ThiefHott Too much of everything

PiraBit if their story seems completely bonkers, almost like a feverish work of fiction, you ain't heard nothing yet.

Verity Robins Great movie. Not sure what people expected but I found it highly entertaining.

Calum Hutton It's a good bad... and worth a popcorn matinée. While it's easy to lament what could have been...

marlene_rantz I loved this movie, and I loved Arthur V. Johnson's performance in it. I have seen him in several movies, and he was always excellent in them. He is described as a "pioneer actor and director of the early American silent film era", but an even better description would be "the first great actor in silent films", and he was certainly great in this movie! I do not think he over-acted: he was required to play a man outraged by his woman's infidelity, and that is how he acted it. Much credit should be given to director D.W. Griffith, and to co-stars Marion Leonard and Henry B. Walthall, who both turned in excellent performances. Considering this movie was made in 1909, I would say it is a superior movie, and I definitely recommend it!

kfo9494 When viewing this short film remember that this is 1909, the infancy of movie making, where they filmed most films in two days with one set camera. The movie making industry is about to boom and by 1915 this film will look ancient compared to the way the movie will be made in just a few years.In this short and simple film, a king sets out to make a private room for him and his queen to have private time from everyone. It was a room that was constructed in the corner of a hall with no windows and only one entrance. But it seems that the queen has eyes for the court minstrel and when the king accidentally finds them in the private room being sweet on each other he sets up on sealing the only entrance to the room.While watching there will be things you have to take for 'film-sake'- like when the wall is being sealed yet the queen and her lover seem not to hear the commotion that is only a few feet away or when they fall to the floor and they go out of sight due to the fix camera shot. These are all part of 1909 regular film making. Watch the film for the historic value and also see the progress movies made in just a few short years. A well preserved film, by D W Griffith, that will not disappoint.

Steffi_P This period melodrama is one of Griffith's earliest claustrophobic films. Characters trapped within a room are prevalent throughout his work and, as time went by, he would become increasingly adept at portraying their helplessness and involving the audience in their terror. In the bluntly titled Sealed Room there is one major difference to the normal plot line, in that there truly is no escape.Griffith achieves the claustrophobic effect here in two ways. First is his use of space. While the typical Biograph short might utilise a dozen or more sets, The Sealed Room features only two adjoining rooms – the king's court and the dove cote that becomes the eponymous tomb. The set design in these shorts is rarely referenced, but here it is crucial. The court is a large interior, with a backdrop hinting at greater depth and showing us a window and a staircase. Actors enter and leave from various directions, suggesting the room is not only spacious but also free and open. By contrast the dove cote's back wall is very close to the camera, and the angles in it suggesting a hexagonal or octagonal shape make it seem even more confined.The second technique on display here is the cross-cutting. Anyone with an interest in Griffith's work will probably know about his heavy use and development of cross-cutting to build excitement or tension. Many will also know that strictly speaking it wasn't his invention. However what makes Griffith's cross-cuts so effective is the way he paces the opposing images so they complement each other. The Sealed Room contains a good example of what I mean. The shots of the masons shifting the heavy bricks have a slow, step-by-step pace to them, with tension building as the wall gets higher. This movement is matched by the shots of the blissfully unaware lovers, in which Marion Leonard tears off flower petals one-by-one. As the couple realise their predicament, their rising panic is complemented by the opposing shot of the king madly thrashing his sword against the wall.At this point, Griffith was yet to realise that the action could be heightened further by introducing a third strand to the cross-cut. The dramatic "ride-to-the-rescue", here absent, was later to become a standard climax to Griffith's pictures.

overseer-3 This early Biograph short was so much fun to watch. The second on disc one of D.W. Griffith's "Years of Discovery" DVD set (highly recommended) it features three excellent performances by the main leads, and interesting to see Henry B. Walthall (The Little Colonel, Birth of a Nation) as a campy musician giving a Countess the eye (and other things).The Countess' husband goes berserk at his wife's betrayal and has her walled into a little room with her paramour. It's kind of incredible that they wouldn't hear the wall going up, but hey, maybe the wine had something to do with it. Here Mr. Johnson (father of silent player Raymond Hackett) gesticulates wildly and this adds to the melodrama, but in an unexpectedly comical way. The best moment comes at the end. As the lady passes out from shock and fear, once she realizes she's doomed, Henry picks up his instrument and "fans" it over her. The way he did it was so unexpected and in a strange way kind of sexy, and I just lost it, and laughed my head off. The expression on his face! From that moment I was charmed by Henry B. Walthall.