The Lonely Villa
About The Lonely Villa
Three burglars send Robert Cullison a fake letter that draws him out of the house, and one of them unloads the pistol he leaves with his wife. The butler and maid go too. The wife and three daughters barricade themselves while the men break through room after room, work at a safe, and take a necklace. Cullison's car dies. He telephones from an inn, borrows a wagon, and races back with a policeman. They arrive as the family is still holding the inner door.
Cast & crew
More about The Lonely Villa
D. W. Griffith directed. Mack Sennett wrote it, from André de Lorde's 1901 play Au Téléphone. G. W. Bitzer and Arthur Marvin photographed it, in Fort Lee and at Biograph's New York studio. David Miles plays Cullison, Florence Lawrence his wife, Mary Pickford the eldest daughter, Gladys Egan the youngest, Adele DeGarde the middle girl. Owen Moore, Anthony O'Sullivan, and Herbert Prior are burglars. Sennett plays the butler and a policeman. Biograph released it on 10 June 1909 on a split reel with Griffith's A New Trick.
Themes
Background
Biograph put it out on 10 June 1909, paired with A New Trick, while Griffith was building chase-and-rescue stories on split reels.
Making
Sennett both wrote the short and acted in it, doubling as butler and policeman, while Griffith cut between the house and the road.
Look
Bitzer and Marvin covered the villa, the inn telephone, and the wagon on the road so the two lines of action could be cut together.
Technique
Parallel cutting between the barricaded room and Cullison's ride home is the device the short is built on.
Preservation
A print survives and is in the public domain.
Notes
- Pickford's part is one of her first film roles.
- The rescue depends on the telephone call from the inn and the cut back to the rooms.
- Anita Hendrie plays the maid. Robert Harron is in the company.
Scenes
- Cullison hears the break-in over the inn telephone.
- The daughters and their mother brace the inner door until the wagon arrives.
Influenced by
- André de Lorde's play Au Téléphone (1901)
