Works featuring "melodrama" (80)
Wolf Lowry (1917)

Custody Of The Child (Possession de l'enfant)

Mom and Dad head to Splitsville, for unspecified reasons, but we see that while Mom begs for a second chance, Pops says no dice - which suggests deep mistrust may be an obstacle to reconcilement. We also note that, after the split, neither has a live-in lover. A relatively mature portrait (that doesn't place blame) of the pain of divorce on a child who makes it clear he wants both parents, on a mother who is cut off from the child and put out of the home with no financial support nor support from her family, and on a father who has money and authority, yet is helpless in his struggle to ease his child's suffering.

Drunkard's Child

Smelly old geezer flashes fat cash to lure a young boy. Then, when boy's mom croaks, he seizes the opportunity to bumrush dad from his own house and snatch the boy. Finally, dad gets snuffed out when geezer's crony pumps lead into dad's back, and authorities bestow blessings on the snatch&snuff - with no one once bothering to ask the kid what he would like. Stats: in this under-7 minutes short, the serial flasher flashes his wallet 3 times. Good clean family fun film.

An Unexpected Guest

From Lubin ad:

A young doctor had a love affair with one of the hospital nurses. Through machinations of his father the young doctor is made to believe that the nurse has given him up...

From The Moving Picture World (August 28, 1909) review:

A Lubin which seems to be somewhat uncalled for...The photography is good and to a certain extent the picture may interest those who are thoughtless, but there is a certain degree of delicacy which should be observed about such matters that is plainly violated here. The picture serves no useful purpose. It is not instructive and cannot be called entertaining. The reason for its existence is not plain and the silent drama would be improved if the picture was never shown again.

So here it is, shown again, over 100 years later, still of interest to the thoughtless.

Goof: Though we see the unexpected guest two years after its conception was hinted at, making it at least 15 months old, it appears to be still an infant!

The Queen of Spades (Пиковая дама)

Fails as an adaptation: had to consult a summary of the short story it is based on to make sense of it.

Fails as dramatic performance: the star hams it up with all the worst excesses of early cinema performance, constantly on his toes, ballet-style.

But won a place in my heart at the ball, with the hilarious Three Couples Dance.

In The Hands Of Impostors (Den hvide slavehandels sidste offer)

Oddly, the impostors' ruse starts with a primitive hit-or-miss con act repeatedly performed in full public view - yet we are to believe that this silly stunt fronts an elaborate well-tuned network. While the patsy is still in the clutches of the con woman, a masher also swoops down on her - and she again falls victim to yet another persistent motor-mouth. Not long after she steps into the hands of the impostors, the film breaks down in hopeless confusion. The impostors (who remain unnamed, just referred to as “the impostors”) phone the blackmailer (misnamed “Mr. Bright”), who quickly has his hands all over the patsy. Meanwhile, the persistent masher (aptly named “Engineer Faith”) catches on to the flimflam and leaps on his White Knight horse. But before he arrives, another blackmailer (mysteriously named “Lord X”) muscles in on Mr. Bright and nabs the patsy - which leads Mr. Bright to counter by paying to have her kidnapped from Lord X. Meanwhile, amidst this torrent of cock brawls, no one has turned a dime of profit off the patsy - nor has anyone revealed any plans to cash in. This seems to be merely a confusing tale of a town desperately in need of new nooky. Still, the patsy - and the movie - is saved by a delightfully daring cock-buster.

Let this serve as a lesson for solo travellers, showing how personal information shared with strangers can be used harmfully - i.e. as a plot for a time-wasting movie.

Most interesting was the train station exit scene, which shows passers-by gawking at the camera and performers - a quaint record of the days before mobile digital devices, when people actually paid attention to their surroundings.

Temptations Of A Great City (Ved Faengslets Port)

Not much of a story: when a squanderer who relies on his mom to pay his clubbing debts shacks up with his creditor's daughter, mom disowns him - yet he can't change his ways. Missing the expected cheap thrills, yet the story-telling style held my attention to the end - waiting for him to harden up and boot that booty to the streets to pay her way. Or at least, in true Nordisk style, sell her to white slave traders or Mormons.