut between the hijacked car and the pursuit so the convict's lead and August's train stay in the same stretch of time.
Look
G. W. Bitzer shot the hijacking and the cross-cut between Pickford's car and the train August uses to catch it.
Preservation
A paper print is preserved at the Library of Congress. A viewing copy is on the Internet Archive.
Notes
- A paper print is at the Library of Congress.
- The Internet Archive identifier is ABeastAtBay.
- The chase pairs her automobile with a locomotive August takes up.
- Pickford's character never gets a name in the Biograph cast list. She is the young woman, and August is the young woman's ideal.
Scenes
- She tells August he is a coward because he will not fight in the street, then drives off.
- The convict, in a guard's coat, takes the wheel of her car.
- August closes in by train, loses the fistfight, and the guards finish the capture.
Also available
- Internet Archive (ABeastAtBay)
