Pippa Passes

Name: Pippa Passes
Director: D.W. Griffith
Genre: Drama
Released: 1909
Cast: Gertrude Robinson, George Nichols, Arthur V. Johnson, Marion Leonard, Owen Moore

1909 Drama Directed by D.W. Griffith

About Pippa Passes

It is a holiday in Asolo, and the silk mill is quiet. Pippa, a silk-winder played by Gertrude Robinson, goes out with a lute singing "God's in His heaven. All's right with the world!" Jules has just married a Greek model, Linda Arvidson, and is about to strike her once he learns who she has been. The song stops him, and he decides to protect her. In Luca's shrub house, Ottima, Marion Leonard, talks her lover Sibald, Owen Moore, into killing Luca, Arthur V. Johnson, who is asleep. Sibald raises a dagger. Pippa's song comes through the lane, and the hand drops.

Cast & crew

More about Pippa Passes

D. W. Griffith directed Pippa Passes; or, The Song of Conscience for Biograph, from Robert Browning's poem, which the company also treated as a play. G. W. Bitzer and Arthur Marvin photographed it. Silent Era also credits Percy Higginson. Frank E. Woods is listed on Wikidata as a writer. Biograph copyrighted and released it on 4 October 1909. General Film Company handled a later reissue, and Biograph itself put it out again on 15 October 1915. It is one reel.

Themes

A holiday song in a silk town
A husband who puts down his hand
A dagger stopped over a sleeping man
Pippa
Asolo
silk-winder
Ottima
Sibald
Luca
Biograph

Making

Griffith staged three of Browning's episodes as rooms Pippa walks past: the new marriage, the model, and the dagger over a sleeping husband.

Reviews

On 10 October 1909 The New York Times reviewed Pippa Passes. It was the first film review the paper ran.

Look

G. W. Bitzer and Arthur Marvin shot the reel, with Percy Higginson also credited. The opening uses mood lighting, and the Biograph AB mark sits in many frames.

Preservation

The film survives from a paper print.

Notes

Mary Pickford is a girl in a crowd. Mack Sennett and Billy Quirk are in the studio scenes. James Kirkwood is in the bar. Henry B. Walthall is billed without a part.
George Nichols is credited as Pippa's husband, a figure Browning's poem does not give her.
Silent Era notes mood lighting in the opening and the Biograph AB logomark in many shots.
The New York Times reviewed the film on 10 October 1909, six days after release, the first motion picture the paper reviewed.

Scenes

Jules is about to strike the Greek model. Pippa's song changes his mind.
Sibald holds a dagger over the sleeping Luca while Ottima urges him on. The song comes through the shrub house and he stops.