Making an American Citizen
About Making an American Citizen
Ivan Orloff rides a cart while his wife walks and pulls with the horse. He uses the whip on both. A party of emigrants takes them along. In New York she carries the bundle. A man puts it on Ivan's back and hands her the stick. At the Odessa Inn he knocks her down for not pulling off his shoes, and a man knocks him down in turn. In a garden he goes after her again. A passer-by hits him and makes him do the work. At dinner two men break up another fight. A court sends Ivan to six months of hard labor. He comes home, answers when she calls him to eat, and sits down with her.
Cast & crew
More about Making an American Citizen
Alice Guy-Blaché directed and produced it at Solax. It was released on 30 October 1912 and runs 16 minutes. Lee Beggs plays Ivan Orloff. Blanche Cornwall plays his wife. The second lesson is set at the Odessa Inn. Solax advertised the short as an educational drama.
Themes
Background
Solax released it on 30 October 1912, aimed at the idea that a husband who beat his wife at home would be stopped in New York.
Making
Guy stages four interruptions, each by a stranger, between the cart and the jail. The whip changes hands in the first one.
Preservation
A print survives.
Notes
- The landing lesson happens as they come through the Battery.
- The prison term is six months. The last scene is the garden and then the table.
- A timed copy runs 14 minutes 9 seconds.
- Hungary showed it at the Mediawave festival on 29 April 2005.
Scenes
- A man takes the bundle off her back and puts it on Ivan.
- At the Odessa Inn a stranger knocks Ivan to the floor.
- After six months he sits down to dinner when she calls him.
Also available
- Wikimedia Commons (Making an American Citizen (1912).webm)
