A Nigger in the Woodpile
About A Nigger in the Woodpile
A hired man tells Farmer Jones that the woodpile is being stolen. Jones loads one stick with dynamite. A deacon, played by a white actor in blackface, takes that stick. At home, where his wife is also played by a man in blackface, he puts three blocks on the fire. The loaded one explodes. Nobody is killed. Jones and his friend come in and haul off an older man who had helped with the theft. The title uses the period idiom for something being wrong. Biograph shot it in a New York studio.
More about A Nigger in the Woodpile
A. E. Weed photographed it. American Mutoscope and Biograph copyrighted it on 8 April 1904, number H44250, and released it that April. Silent Era gives 262 feet. Wikipedia times it at 4 minutes. No director is named.
Themes
Making
The whole gag is one loaded log. Weed shot the woodpile, the theft, and the kitchen explosion on a New York studio set, with blackface in every Black role.
Look
A. E. Weed shot the studio woodpile and the kitchen where the stick goes on the fire.
Preservation
A print survives. The Library of Congress holds a copy. The film is public domain in the United States.
Notes
- The Biograph blurb calls the deacon a shining light of the African Church and says the thieves are punished.
- Wikipedia’s scene account says the wife at the stove is a male actor in blackface, and that the explosion kills no one.
- A copy is in the Library of Congress, filed with the black-cast films.
- Silent Era lists a surviving print and public-domain status in the United States.
- An Internet Archive identifier uses the original title.
Scenes
- Jones packs dynamite into one stick of the pile.
- The deacon puts that stick on the kitchen fire.
- The kitchen blows up, and Jones hauls the older man away.
Also available
- Internet Archive (silent-a-nigger-in-the-woodpile)