01:00.869 --> 01:02.419
How do you do, ladies and gentlemen?

01:03.150 --> 01:07.230
We've stopped production on Hollywood Canteen
to give me a moment to bring you an urgent

01:07.230 --> 01:09.019
wartime message from your government.

01:09.750 --> 01:13.819
It's simply this.
All boys on the fighting fronts are worried.

01:14.639 --> 01:18.830
They want to know that you'll stay on the job
with them until final victory is won.

01:20.050 --> 01:25.319
This is Ida Lupino in 1944 on the set of the
film Hollywood Canteen.

01:26.559 --> 01:30.430
Many people are familiar with the work of Ida
Lupino as an actress,

01:30.440 --> 01:35.430
but most don't know that Lupino was equally at
home behind the camera as a director.

01:36.190 --> 01:39.790
Lupino was just one of a number of excellent
women filmmakers,

01:40.360 --> 01:43.029
women who shaped the movies as we know them
today.

01:43.849 --> 01:47.930
As a film director, Ida Lupino was one of the
women who made the movies.

01:55.519 --> 01:59.650
Lupino directed a remarkable series of films
including Never Fear.

02:00.699 --> 02:04.129
The Trouble with Angels is probably Lupino's
best known work.

02:08.979 --> 02:14.069
But such excellent films as Hard, Fast and
Beautiful or The Hitchhiker deserve a wider

02:14.069 --> 02:18.759
audience.
The Bigamist is another thriller Lupino

02:18.759 --> 02:24.240
directed.
Her career began with Not Wanted in 1949 when

02:24.240 --> 02:26.279
she replaced director Elmer Clifton.

02:28.199 --> 02:32.789
From then on she would prove her ability as a
director in both film and television.

02:34.470 --> 02:39.429
However, studio publicity continually stressed
her femininity as if film direction were

02:39.429 --> 02:41.270
inherently a masculine domain.

02:42.699 --> 02:48.240
Ida Lupino may have been unique as one of the
few women directing films in the 1950s.

02:49.149 --> 02:53.839
But before her there were many women directors
making movies of all types.

02:55.500 --> 03:00.779
Here is a rare film by Kate Corbally, 80 Million
Women Want,

03:01.380 --> 03:03.649
which deals with the women's suffrage movement.

03:03.940 --> 03:07.300
It features the British feminist Emmeline
Pankhurst.

03:08.429 --> 03:13.100
This independent production was shot almost
entirely on location in New York.

03:13.589 --> 03:19.460
It made skillful use of newsreel footage of
actual feminist demonstrations such as this

03:19.460 --> 03:23.460
protest march on New York's 5th Avenue in front
of Saint Patrick's Cathedral.

03:24.440 --> 03:28.820
The staged interior shots of corrupt
politicians watching the parade are quite

03:28.820 --> 03:33.389
obvious, but this does not detract from the
immediacy of the work as a whole.

03:35.399 --> 03:40.610
In the early years of moviemaking, many women
directed at Universal Studios under producer

03:40.610 --> 03:44.800
Karl Laemmer.
Laemmer was notably supportive of women

03:44.800 --> 03:46.320
directors and screenwriters.

03:47.720 --> 03:51.630
One of the most important women of the
Universal group was Lois Weber,

03:51.919 --> 03:54.589
Actress, ceri, producer and director.

03:56.919 --> 04:02.880
Like Lupino, Lois Weber tackled controversial
themes and still made some of the top box

04:02.880 --> 04:04.770
office films of the silent era.

04:05.690 --> 04:10.699
Born into a strictly religious family, Weber
quickly moved from singing hymns to stage

04:10.699 --> 04:13.039
acting and then directing films.

04:13.490 --> 04:18.290
The plots of Weber's films almost always
revolved around her moral convictions.

04:20.028 --> 04:26.438
This rare tinted silent movie, Japanese Idol,
demonstrates that Weber was certainly

04:26.438 --> 04:31.259
directing at the same level as her
contemporaries, such as D.W. Griffith.

04:32.260 --> 04:36.190
Yet Weber and her work are almost completely
forgotten today.

04:36.779 --> 04:42.410
In addition to directing Japanese Idol, Weber
appears in the film as Cherry Blossom,

04:42.660 --> 04:44.779
one of the leading roles in this short film.

04:45.989 --> 04:49.899
Cherry Blossom is about to be betrothed in an
arranged marriage,

04:50.190 --> 04:52.829
but she and her lover refuse to bow to
convention.

04:53.790 --> 04:59.070
While Japanese Idol is certainly no cinema
masterpiece, it still offers a uniquely

04:59.070 --> 05:01.700
feminine point of view for a film of this
period.

