Alice Guy Blaché by McMahan Alison;

Author:McMahan, Alison;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Published: 2003-03-14T16:00:00+00:00

Figure 46. The Pit and the Pendulum

The rats in The Pit and the Pendulum might have been symbolic of the monks in the story. The setting is Spain during the Inquisition, the hero is Dr. Alonzo (Darwin Karr), who is in love with Isabella (Blanche Cornwall). Pedro (Fraunie Fraunholz) is also in love with Isabella. When Dr. Alonzo wins her affections, Pedro joins an order of monks who use the Inquisition as a means of furthering their own interests, and plots his revenge. He hides some jeweled icons from the monastery in Alonzo’s home and frames Alonzo for the theft. Alonzo and Isabella are captured and taken to the monastery, where they are tortured. When Alonzo sees that Isabella is in danger, he confesses to the theft and is condemned to death. He is tied to a table with a slowly descending pendulum that will eventually slice him in half. However, some friendly rats chew through his bonds and he breaks free, but then the steel walls of his prison, heated until they glow red-hot, start to close in on him as the sadistic monks look on. Fortunately, Isabella arrives with soldiers and sets him free.

The first reel of this film still exists in the Library of Congress. Again, we see Menessier’s beautiful sets and Guy’s by then trademark elaborate costuming. Fraunholz overplays his role as the evil monk but Karr and Cornwall are very natural in their scenes together. It is a pity that the great action denouement no longer seems to exist. Stills in The Moving Picture World28 show that the pendulum scene was staged much more dramatically (Karr faces the audience, and his platform must have been slightly raised to give the most dramatic view) than a similar scene in The Detective and His Dog (1 reel, Solax, April 1912) where the hero is moving slowly toward a circular table saw. The still in the latter film shows the saw in profile and the composition of the entire scene is flat.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.