Man's Genesis
About Man's Genesis
A grandfather tells his squabbling grandchildren a story of cavemen. Weakhands cannot court a woman. Bruteforce humiliates him. Weakhands meets Lillywhite, who has been hiding in her cave. Bruteforce splits them and drives Weakhands off. In his own cave Weakhands works out a stone club. With it he beats Bruteforce and takes Lillywhite back.
Cast & crew
More about Man's Genesis
D. W. Griffith directed. G. W. Bitzer photographed it. Biograph released it in the United States on July 11, 1912. It runs 17 minutes. Robert Harron plays Weakhands, Mae Marsh plays Lillywhite, Wilfred Lucas plays Bruteforce, and W. Chrystie Miller plays the grandfather. It was reissued with other Biograph films on July 23, 1915.
Themes
Making
Griffith stages the fight as a before-and-after: fists, then the club.
Audiences
At a Fresno showing on August 29, 1912, part of the audience objected to the film's ape-like human ancestors.
Look
G. W. Bitzer photographed the cave scenes and the club fight.
Preservation
A print survives. The Internet Archive copy is filed as MansGenesis1912.
Notes
- The frame story is the grandfather talking to grandchildren who have been fighting.
- The weapon is a stone club, thought up in the cave after the beating.
- English Wikipedia notes that the film was called, at the time, the greatest photoplay of its kind, and has been described as the first primitive-man picture.
- A copy is on the Internet Archive as MansGenesis1912.
Scenes
- Weakhands shapes the stone club in his cave.
- He downs Bruteforce with it and leaves with Lillywhite.
Also available
- Internet Archive (MansGenesis1912)