06:44.250 --> 06:49.540
The final scene of the film in which the young
lovers escape the arranged marriage by sailing

06:49.540 --> 06:54.130
away in a boat is an exquisite example of early
deep focus photography.

06:54.869 --> 06:57.350
The lovers are silhouetted in the foreground.

06:58.890 --> 07:02.250
The boat which will take them to freedom rests
in the rear of the shot.

07:03.290 --> 07:07.339
In her use of actual locations for this final
scene of the film,

07:07.670 --> 07:11.040
Weber was clearly in tune with the work of
Edwin S.

07:11.070 --> 07:16.589
Porter, D.W. Griffith, Cecil Hepworth, and her
other better-known contemporaries.

07:17.720 --> 07:22.470
Japanese Idol is sentimental, romantic, and
thoroughly charming.

07:32.519 --> 07:37.429
Discontent, made in 1916, was based on a script
by Lois Weber,

07:37.679 --> 07:40.989
although she did not serve as the director of
record for the film.

07:41.839 --> 07:45.130
But Weber had a strong hand in the
construction of the film,

07:45.420 --> 07:50.209
and most historians credit her with the success
of the film's lightly comic narrative.

08:15.679 --> 08:20.640
This pleasant film demonstrates that Weber was
comfortable with light comedy as well as

08:20.640 --> 08:26.720
sentimental drama.
Weber was one of the top salaried directors

08:26.720 --> 08:28.269
working in the silent era.

08:29.239 --> 08:32.270
She made $5,000 a week at Universal.

08:33.539 --> 08:38.700
By 1917, Weber realized her lifelong dream of
building her own studio.

08:39.729 --> 08:45.690
But only three years later, in 1920, she was lured
away by Paramount with an offer of

08:45.690 --> 08:49.419
$50,000 per picture plus half of all the
profits.

08:52.020 --> 08:56.349
With the end of the Jazz Age, audiences lost
interest in Weber's moralizing.

08:58.710 --> 09:04.099
By 1929, Lois Weber had lost her company,
and divorced her husband,

09:04.349 --> 09:06.030
and suffered a nervous breakdown.

09:07.479 --> 09:12.450
In 1934, Weber tried to make a comeback with
an early sound picture,

09:12.619 --> 09:17.849
White Heat, but this low-budget production
failed to reestablish her at the box office.

09:33.530 --> 09:34.530
And

09:55.619 --> 10:01.940
Lois Weber remains one of the most interesting
and innovative of the early female directors in

10:01.940 --> 10:07.330
her other films, such as What's Worthwhile made
in 1921 and The Blot,

10:07.340 --> 10:12.900
which was recently rediscovered and restored,
Weber shows that she is an accomplished and

10:12.900 --> 10:13.979
personal filmmaker.

10:16.770 --> 10:21.909
Another woman who directed and wrote many films
for Universal was Ida May Park,

10:22.119 --> 10:24.789
who directed Bondage in 1917.

10:26.940 --> 10:30.640
Katherine Williams, best known as a silent
serial queen,

10:31.280 --> 10:34.489
directed The Leopard's Foundling in 1914.

10:42.940 --> 10:49.119
In her work at Selig studio, she made many
successful wild animal films and was known for

10:49.119 --> 10:50.510
her daring on the set.

10:52.000 --> 10:56.640
Ruth Stonehouse, another actress turned
director, was proud of the fact that she was

10:56.640 --> 10:59.280
able to direct her own scenarios.

10:59.799 --> 11:04.719
Stonehouse even appeared in advertisements for
beauty exercises and was one of the most

11:04.719 --> 11:06.469
popular actresses of the era.

11:09.219 --> 11:14.260
Grace Cunard was another actress who got a
chance to direct the star of a number of

11:14.260 --> 11:17.270
Universal serials.
She worked closely with her husband,

11:17.500 --> 11:19.460
actor-director Francis Ford.

11:22.150 --> 11:28.510
Together they made The Broken Coin, The Purple
Mask, and many other classic silent serials.

11:36.710 --> 11:43.059
In 1916, Cleo Madison starred in Her Defiance,
which she co-directed with Joe King.

11:44.359 --> 11:50.039
In Her Defiance, Cleo plays the role of a young
woman who is forced into an arranged marriage

11:50.039 --> 11:52.159
when she becomes pregnant by her boyfriend.

11:53.559 --> 11:59.799
Shot almost entirely on actual locations, Her
Defiance is a minor masterpiece of realistic

11:59.799 --> 12:03.960
filmmaking.
Madison's portrayal of the young heroine is

12:03.960 --> 12:05.190
natural and honest.

12:06.770 --> 12:12.409
Her Defiance can be seen as an early feminist
tract in which the heroine struggles to break

12:12.409 --> 12:17.799
free of the patriarchy, which continually
thwarts her every attempt at self-determination.

