An Unseen Enemy

An Unseen Enemy (1912) - The most extraordinary thing about this film is, of course, the screen debut of sisters Lillian and Dorothy Gish, two of the most powerful and exciting screen presences of the cinema’s early years - and particularly with Griffith.

From their first moment onscreen, these girls are different - simply radiant brunettes with indescribably expressive eyes. These young women would prove crucial to Griffith’s expanding development of film acting. Already, here in this first picture - Lillian is about 18, Dorothy 14 - the Gish sisters emanate a fluid, wistful naturalness. They both possess uncommon beauty, but it is in their special form of liveliness, a uniquely evocative, definitely sexual power, but residing in a truly human innocence that makes both of them so compelling to watch.

Lillian Gish would go on to be the greater star, but here in the debut, it is younger sister Dorothy who practically steals the film. Her key scenes involve her sad-faced, frustrated boyfriend (Robert Harron) who is about to depart for college, whom she refuses to kiss. Harron, a veteran extra of many Griffith films, really gets the chance to emote mopingly here, and it is no surprise that he will be regularly featured by Griffith until his untimely accidental death in 1920.

What we have here with An Unseen Enemy, is ultimately another "chase to the rescue" movie, and one that would be wholly undistinguished without the appearance of the Gish sisters. They seem to be the actual reason for the film, and the only thing that turns this ordinary action flick into a memorable cinematic experience.

It is interesting to ponder the dialectic between film production and film acting. In a very formal sense, an actor is nothing more than just another visual element in the mise-en-scene of a film. In practice, however, actors are the focus of the narrative threads that tie these films together for the audience. Film makers would soon discover, if they had not already, that it is the actor that is the essential entry point for the viewer, his chief point of reference. Actors, being human beings, are not content to remain purely visual elements on a screen, like on a painter’s canvas, but will emerge from the composition to demand attention to themselves on their own. They are like a new life emerging from a carefully planned construction, and they can (and do) take on a life all their own.

We have seen many actors in film so far by 1912, and many of them, particularly in Griffith’s work, have been excellent. The best (Mary Pickford, John Barrymore) bring a unique presence to their characters without overwhelming the sense of balance in the structure of the film itself. Anyone who has watched a good deal of silent films will be overly familiar with histrionic actors who draw attention to themselves, destroying both formal cinematic balance as well as narrative-driven verisimilitude. Griffith has always been an actor’s director, able to achieve great subtlety in his cast of players.

With the Gish sisters, however, there is something quite magic in the combination of their natural spontaneity, as it seamlessly blends in with the film to help develop a truly new and balanced dynamic between performer and film, which will flourish, especially in the films of Hollywood. In a sense, this combination could be said to create a new kind of hybrid - a union between the theatrical tradition of acting with the film form itself. And the Gish sisters brought a photogenic and psychological naturalism to the screen that Griffith quickly recognized would be a powerful combination.

While it might be going too far to declare that the Gishes invented what would become "the movie star," there is no question that their collaborations with Griffith would help accelerate the development of a new form of "cinematic" acting, rather than theatrical, in which the actors remain just as vivid - although not more so - than the rest of the montage in which they not only appear, but seem to help define.

This is very noticeable in An Unseen Enemy, which would be rather routine without them. We first see the pair, disconsolate orphaned sisters sitting aside one another in the lower right-hand frame of the composition of the opening shot. They are not weeping or wailing, but their sadness is palpable. The first action we see is Lillian’s gentle attempt to lift up her sad sister’s face with a fingertip under her chin. Dorothy simply closes her eyes and shakes her head, very subtly letting her know that any attempts to cheer her are useless.

These gestures are so beautifully natural and unaffected that they tend to draw the viewer’s attention to the girls more than if they had performed anything extraordinarily overtly emotive. Part of the beautiful sympathy between the two has to come from the fact that they are sisters, coming complete with a packaged code of empathy that later players will have to learn. But there is more - in each of the Gishes, similar as they appear here, there is a distinctive personality that resides in each. It is here seen in miniature, but with Griffith’s coaxing, the natural charisma and individuality will emerge.

Of course, it should be noted, that these two young women are among the most stunningly beautiful creatures to ever appear on a screen - before or since. Of course that will remain the fundamental essence of the female movie star right down to the present day. But it is not only beauty - there is an immediate sense of depth of character that positively illuminates each of them. It is that strange, unnamable quality that makes certain individuals so special - that every eye turns to them when they enter a room. There is simply no accounting for this kind of appeal in life, and when it is magnified upon the screen, the effect would soon prove to have a truly mythical impact. For better or for worse, from this moment on, it will be impossible to talk about movies without reference to their stars.

Of course this was already happening - both with Griffith’s actors and others. The point I wish to make is not so much an historically unique one, but rather something that is emblematic of the entire process of the development of movies. Under the tutelage of Griffith, over the next ten years or so, the Gish sisters would emerge as archetypal movie stars that would transcend their films - even transform them into something new. This is all part of the beginning of the phenomenon of the film star - and it is something that is perhaps inevitable given the admixture of the projected image and the unique human character.

