The Golden Louis
About The Golden Louis
On a snowy night in a storybook Paris, an old woman sends a little girl out to beg, revelers pass her, and she sleeps on stone steps. A man drops a gold louis into the wooden shoe beside her and does not wake her. A gambler who is broke at roulette borrows the coin, wins, and comes back to share it. The child has wandered and returned. He finds her dead, throws the money into the snow, and picks up the body.
Cast & crew
More about The Golden Louis
D. W. Griffith directed for the Biograph Company in New York, from a scenario by Edward Acker, one of the stories a 1916 Moving Picture World profile says Griffith bought from him in 1908. Biograph released it on a split reel with Griffith's comedy The Politician's Love Story. The drama is 474 feet.
Themes
Look
Arthur Marvin photographed the short on interior sets at Biograph's 14th Street studio over January 28 and 29, 1909.
Preservation
Surviving copies show only the interior sets. A print is on Wikimedia Commons.
Notes
- The cast includes Adele DeGarde, Anita Hendrie, Owen Moore, Charles Inslee, Linda Arvidson, and Kate Bruce.
- Costumes suggest a seventeenth-century Paris. Roulette in the layout shown was not set until late in the eighteenth century. Bernard Hanson noted the mismatch in The Art Bulletin in December 1972.
- Some lists name Bleecker Street as a second location. The surviving print has no outdoor footage. The scenes play on interior corner sets.
Scenes
- A passerby slips a gold louis into the wooden shoe and walks on.
- The gambler finds the girl dead, scatters his winnings in the snow, and lifts the body.
Also available
- Wikimedia Commons (The Golden Louis.webm)