12:47.020 --> 12:51.979
Alone, pregnant, convinced that her lover has
abandoned her.

12:52.729 --> 12:57.260
The young woman is almost forced to marry an
older man whom she does not love.

13:25.570 --> 13:28.729
However, she finds it impossible to go through
with the ceremony.

13:29.559 --> 13:34.380
At the last minute she disrupts the wedding,
refusing to be victimized by society's

13:34.380 --> 13:35.619
artificial demands.

13:53.159 --> 13:56.989
Her flight to the city is a triumph of
naturalistic photography.

14:23.539 --> 14:29.250
In the city she confronts the young man who was
her lover, using the uncommon and effective

14:29.250 --> 14:31.530
device of a flashback within the frame.

14:31.940 --> 14:37.219
Madison repeats a scene shown earlier in the
film, in which the young woman and her lover are

14:37.219 --> 14:38.219
driven apart.

14:56.969 --> 15:00.890
In the final shots of this two-reel film, the
couple is reunited.

15:03.630 --> 15:10.539
Ruth Ann Baldwin's 4917, made in 1917, showed
that women were equally at home

15:10.539 --> 15:11.900
in the Western genre.

15:12.989 --> 15:18.750
Ruth Ann Baldwin began her career writing and
editing at Universal and eventually moved into

15:18.750 --> 15:21.059
the director's chair with great success.

15:22.820 --> 15:28.700
This tale of romance and gold panning in the
old west combines gentle comedy and human drama

15:28.700 --> 15:29.969
with great effectiveness.

16:18.270 --> 16:23.809
Universal Studios during the teens and early
twenties was an absolute beehive of activity.

16:24.340 --> 16:29.409
Films were shot with great rapidity and sets
were struck immediately after a successful shot

16:29.409 --> 16:34.340
was taken.
At Universal during the silent era,

16:34.380 --> 16:40.489
women had more opportunities to direct than at
any time other than the present in film history.

16:42.039 --> 16:47.000
From the dawn of cinema history, motion
pictures were a rigidly controlled patriarchal

16:47.000 --> 16:48.000
affair.

16:53.940 --> 16:58.929
Cinema history well records the work of Louis
and Auguste Lumière,

16:59.210 --> 17:04.930
W.K.L. Dixon, Thomas Edison, Edwin S.
Porter, Cecil Hepworth,

17:04.939 --> 17:07.489
and other key figures in the history of cinema.

17:13.119 --> 17:16.670
Yet as we have seen, theirs is only part of the
story.

17:20.709 --> 17:25.869
Snowball Fight, an early short by the Lumière
brothers, is a refreshing departure from

17:25.869 --> 17:26.869
Edison's work.

17:44.420 --> 17:51.339
Anything you can play I'll follow. George Méliès
is well known for his early narrative film A

17:51.339 --> 17:55.849
Trip to the Moon, which combines slapstick
comedy with whimsical fantasy.

17:56.099 --> 18:00.630
The film was a commercial and critical success
both in Europe and the United States.

18:02.949 --> 18:08.550
Yet it is undeniable that early male directors
such as Porter and Méliès sought to objectify

18:08.550 --> 18:14.430
the feminine, as in this primitive Edison
burlesque film Uncle Josh at the Moving Picture

18:14.430 --> 18:21.229
Show.
This

18:21.229 --> 18:27.270
clip from Cecil Hepworth's Rescued by Rover
demonstrates that very early in the evolution

18:27.270 --> 18:32.699
of the cinema, narrative strategies had already
been defined to a considerable degree.

18:57.380 --> 19:02.689
In this film, Hepworth structures one of the
first chase sequences in cinema history.

19:03.540 --> 19:08.619
Rover, the faithful family dog, rescues a young
child from a vengeful gypsy.

19:09.790 --> 19:13.750
Rover leads Mr.
Hepworth through the shabbier districts of

19:13.750 --> 19:18.189
London until the father locates his child in a
tenement attic.

19:21.130 --> 19:26.479
At the same time in France, however, another
director was doing work of equal importance,

19:26.770 --> 19:30.010
yet today her films are almost forgotten.

19:30.920 --> 19:35.910
Alice Guy-Blachet is, according to cinema
historian Ephraim Katz,

19:36.199 --> 19:42.520
the world's first woman director and possibly
the first director of either sex to bring a

19:42.520 --> 19:44.109
story film to the screen.

19:46.790 --> 19:52.089
In the early sound film Little Titch and his
Big Boots, produced at the Gomont Studios in

19:52.089 --> 19:58.810
1904, I can hear the limitations of early sync
sound recording done on wax cylinders.

20:10.229 --> 20:15.699
It is not known whether or not Alice Guy
Blachet herself directed Little Titch and his

20:15.699 --> 20:18.540
big boots, but it seems likely that she did.

