Fighting Blood

1911 WesternAction 18 minutes Directed by D.W. Griffith

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About Fighting Blood

In Dakota, a Civil War veteran played by George Nichols drills his wife and nine children and then raises the flag. His eldest son, played by Robert Harron, disobeys him to visit his girlfriend, Florence La Badie, and comes home to a locked cabin. He sees a band of Sioux attacking, warns her family, and gets her back to his own cabin after settlers fleeing in a wagon are chased and one is killed. The Sioux set the cabin on fire. He rides for help, kills one pursuer, and returns with the cavalry.

Cast & crew

More about Fighting Blood

D. W. Griffith directed and produced it. G. W. Bitzer photographed it. The General Film Company distributed the Biograph short, released June 29, 1911. It was shot near Lookout Mountain in the San Fernando Valley.

Themes

  • A father who drills his children
  • A son locked out
  • A Sioux attack on a cabin
  • Cavalry at the end
  • Dakota
  • Civil War veteran
  • Sioux
  • cabin fire
  • cavalry
  • Robert Harron
  • Biograph

Background

Biograph Westerns of 1911 still shot California hills as the Dakota Territory and cast the Sioux as the attacking party.

Making

Griffith staged the cabin siege in the San Fernando Valley, with Bitzer on the camera, and used a cavalry arrival for the finish.

Look

G. W. Bitzer photographed the flag-raising, the wagon chase, and the cabin fire near Lookout Mountain.

Music

Silent.

Preservation

A print at the George Eastman House is missing much of the last battle. The National Film Preservation Foundation funded preservation work there in 2001. A copy is on Wikimedia Commons.

Notes

  • Kate Bruce plays the old soldier's wife.
  • Of Griffith's 30 films with Native Americans, this is one of the eight that show them as villains. The attackers are identified as Sioux.
  • A Museum of Modern Art catalog and Silent Era list Lionel Barrymore as a settler. The Griffith Project, volume 5, does not.
  • The George Eastman House print is missing much of the climactic battle. In 2001 the museum got National Film Preservation Foundation money to preserve it.

Scenes

  • The old soldier raises the flag after drilling his family.
  • The Sioux set the cabin on fire before Harron gets back with the cavalry.

Also available

  • Wikimedia Commons (Fighting Blood (1911) .webm)

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