Now I am not arguing that D.W. Griffith "invented" this phenomenon any more than many of his other contemporary developments. But just like so many other developments in the language of film, Griffith was the leader extraordinaire, and his example would soon be emulated so widely that it would become de rigeur practice for the entire industry.

To return to An Unseen Enemy, and the remarkable debut performances of Lillian and Dorothy, we go back to the opening shot of the two girls, sitting so plaintively together. Each of them, with their deep, haunting eyes and piles of thick dark hair, seem similar, but they are distinguished quickly by their reactions to one another. Lillian, the older, is wiser and solicitous of her younger sister - but Dorothy simply shrugs off her older sister’s indulgence of her - she is clearly her own person.

The plot, such as it is, has their elder brother (Elmer Booth) arriving with some money from their late father’s estate, which he deposits in a safe in the family home and returns to work on his bicycle. Once he is gone, the "Slattern Maid" (Grace Henderson) calls up her crooked old flame, played with a kind of brutal gusto by Harry Carey, the future western star of the 1920s. Together, they plan to get the money out of the safe.

A third element in the story is introduced by the departing boyfriend of Dorothy. As he arrives to say goodbye, he takes the girl away from her sister, alone into the corn field. Dorothy’s downcast eyes and snappy rebuke of a proffered kiss lend her an aura of girlish mystique, and when she offers her beau a handshake instead, older and wiser Lillian looks on disapprovingly. She knows it is wrong to leave the poor boy hanging, and her body language tells it all. Dorothy’s deep looks as she departs from the young man for the last time gives her away, and we have the whole story. Dorothy is the coquette, the little game player that would rather make herself the center of attention rather than to give herself away. Lillian is straightforward and empathetic, and she is perplexed and annoyed at her little sister’s childish behavior.

What is remarkable is that these characters are so quickly and roundly formed in just a few moments, by just a few looks and exchanges. Griffith has found two naturals here - perfect for cinema acting. Each of them can communicate volumes in a very brief space and minimum exertion. It is the subtlety that is extraordinary, and subtlety, largely delivered, will become perhaps cinema’s most valuable commodity.

Meanwhile, when the danger arrives, it is Lillian who first recognizes it, taking it quite seriously, while Dorothy initially responds as if it were all a joke. Lillian has to quickly correct her attitude with a hand gesture that alters her sister instantly. It is wonderful to watch their interplay.

The key link in the film is the discovery of a whole in the wall between the kitchen containing the safe and the bedroom into which the girls have been locked inside. As Lillian calls for help from her brother, the maid threatens the girls with the barrel of a pistol protruding through the hole. (Griffith uses one of his strongest close ups to date to establish this threat, and it is quite notable as a malevolent presence.) While all the suspense is being set up, the chief joy of the film is in watching the contrasting reactions of the terrified girls, as Dorothy plucks up the courage to return to the phone, as Lillian hangs in the background, helplessly horrified for the both of them.
As the maid begins drunkenly firing the pistol into the room, both terrified girls huddle together in a corner, their eyes flashing a kind of madness of frenzy - a true and powerful vision of innocence suddenly and violently violated.

Meanwhile, Brother and his boss commandeer a car, and we have the usual jump-cut rescue sequence that Griffith (and others) have already mastered countless times. (This one includes a kind of pivoting bridge that must be forced back into position, thus making the audience gasp even longer.)

We return to the girls’ room, and once again find it is Dorothy who makes the wide-eyed attempt to approach the gun - perhaps to grab it away - only to have it fire right in front of her face, causing her to collapse in fear.

Now, older sister Lillian becomes protective, and glaring at the horrific weapon, shields her sister with her own body. In doing so, she reasserts her primacy, both in intelligence and experience. We are led through these sisters into a world where real people, identifiable characters, like ourselves, can be seen to act in meaningfully distinctive ways in extraordinary circumstances. This will become part of the basic grammar of commercial cinema.

Watching the rest of the people in the film, one becomes aware that they are not bad actors - they are all quite good, actually. By this point, Griffith had definitely developed a method of directing actors who would be natural in front of the camera. It is just that the Gish sisters deliver a little something more - something perhaps undefinable. It is a unique charisma that is especially suited for the screen. Call it "star power" if you will. It is somehow, the ability to be larger than the movie in which you inhabit - something that requires the movie to grow with you or to be seen as ill-fitting and outmoded (as this one does).

It is the arrival of actors such as the Gish sisters that would, perhaps as much as anything, spur the creation of such a vast canvas as The Birth of a Nation, where both of them would play such large roles within a canvas where their cinematic power could be contained properly.

At the final shot of the film, both Lillian and the Brother force Dorothy to finally accept a kiss from her boyfriend - who has just saved their lives by getting them out of the deadly house. Lillian’s delighted face as Harron kisses the cheek of the reluctant, eye-squinting Dorothy is marvelously charming. Dorothy’s multi-meaning, character-revealing, eye-rolling look afterwards is sheer transcendence. Who suspected that one look could communicate so much!