20:19.540 --> 20:25.540
Alice Guy-Blachet made hundreds of these short
sound films for Gomont, in addition to her other

20:25.540 --> 20:27.530
directorial chores for that studio.

20:29.270 --> 20:32.859
Alice Guy was born to a bourgeois family on
July 1st,

20:32.949 --> 20:34.699
1875.

20:34.949 --> 20:38.699
Her father was a bookseller, while her mother
tended the home.

20:39.150 --> 20:41.510
She was one of four daughters and the youngest.

20:42.550 --> 20:47.790
At the age of 16, following the death of her
father, she became a stenographer and typist

20:47.790 --> 20:49.290
for various firms.

20:49.869 --> 20:56.630
In 1896, Alice Guy went to work for Leon
Gomont's film company, again in a secretarial

20:56.630 --> 21:01.270
position.
In that same year, Gomont wanted a full-scale

21:01.270 --> 21:05.469
film production.
After persistently asking Gomont for an

21:05.469 --> 21:10.150
opportunity to direct, Ms.
Guy was entrusted with the creation of her first

21:10.150 --> 21:14.910
cinematic project, La Fée aux Choux or the Cabbage
Fairy.

21:20.819 --> 21:26.329
In 1906, Alice Guy met and fell in love with
Herbert Blaché Bolton,

21:26.500 --> 21:28.780
an English cameraman who worked for Gomont.

21:30.989 --> 21:35.859
They were married after a whirlwind courtship
in late 1907.

21:35.989 --> 21:41.020
Leon Gomont placed Herbert Blaché in charge of
Gomont's New York office.

21:42.260 --> 21:45.619
For a time, the couple were happy in America,
working for Gomont.

21:47.119 --> 21:50.390
But eventually they left the company and on
September 7th,

21:50.439 --> 21:56.119
1910, Alice Guy Blaché formed her own film
company, Solax.

21:57.140 --> 22:01.250
Blaché served as Solax's president and chief
operating officer.

22:02.150 --> 22:05.979
The Solax's logo became well known to
audiences of the day.

22:06.239 --> 22:10.560
It is a blazing sun seen on the main titles of
all Sol A's films.

22:13.920 --> 22:17.150
His double is typical of many Sola productions.

22:17.439 --> 22:19.910
It has a strong female protagonist.

22:20.319 --> 22:24.630
It sees male domination as something to be
outwitted rather than directly challenged.

22:26.520 --> 22:31.180
The film has a strong sense of French farce in
its plot and visual construction.

22:32.310 --> 22:36.270
Most of the action in his double takes place on
a few cramped sets.

22:37.199 --> 22:42.300
The actors play their parts broadly in keeping
with the traditional theatrical performance

22:42.300 --> 22:43.329
style of the period.

22:46.949 --> 22:51.969
In his double, Grace, a young woman, is forced
by her comically pompous father to reject the

22:51.969 --> 22:54.689
man she loves for a man of her father's
choosing.

22:55.670 --> 23:00.099
Once again, as in Lois Weber's Japanese Idol
and other films directed by women,

23:00.349 --> 23:03.900
a forced or arranged marriage forms the main
plot of the work.

23:04.880 --> 23:07.040
Visually, his double is unremarkable.

23:07.319 --> 23:12.119
What is remarkable is its message that a strong
woman protagonist in a film,

23:12.199 --> 23:14.959
as in life, could take charge of her own
destiny.

23:16.140 --> 23:20.030
When introduced to her father's choice for a
husband, Count Lackingcoy,

23:20.459 --> 23:25.339
the young woman objects vociferously and
refuses to submit to the Count's attentions.

23:26.619 --> 23:30.849
Jack, Grace's true love, looks in through the
window in the rear of the shot.

23:31.099 --> 23:35.930
He notes the resemblance between himself and
the Count and sees a chance to pull off a

23:35.930 --> 23:36.939
successful deception.

23:40.000 --> 23:45.079
False identities formed the plot material for a
number of Alice Guy Blaché's films.

23:45.359 --> 23:49.489
We'll see this theme repeated in several of her
films made during this period.

24:14.609 --> 24:20.219
This missing mirror gag, repeated many years
later by the Marx Brothers in Duck Soup, shows

24:20.219 --> 24:24.119
that Alice Guy Blaché was an inventive comedy
director.

24:24.410 --> 24:29.030
She loved little bits of comedic business which
she freely borrowed from the stage.

24:41.770 --> 24:45.160
The film's climax comes when Grace, dressed as
a ghost,

24:45.400 --> 24:47.630
threatens Count Lackingcoy with a revolver.

