The Hearts of Age
About The Hearts of Age
An old woman sits on a rocking bell while a servant in blackface hauls the rope. A dandy at the top of the stairs tips his hat and smiles at her. She does not answer. The servant hangs himself. In a dark room the dandy plays a grand piano, opens the lid, and finds the woman dead inside. He looks through tombstone cards reading "Sleeping," "At Rest," and "With The Lord," and picks the one that says "The End."
Cast & crew
More about The Hearts of Age
Orson Welles and William Vance co-directed the silent short in 1934 at the Todd School for Boys, where Welles had been a student. Welles was 19. He wrote it and plays Death. Vance also photographed it. No copyright was filed.
Themes
Look
William Vance shot the eight-minute silent picture at the Todd School.
Music
Silent.
Preservation
William Vance gave the original to the Greenwich Public Library in Connecticut, in the Vance Collection. Joseph McBride found it again in the late 1960s. The American Film Institute preserved a 16mm print and deposited one at the Library of Congress. No copyright was filed, and the film is in the public domain.
Notes
- Virginia Nicolson, Welles's first wife, plays the old woman and a Keystone Kop.
- William Vance plays an Indian in a blanket. Edgerton Paul is the bell-ringer in blackface. Blackie O'Neal is also in the cast.
- Vance's other recorded film is a 1932 student short of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.
- Wikipedia describes the short as an imitation of early films by Luis Buñuel and Jean Cocteau, and says Welles did not treat it as serious work.
Scenes
- The servant in blackface hangs himself after the woman ignores the dandy.
- Death opens the piano and finds her body inside.
- He chooses the tombstone card that reads "The End.
Influenced by
- Early films by Luis Buñuel and Jean Cocteau
Also available
- Wikimedia Commons (The Hearts of Age.webm)
