| The Lonely Villa | |
|---|---|
Play film; runtime 00:11:41 | |
| Directed by | D. W. Griffith |
| Written by | Mack Sennett |
| Based on | Au Telephone byAndré de Lorde |
| Starring | David Miles |
| Cinematography | G. W. Bitzer Arthur Marvin |
| Distributed by | Biograph Company |
Release date |
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Running time | 12 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | Silent (Englishintertitles) |
The Lonely Villa is a 1909 Americanshortsilentcrime drama film directed byD. W. Griffith. The film starsDavid Miles,Marion Leonard andMary Pickford in one of her first film roles. It is based on the 1901 French playAu Téléphone (At the Telephone) byAndré de Lorde.[1] A print ofThe Lonely Villa survives and is currently in thepublic domain.[2]The Lonely Villa was produced by theBiograph Company and shot inFort Lee, New Jersey.[3][4] It was released on June 10, 1909, along with another D.W. Griffith split-reel film,A New Trick.[2]
A group of criminals wait until a wealthy man leaves to break into his house and threaten his wife and daughters. The wife and daughters take refuge inside one of the rooms, but the thieves break in. The father finds out what is happening and runs back home to try to save his family.
The Lonely Villa is notable for one of the earliest applications of “cross-cutting in a peril-and-rescue sequence”, a cinematic method used to create suspense.
The film, 12-minutes in duration, includes a series of alternating shots depicting the mother desperately defending her children from intruders, with shots of the frantic father driving at high speed to reach his imperiled family. Griffith, by incrementally shortening the length of each cross-cut “heightened the excitement” of the event.[5]