24:48.439 --> 24:52.959
The Count falls out a window into a
conveniently located cistern and rushes off

24:52.959 --> 24:56.400
down the street.
Unaware of the masquerade,

24:56.630 --> 24:59.550
Grace's father agrees to the wedding of Grace
and Jack.

24:59.800 --> 25:03.270
Only after the wedding does he discover that he
has been deceived.

25:26.260 --> 25:29.530
A House Divided is another representative
Sola's film.

25:30.650 --> 25:34.530
A young couple are nearly separated through a
romantic misunderstanding.

25:40.050 --> 25:44.729
They agreed to communicate with each other only
through notes after consulting the family

25:44.729 --> 25:48.589
Lawyer.
The plot is reminiscent of today's television

25:48.589 --> 25:54.380
sitcoms in which a domestic crisis is
introduced and then resolved all in one episode.

26:26.400 --> 26:27.400
And then

26:36.349 --> 26:42.709
Soex made thrillers, melodramas, comedies,
romances, and even operatic subjects which

26:42.709 --> 26:49.050
Alice Gieblachey filmed in lavishly mounted
three-reel productions using a sync sound

26:49.050 --> 26:52.130
process similar to Gomont's chronophone.

27:22.599 --> 27:26.199
Now all you girls come gather round, stop
raving about your men.

27:26.760 --> 27:30.079
And let me tell you how sweet mine is though he
commits a sinner.

27:31.579 --> 27:32.979
Make love to me it's murder.

27:34.040 --> 27:36.859
But now when he tells me that's murder.

27:38.150 --> 27:41.859
Now when he feels temperamental, I just let him
have his way.

27:42.069 --> 27:45.579
I can only see him twice a week.
He's a member of the PWA.

27:45.869 --> 27:48.329
Now when my baby caresses me, it's murder.

27:49.770 --> 27:56.030
But if I commit murder I tell him that he's not
mine.

27:56.180 --> 27:59.640
He turns into Frankenstein, makes shivers run
up and down my spine.

28:00.630 --> 28:01.630
That's murder.

28:33.069 --> 28:34.729
It's love to me it's murder.

28:35.780 --> 28:38.530
Now when he turns to do me, that's murder.

28:39.569 --> 28:43.119
Now when he feels temperamental, I just let him
have his way.

28:43.329 --> 28:46.729
You know, he ain't afraid of the big bad wolf.
I found that out today.

28:47.130 --> 28:52.729
Now.
But if he ever dispossesses me, I will.

28:54.719 --> 28:56.930
Now he drinks liquor and everything.

28:57.199 --> 29:00.209
He's got, it's got that swing, but when he
shakes.

29:01.630 --> 29:02.630
That's murder.

29:34.569 --> 29:39.770
The happy ending of A House Divided comes as
the couple realizes the idiocy of their actions.

29:40.920 --> 29:43.630
For getting their agreement, they kiss and make
up.

29:43.949 --> 29:47.119
Predictably, the attorney does not agree to
their reconciliation.

29:47.800 --> 29:52.160
The couple, however, refuse to put up with the
lawyer's continued interference.

29:52.900 --> 29:56.420
In most romantic comedies, all's well that ends
well.

29:59.290 --> 30:04.060
In The Girl in the Armchair, Frank, a young man
who was betrothed to Peggy Wilson,

30:04.270 --> 30:08.859
is forced into stealing $500 from his
father-in-law to be safe.

30:28.849 --> 30:33.599
The next morning in a yellow tinted scene,
Frank makes a clean breast of it and is

30:33.599 --> 30:34.599
forgiven.

30:41.510 --> 30:47.189
In the final rose-tinted sequence of the film,
Peggy and Frank contemplate matrimony as

30:47.189 --> 30:49.180
Peggy's parents look on approvingly.

31:23.510 --> 31:27.619
Whenever possible, Blachet would shoot her
exterior scenes on location,

31:27.910 --> 31:30.949
although she would revert to the studio for
historical spectacles,

31:31.109 --> 31:33.900
fantasy films, and comic farces such as this
one.

31:38.310 --> 31:43.430
Blanchet's desire for more natural performances
from her actors was legendary within the

31:43.430 --> 31:48.160
industry.
In fact, Alice Guy Blachey had a sign posted

31:48.160 --> 31:52.229
above all Solax sets commanding her actors to
be natural.

31:53.189 --> 31:58.500
Many people assume that women directors are
only interested in love stories or melodramas,

31:58.630 --> 32:01.579
but Blanchet had a love of action and spectacle.

32:04.599 --> 32:09.589
It is sad that only the romantic comedies of
the Solax Company seem to have survived,

32:09.959 --> 32:13.989
for Alice Guy Blachey was at home in all genres
of the cinema.

32:15.819 --> 32:21.349
For the 1912 film The Sewer, which Alice Guy
Blachey produced but did not direct,

32:21.739 --> 32:26.130
Solax used real sewer rats to attack the film's
hero on cue.

