The Massacre
About The Massacre
A woman Stephen loved is dying, and the other man has been killed. Stephen swears to protect their child. Grown, the girl chooses a stranger. Stephen goes to the Northwest and into the army's wars. He takes part in a raid that wipes out an Indian village. The survivors attack the wagon train that is carrying the young wife. Her husband, coming back, finds what Stephen's protection has cost.
Cast & crew
More about The Massacre
D. W. Griffith wrote and directed it for American Mutoscope and Biograph. G. W. Bitzer photographed it. General Film distributed it. Shot in 1912. Released in Europe on November 7, 1912, and in the United States on February 26, 1914. Two reels.
Themes
Background
A 1912 Biograph Western held back in the United States until February 1914, after Griffith had left the company.
Making
Griffith staged both the cavalry raid on the village and the attack on the circled wagons in the same two-reeler, with Bitzer shooting the fights.
Look
G. W. Bitzer photographed the village raid and the wagon-train fight.
Preservation
A complete two-reel print survives.
Notes
- Wilfred Lucas plays Stephen. Blanche Sweet plays his ward. Charles West plays the ward's husband. Alfred Paget plays an Indian chief.
- Claire McDowell plays Stephen's belle in the prologue. Edward Dillon plays John Randolph in the prologue and in the cavalry.
- Lionel Barrymore, Robert Harron, and Jack Pickford are in the company.
- A Moving Picture World synopsis is the source for the dying mother, the grown girl, and the Northwest campaign.
- The U.S. release lagged the European one by more than a year.
Scenes
- The cavalry raid leaves an Indian village destroyed.
- The survivors hit the wagon camp, and the young husband returns to see who protected his wife.
Also available
- Wikimedia Commons
