Judith of Bethulia
About Judith of Bethulia
The Assyrian army of Holofernes (Henry B. Walthall), a general of Nebuchadnezzar, besieges the Jewish city of Bethulia until the people are starving and ready to surrender. The widow Judith (Blanche Sweet) goes into the enemy camp disguised as a woman of the harem. She drinks with Holofernes and, while he is drunk, cuts off his head with a sabre. She brings the head back to the city and is received as its heroine. Mae Marsh plays Naomi and Robert Harron plays Nathan among the people inside the walls.
Cast & crew
More about Judith of Bethulia
D. W. Griffith produced and directed from the 1896 play Judith and the Holofernes by Thomas Bailey Aldrich, itself taken from a script by Grace Adele Pierce of the Book of Judith. Frank E. Woods shared the screen writing. James Smith edited. General Film Company distributed. After a fight with Biograph over further features, Griffith left and took the stock company with him. Biograph held the film until 1914, after he was gone, and so avoided paying him under a profit-sharing deal.
Themes
Background
Released on 8 March 1914, after Griffith had left Biograph and taken the stock company with him. The feature market was already replacing the one-reel program.
In film history
Biograph's first feature, and the picture Foster Hirsch calls the earliest American epic. The delay in releasing it was a business decision aimed at Griffith's profit share.
Making
Griffith shot it as Biograph's move into features. The front office did not want more of them. He quit, and the company sat on the negative until March 1914.
Reviews
Variety, 27 March 1914, wrote: 'It is not easy to confess one's self unequal to a given task, but to pen an adequate description of the Biograph's production of Judith of Bethulia is, to say the least, a full grown man's job.' The Moving Picture World, 7 March 1914, called it 'A fascinating work of high artistry' and said foreign producers would 'sit up and take notice.'
Look
G. W. Bitzer photographed the siege and the Assyrian camp for Griffith at Biograph.
Music
Silent, with English intertitles.
Preservation
Listed in the Library of Congress American Silent Feature Film Survival Catalog and in the AFI Catalog. A print is on Wikimedia Commons.
Notes
- It was the first feature-length film Biograph made, and the second feature Biograph released.
- Lillian Gish plays a young mother, Dorothy Gish a crippled beggar, and Kate Bruce Judith's maid.
- Harry Carey plays an Assyrian traitor. Gertrude Bambrick leads the Assyrian dancers. Lionel Barrymore and Antonio Moreno appear as extras.
- The AFI Catalog and the Library of Congress American Silent Feature Film Survival Catalog both list the film.
- A print is on Wikimedia Commons, filed under a 1913 production date, and Wikipedia links a copy at the Internet Archive.
Scenes
- Judith enters Holofernes's camp dressed as a woman of the harem.
- She cuts off his head with a sabre while he is drunk and carries it back to Bethulia.
Influenced by
- Book of Judith
- Judith and the Holofernes (play by Thomas Bailey Aldrich, 1896)
Also available
- Wikimedia Commons (Judith of Bethulia (D. W. Griffith, 1913).webm)