32:27.469 --> 32:30.939
For her real production of Dick
Whittington and His Cat,

32:31.150 --> 32:34.439
a super spectacular released by Solax on
March 1st,

32:34.589 --> 32:41.060
1913, Alice Guy Blachey spent $35,000 to produce
the film.

32:41.790 --> 32:48.790
She used a cast of 200, an army of rats, and 26
sets of period England as recounted by film

32:48.790 --> 32:50.900
historian Mark Wanamaker.

32:55.880 --> 33:01.680
Alice Guy Blachey often publicized the fact that
she was a woman director in an otherwise male

33:01.680 --> 33:02.719
dominated industry.

33:04.280 --> 33:08.030
When the film trade publications found out
about her unique position,

33:08.199 --> 33:11.310
they rushed to exploit her as some sort of
curiosity.

33:12.510 --> 33:17.670
Alice Guy Blachey went along with the publicity,
understanding that it was good for the box

33:17.670 --> 33:24.209
office.
In fact, Alice Guy Blachey actively

33:24.209 --> 33:27.000
encouraged other women to join the film
industry.

33:28.000 --> 33:33.140
In her article The Woman's Place in Photoplay
production, Blanchet wrote,

33:33.829 --> 33:38.829
It has long been a source of wonder to me that
many women have not seized upon the wonderful

33:38.829 --> 33:43.349
opportunities offered to them by the motion
picture art to make their way to fame and

33:43.349 --> 33:45.630
fortune as producers of photodramas.

33:47.420 --> 33:51.579
Of all the arts, there is probably none in
which they can make such splendid use of

33:51.579 --> 33:57.099
talents so much more natural to a woman than to
a man and so necessary to its perfection.

34:21.969 --> 34:28.800
Officer Henderson, Solax's production number 263,
tells the tale of two young policemen who go

34:28.800 --> 34:32.050
undercover in women's clothing to capture a
purse snatcher.

34:56.969 --> 35:02.689
Interwoven with this storyline is a subplot in
which the wife of one of the policemen finds a

35:02.689 --> 35:07.639
dress her husband is wearing for the assignment
and imagines that he has been unfaithful to her.

35:08.629 --> 35:13.669
Predictably, all these complications are
comfortably resolved within the confines of the

35:13.669 --> 35:15.260
film's 10-minute running time.

35:17.189 --> 35:23.790
In 1920, Alice Gulachey directed her last film,
Tarnished Reputation starring Dolores

35:23.790 --> 35:30.449
Cassinelli.
It was not until 1953 that the French

35:30.449 --> 35:34.770
government suddenly remembered her
contributions to cinema and awarded Alice

35:34.770 --> 35:36.570
Gulachey the Legion of Honor.

35:37.669 --> 35:39.629
She was 80 years old at the time.

35:43.399 --> 35:49.959
Alice Gulachey returned to the United States
in 1964 to live with her daughter Simone in

35:49.959 --> 35:51.409
Mawhan, New Jersey.

35:51.679 --> 35:57.199
She died there on March 24, 1968, at the age of
95.

35:59.939 --> 36:04.169
Alice Gulachey is clearly a major figure in
the history of film.

36:04.739 --> 36:10.179
It is equally clear that posterity has not been
kind or even just to her many accomplishments.

36:12.330 --> 36:18.639
It was only in the early 1970s that feminist
critics began to establish Alice Gulachey's

36:18.639 --> 36:22.669
position as one of the most important founding
figures of cinema.

36:24.229 --> 36:30.070
Alice Gulachey paved the way for scores of
women directing in Hollywood in the 1920s.

36:32.459 --> 36:37.129
In 1916, Lois Weber directed the melodrama John
Needham's Devil.

36:38.669 --> 36:43.810
Weber's social drama To Please One Woman
compares well to the films of Dorothy Davenport

36:43.810 --> 36:46.949
Reed, who often worked with Adela Rogers Saint
John.

36:49.620 --> 36:54.459
Reed directed and produced a series of
strong melodramas after her famous husband,

36:54.459 --> 36:59.050
actor Wallace Reed, who died tragically in 1922 as
a result of drug addiction.

37:01.310 --> 37:04.030
Mrs.
Reed, seen here with producer Trem Carr,

37:04.110 --> 37:06.620
made films out of a sense of moral obligation.

37:07.919 --> 37:11.189
Alice Gulachey's favorite expression was 'be natural,'

37:11.399 --> 37:16.790
as seen in this magazine article. Dorothy
Davenport Reed shared a similar philosophy: be

37:16.790 --> 37:20.739
yourself.
The New York Times praised the naturalism of

37:20.739 --> 37:22.250
The Sensation Seekers.

