Friends

Friends (1912) - Speaking of the growing phenomenon of star power, this is the first film I have ever seen that features a credit of the cast - at the beginning of the film no less. I think that we must assume that certain actors were becoming recognizable by film audiences at this point. There are indeed four "stars" to this picture - the primary attraction being the return of Mary Pickford after a year’s sojourn with Griffith rival Thomas H. Ince at IMP (Independent Moving Pictures Co. of America). Sharing the credits with the now-20-year-old veteran are Henry B. Walthall, Lionel Barrymore and Harry Carey.

Friends is a very simply shot, straightforward story which seems designed to give the actors room to play, and they all emote quite well on screen. Standing out especially is Walthall (who will go on to portray the Little Colonel in The Birth of a Nation) as a suave western dandy, prefiguring Clark Gable’s Rhett Butler by nearly thirty years.

Griffith opens with a close-up of Pickford, and the following title card tells us that she is Dora, an orphan in a Colorodo mining town. Pickford’s name appears on the card again, implying that Biograph is attempting to both capitalize on her name for drawing power, as well as to help promote her fame.

As the film proper begins, we see Dora alone in her room. A title card introduces Dandy Jack, a gambler, repeating Walthall’s name the same way it announced Pickford. This is an interesting strategy of trying to help the audience identify and remember the actors, as well as the characters. Clearly, the exploitation of players to sell a film is well underway at this point.

Dandy Jack rides up the street on his horse, then enters a saloon, where he is hailed by all the men, lustily drinking away. Pickford exits her room, then begins to descends the stairs that a quick cut will demonstrate that she lives upstairs over the bar. She calls out to Dandy Jack and invites him upstairs.

I was rather shocked on first viewing, as Pickford was seemingly playing a prostitute. But it turns out that Dandy Jack is her boyfriend - but here Griffith atypically leaves their sexual relationship ambiguous and not a little suggestive.

Dora returns to her room, waiting impatiently, while Dandy Jack remains at the bar, seemingly oblivious. In a nice touch, Pickford stomps her foot on the floor to get his attention below, but Dandy Jack just smiles and gestures her off.

I just have to take a moment to note how quickly and economically Griffith has established that Dora lives in a room over the bar. Very simple cuts, as I mentioned before, made this clear to the audience. But in essence, a larger story is being told. We are given no background on the relationship between this pair, but we can easily imagine an entire past for these two characters, as Dora must have met Dandy Jack as he frequented the bar, and that this was how their relationship began, and about which it is still surrounded and defined.

When Dora finally coaxes Dandy Jack to come up, he simply opens her door and walks in - apparently he has quite free license with her. Dandy Jack informs her that he’s leaving town in search of bigger money. She wants to go with him, but Jack informs her in no uncertain terms that she is staying where she is. Dora bursts into tears. The swell-dressed heel manages to look a bit guilty, but still departs quickly. He goes back down the bar, wishes everyone a goodbye, then exits out into the street. Dora watches him ride away weepily from her window above. He exits with a swagger, bidding the town farewell - there is a marvelous little gesture where he swoops one way down the street, then turns back to exit the other way, lending his character more charisma and braggadocio.

A third title card introduces Bob Kyne, a miner, played by Harry Carey. Carey remains in the background behind two other miners, panning his gold. One has to wonder whether this was originally planned (or even shot) as a longer film, as Carey simply appears here, and has nothing at all to do with the consequent action.

The fourth title card announces Grizzley Fallon, a wandering prospector, played by Lionel Barrymore. Fallon approaches Dandy Jack, who has come to give his good byes to the miners. He is all beefy, outdoors good will, and he shakes Jack’s hand with great enthusiasm. They are as fine a pair as you would want to see out in the wild - two characters so different, but with genuine affection for one another. Griffith and his two actors here achieve a wonderfully incongruous portrait of life out in the great West and the unlikely comradeship of such diverse characters.

Carey comes into the scene and holds Jack’s horse, so he is at least given something to do. (Was Harry Carey a known film actor at this time?) Both miners wave heartily as Jack rides away.
We return to the street in front of the hotel/saloon in which Dora lives, and watch Fallon’s arrival. This is an interesting shot throughout the picture, as people come and go (or simply sit) in the foreground, down the road behind, other characters are continually attending to other business of their own. Here, there is a little square dance taking place out in the street, and with this simple device, Griffith manages to demonstrate the existence of an entire community with very few shots.

Fallon enters the bar, presumably looking to get a room. Meanwhile, upstairs, Dora is still pining away for her Dandy Jack. She puts on a shawl and hat and heads downstairs. She comes into the bar flirtatiously. Several of the men offer her their arms to take her on a stroll outside, but Dora coquettishly rebuffs them.

Heading alone out into the street, she is followed by big Grizzly Fallon, standing on the porch looking after her, indeed like a big bear. He follows her up the street until she runs into a male acquaintance who formally introduces Fallon to her. Dora remains stand offish and continually moves away from Fallon, who each time scratches his head with perplexed frustration.

