The Sealed Room
About The Sealed Room
A king (Arthur V. Johnson) has a windowless room built in a tower as a private place for himself and his favorite (Marion Leonard), with only one door left open. At the dedication he suspects her of watching an Italian troubadour (Henry B. Walthall). He has himself called away. She and the singer pledge an hour by the hourglass, and she drops rose leaves in time with the sand. He returns, sees them, and has the masons wall up the door. When the glass runs out they find stone where the door was.
Cast & crew
More about The Sealed Room
Frank E. Woods wrote the scenario. G. W. Bitzer photographed it on 22 and 23 July 1909. The Biograph bulletin of 2 September 1909 ties the story to a walled room found in a ruined castle, with two skeletons inside. The picture draws on Balzac's "La Grande Bretèche" and Poe's "The Cask of Amontillado." It went out on a split reel with the three-minute comedy The Little Darling. The release length was 779 feet.
Themes
Background
A Biograph split-reel drama of September 1909, issued with The Little Darling.
Making
Bitzer shot the whole picture in two days inside the Biograph studio in New York.
Look
G. W. Bitzer photographed it in the Biograph New York studio on 22 and 23 July 1909.
Music
Silent, with English intertitles.
Preservation
Prints circulate, including the copy on the Internet Archive under TheSealedRoom_418.
Notes
- Mary Pickford and Linda Arvidson play ladies-in-waiting.
- Mack Sennett plays a soldier.
- Owen Moore, William J. Butler, and Verner Clarges are noblemen at court.
- It is also known as The Sealed Door.
Scenes
- The favorite lets rose leaves fall with the sand in the hourglass.
- The masons close the only door while the song is still going.
- The lovers meet a wall of stone.
Influenced by
- La Grande Bretèche (Honoré de Balzac)
- The Cask of Amontillado (Edgar Allan Poe)
Also available
- Internet Archive (TheSealedRoom_418)