37:25.840 --> 37:29.709
The red kimono made by Mrs.
Wallace Reed is a fine example of the

37:29.709 --> 37:33.590
meticulous attention to detail that marked the
best of Reed's,

37:33.600 --> 37:35.550
Weber's and Gulachey's mini films.

37:37.739 --> 37:42.679
It's interesting to note that Dorothy Arzner
worked with Reed on the script of this film.

37:43.889 --> 37:48.929
Arzner was later to direct films herself and, of
all the Hollywood women directors, she enjoyed

37:48.929 --> 37:50.000
the most fame.

38:01.159 --> 38:04.679
Although Walter Lang receives director's credit
on The Red Kimono,

38:04.879 --> 38:08.270
the entire production was closely supervised by
Mrs.

38:08.280 --> 38:09.280
Wallace Reed.

38:36.489 --> 38:41.439
The main character in the red kimono is a young
woman who was forced by circumstance into

38:41.439 --> 38:46.370
prostitution. Mrs.
Wallace Reid herself presents the framework of

38:46.370 --> 38:50.520
the narrative, directly addressing the audience
at the start of the film,

38:50.729 --> 38:52.540
a novel technique for the time.

38:53.209 --> 38:56.679
A number of critics felt the film was too
downbeat, but Mrs.

38:56.689 --> 39:01.330
Wallace Reid wanted to present a true picture
of the social conditions that affected women in

39:01.330 --> 39:03.040
the 1920s.

39:03.489 --> 39:08.159
The red kimono is told through the eyes of its
female protagonist and is particularly

39:08.159 --> 39:09.570
sympathetic to her plight.

39:13.669 --> 39:17.520
The career of Dorothy Davenport Reid should not
be forgotten,

39:17.850 --> 39:23.120
yet this copy of the Red Kimono is one of the
few surviving prints of a Mrs.

39:23.129 --> 39:24.370
Wallace Reid production.

40:27.629 --> 40:31.939
In 1924, Mrs.
Wallace Reid started her own production company

40:31.939 --> 40:37.120
and produced and acted in Broken Laws, which
examined the subject of child neglect.

40:37.550 --> 40:40.949
Films directed by Dorothy Davenport Reid
include Linda,

40:40.989 --> 40:47.820
1929, and Sucker Money, 1933, an expose of the
seance confidence game.

40:48.659 --> 40:53.780
In 1934, Mrs.
Reid directed two films, The Road to Ruin and

40:53.780 --> 40:58.570
The Woman Condemned, both dealing with the
problems of a young woman in contemporary

40:58.570 --> 40:59.570
society.

41:19.739 --> 41:23.280
The murder sequence in the red kimono is
particularly effective.

41:23.810 --> 41:28.330
Reid has established the audience's sympathy
for the young woman confronting her

41:28.330 --> 41:31.010
ex-boyfriend in a jewelry shop she has rebuffed.

42:51.679 --> 42:54.189
In an act of passion, the young woman kills him.

42:54.439 --> 42:58.909
She is arrested, but Reid refuses to see the
young woman's situation as hopeless.

42:59.820 --> 43:04.580
Reid takes the time to develop a relationship
between the young woman and a sympathetic

43:04.580 --> 43:05.629
prison matron.

43:06.199 --> 43:10.070
The film implies that the young woman's crime
will ultimately be forgiven.

44:38.909 --> 44:43.669
While Dorothy Davenport Reid was directing
straightforward narrative films in the United

44:43.669 --> 44:49.629
States, Germaine Dulac was directing
groundbreaking experimental films in France in

44:49.629 --> 44:53.919
1915.
Germaine Dulac and her husband founded Delia

44:53.919 --> 45:00.409
Film.
Dulac directed her first film that same year.

45:00.699 --> 45:06.139
By the time she directed The Seashell and the
Clergyman, she was well known as an avant-garde

45:06.139 --> 45:12.889
filmmaker.
In Louise Heckscher's excellent book

45:12.889 --> 45:17.719
Women Filmmakers, critic Sharon Smith analyzes
The Seashell and the Clergyman.

45:18.370 --> 45:22.280
Smith states that the film exposes male sexual
fantasies.

45:34.620 --> 45:39.090
The British film censor refused to pass the
film on the grounds that it is so

45:39.090 --> 45:42.840
cryptic as to be almost meaningless. If there is
a meaning,

45:43.010 --> 45:44.760
it is doubtless objectionable.

45:47.449 --> 45:53.270
Nevertheless, the film has survived and is now
recognized as one of the most influential early

45:53.270 --> 45:55.479
films of the French experimental cinema.

45:56.770 --> 46:01.689
With this film and her 1923 production of The
Smiling Madame Bede,

46:02.330 --> 46:06.889
Dulac created for herself an enduring place in
the world of avant-garde film.

