Skyscrapers

1906 DramaCrime 8 minutes

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About Skyscrapers

On a New York skyscraper job, a worker the film calls Dago Pete starts a fight and the foreman fires him. He steals the contractor’s watch and blames the foreman. In a fight on the steel, the foreman throws the contractor off a platform. The contractor catches a girder and is hauled up. At the foreman’s trial the foreman’s young daughter exposes Pete, and the contractor and the foreman make peace.

Cast & crew

More about Skyscrapers

Biograph released the short, also called The Skyscrapers of New York, on 8 December 1906. Almost the whole film was shot on a skyscraper then going up in New York. No director is named. F. A. Dobson is the cinematographer on the Wikipedia credits. Gene Gauntier and Jim Slevin are the named players.

Themes

  • A firing on a high steel job
  • A stolen watch blamed on the foreman
  • A fall caught on a girder
  • A daughter’s testimony in court
  • skyscraper
  • New York
  • foreman
  • stolen watch
  • girder
  • trial
  • Dago Pete

Look

F. A. Dobson is credited with the photography. The camera is on the open steel of a New York building under construction.

Music

Silent.

Notes

  • The worker’s name in the first intertitle is Dago Pete. A study quoted on the film’s Wikipedia page identifies “Dago” as a slur then commonly used for Italians.
  • The daughter, not a detective, is the one who exposes him in court.
  • Wikipedia gives the running time as 8 minutes. Some later listings say 11.

Scenes

  • Pete is fired after he starts a fight on the job.
  • The contractor, thrown from a platform, catches a girder.
  • The foreman’s daughter exposes Pete at the trial.

Also available

  • Internet Archive (SkyscrapersOfNewYork)
  • Wikimedia Commons (The Skyscrapers of New York (1906).webm)