They move back into the bar, and as Dora begins her ascent back up to her room, Barrymore delivers a wonderful John Wayne-type comic motion of removing another man’s hat in her presence. He follows to the stairs, where she finally smiles and shakes his hand in acquaintance. There is no real explanation for her delay - Dora was evidently simply being coy.

Back upstairs, we observe Dora thinking, and Pickford delivers a subtle smile and a shrug suggesting that - who knows? - she might as well consider the big lug. However, a few moments later, she is looking at a photograph of Dandy Jack in a frame. There’s no real contest between the two men, but Jack is gone now, isn’t he?

Meanwhile Fallon approaches her door and knocks deferentially - a great contrast to the smooth entrance of Dandy Jack - and Dora stands, attempting to decide what to do. Her mind goes back and forth while she leaves the big guy dangling outside, but she finally resolves her dilemma, and quickly stashes Jack’s photo away. She smiles and invites the big, smiling galoot in. Dora takes Fallon’s outstretched hand for another hearty shake, and her little hand is tiny in his mighty mitt. Then quite naturally, she puts her other hand on his, then folds herself into his big, loving, waiting arms.

A title card announces "LATER." At first viewing, I thought that this meant about an hour later - or after coitus. But it turns out to be quite a while later - many days or weeks.

Fallon is in the bar again, and he exits into the street. (I have to mention one of the funniest, most inexplicable actions I’ve ever seen in a film here. Down the street, in the background action, a man is pushing another man in what looks like a large wooden wheelbarrow. Suddenly, for no apparent reason, he stops, turns and unceremoniously dumps his passenger out into the middle of the road. No one seems to notice or reacts to this bizarre event, and the main foreground action keeps going.)

Fallon exits, and suddenly Dandy Jack comes riding back into town and enters the bar. Suave as ever, in his tux and top hat, Jack stands at the bar, while the others silently, nervously eye him. Finally, one of them attempts to give him the news.

Whether the information is actually delivered is unclear, but Jack suddenly appears at Dora’s door, knocks lightly, then slowly, cautiously, lets himself in. He smiles to Dora, removes his hat, and begins to perambulate about the room as she stands there, fixed, confused and frightened.

Without looking at him, Dora slides to the door, asking Jack to please leave. He simply smiles and shakes his head. He’s come back home and he wants her again. Dora closes the door simply, as if in acquiescence. Pickford’s eyes and slow body motions do all of the acting, as she turns and slowly edges hungrily back towards Jack. Finally, she throws her body into his arms with such amazing gusto that we realize that she has pined for him all along.

As he caresses her however, Jack’s eye spies something on her desk below them. As Dora continues to weep at his shoulder and kiss at his cheek, Jack reaches down to pick up the picture frame which now hold the photograph of Fallon, rather than himself.

Dora confesses (via title card), "He is the man I was engaged to marry before you came back." Jack smiles in defeat and begins to return the picture frame back. A quick cut shows him striding jauntily back into the bar. He announces, "She slammed the door in my face, so I reckon I lose." This blatant lie is Jack’s way of keeping his dignity intact, and he orders drinks all around.

Suddenly one of the men notices the lipstick on Jack’s cheek, and his lie is given away. Everyone gets a hearty laugh out of smooth Jack.

Suddenly Fallon enters the bar from the street and greets Jack with the same lusty frontier enthusiasm he showed him before. We think to ourselves, well, here comes the crisis point. What is going to happen now?

Fallon pumps Jack’s hand, and Jack offers him a drink. Abruptly, Fallon leans forward into Jack’s face, who replies to him, "I reckon she’ll marry you, Fallon, but we’ll still be friends."
The two men exchange another hearty shake and then head back to the bar.

There is suddenly a quick cut to Dora, up alone in her room, quietly looking at the picture in the frame. She sits uneasily in close up for a few moments, then stares intently into the camera. The film abruptly ends.

This is a nice scenario in which Griffith intelligently allows his audience to draw their own moral conclusions. We know that Dora still loves Jack, and he wishes to return to her. But is she going to go through with her marriage to Fallon anyway?

There are no easy answers here. We don’t know the final decision, but it looks as though Dora and Jack will deny their own feelings, that Dora will marry Fallon, and this love tragedy never had to have occurred. Yet, we cannot help but blame Dandy Jack for his cavalier behavior towards Dora earlier in the film. Is his willful surrendering to the good-natured Fallon a gallant gesture on his part - or does Jack recognize that he doesn’t have the earnest stuff that will make Fallon such a good husband for Dora?

Friends is a simple little film that hides enormous human complexities. Griffith is becoming subtler at handling personal relationships, and allowing his actors to express themselves with understated dexterity. The ambiguity of the ending of the film is a nice surprise, and it reveals that this nascent art form is maturing, gradually, into a larger, yet more introspective emotional realm.