46:10.780 --> 46:16.550
Dulac can be seen as the forerunner of American
experimental filmmaker Maya Deren, who made a

46:16.550 --> 46:20.189
number of influential surrealist films in the
1940s.

46:42.350 --> 46:46.909
Oh, my blood boils with the tropic heat and
the rhythm of my heart is the tom-tom beat.

46:47.629 --> 46:49.330
You bring up the

46:51.639 --> 46:55.189
primitive love that has reached my ears with a
passion of 100 million.

46:56.620 --> 46:58.010
You bring out the

47:00.510 --> 47:07.290
In 1930, Germaine Dulac was named a Chevalier
of the Legion of Honor in homage to her

47:07.290 --> 47:11.719
long struggle as a personal and
uncompromisingly artistic filmmaker.

47:12.969 --> 47:16.419
Dulac directed her last film in 1929.

47:16.929 --> 47:23.000
From then until her death in 1942, she ran the
newsreel units of Paha and Gomont.

47:32.219 --> 47:36.729
My blood boils with the tropic heat and the
rhythm of my heart is tom-tom beat.

47:37.110 --> 47:39.679
You bring out the savage in

47:41.100 --> 47:45.399
primitive love cries that reach my ears with the
passion of 100 million years.

47:45.689 --> 47:46.800
You bring

47:47.939 --> 47:49.489
hate to me.

47:51.020 --> 47:52.810
I call it madness or sin.

47:53.719 --> 47:57.479
How was I to know what I was sleeping with?

47:59.110 --> 48:03.199
Just like Tarzan, you'll be my ape man.
I'm getting so ferocious and you can't escape,

48:03.229 --> 48:08.699
man.
You'll find out how wild I can be, for you.

48:19.709 --> 48:25.530
In Germany in the 1930s, another young woman
was busy making an entirely different kind of

48:25.530 --> 48:26.530
film.

48:58.020 --> 49:02.899
Reisland picked up the basics of film
technique while starring in such films as Peaks

49:02.899 --> 49:07.260
of Destiny, 1926, and The Big Leap, 1927.

49:20.870 --> 49:24.540
Reisland's editing techniques, her choice of
camera coverage,

49:24.629 --> 49:30.510
and her skillful use of music demonstrated that
she was a filmmaker with a total command of all

49:30.510 --> 49:31.739
aspects of the medium.

49:33.540 --> 49:37.090
This was not lost on the American filmmaker
Frank Capra,

49:37.260 --> 49:39.169
who realized the power of her work.

49:40.280 --> 49:45.149
Capra incorporated clips from Riefenstahl and Stall's
films into the Why We Fight series,

49:45.399 --> 49:48.679
an American series of anti-Nazi propaganda
films.

50:25.780 --> 50:30.340
When the Nazis rose to power, Riefenstahl
aligned herself with the movement and became

50:30.340 --> 50:32.530
Hitler's foremost propagandist.

50:39.550 --> 50:44.699
Olympia is perhaps the high point of
Riefenstahl's deservedly controversial career.

50:55.969 --> 51:01.449
Olympia revolutionized sports photography with
its then unprecedented use of the telephoto

51:01.449 --> 51:03.959
lens and slow motion photography.

52:43.649 --> 52:49.080
Yet in the Hollywood of the 1930s to mid-40s,
there was only one woman director whose work

52:49.080 --> 52:50.520
was well known to the public.

52:52.139 --> 52:56.879
Dorothy Arzner is well remembered for her
distinguished films starring glamorous but

52:56.879 --> 52:58.550
often tough leading ladies.

53:00.239 --> 53:04.429
Arzner worked with Joan Crawford in the film
"Dressed to Kill" in 1937.

53:06.580 --> 53:08.580
The film's wife stars Rosalind Russell.

53:11.100 --> 53:14.860
Katharine Hepburn delivered one of her best
performances in Christopher Strong.

53:17.540 --> 53:22.110
The women who made the movies paved the way for
the many women directing films today.

53:22.679 --> 53:27.830
They made lasting, yet often unjustly neglected
contributions to the history of cinema.

53:29.290 --> 53:35.129
All shared a deep personal determination and a
compelling drive to make their own films.

53:35.370 --> 53:39.250
The vision of these women filmmakers is quite
different from that of their male

53:39.250 --> 53:44.280
contemporaries.
Most films by women directors show a deep and

53:44.280 --> 53:50.149
abiding concern for realism, especially when it
comes to depicting women's issues or social

53:50.149 --> 53:56.310
concerns.
These pioneering women directors will not be

53:56.310 --> 54:00.320
forgotten.
They left their personal mark on the history

54:00.610 --> 54:02.639
and the art of the motion picture.