Hoodoo Ann (1915)

versatility her skill at seeming at ease in any surroundings her ability to display emotion melodramatically or with tender restraint as in the famous homecoming scene in The Birth of a Nation LED Mr Griffith to assign to miss Marsh his Plum dramatic role after the birth came intolerance with her tender and expressive performance as the young wife and mother whose husband is on trial for murder playing the judge was Lloyd Ingraham who that same year directed Miss Marsh in her own first starring vehicle the history of the motion picture a series in which we follow the growth a new art its earliest Beginnings the first concept of projection the development of story and spectacle and the great stars all a part of the history of the motion [Music] picture the county orphanage its loneliest inmate hudo Anne played by May Marsh ANS hudo started the day she arrived at the orphanage on Friday the 13th and nothing has gone right for her [Music] since a more pampered inmate is Goldie who has no chores and her choice of dolls [Music] in orphanage films from Mary pford through Shirley Temple the heroin's Rival was usually gawky as well as mean but not here with Goldie played by Winsome blonde Mildred Harris later the first Mrs Charles chaplain [Music] callously Goldie abandons one of the dolls and goes to play and who has never had a doll finds it [Music] broken her hoodoo at work again she had only wanted to play with it but now she can't return it hardened by years of loneliness and realizing the superintendent wouldn't believe her anyway she's determined to admit nothing and Brazen it through near the orphanage lives young Jimmy Vance wouldbe artist played by Bobby Haron favorite leading man of Griffith until his discovery of Richard [Music] bamus also living in a same town are Mr and Mrs nap lonely ever since the loss of their only child next door to the Naps are the quarreling higgins's and their cat Jimmy's father is anxious that he give up this art foolishness and go out and get a job and does have one friend at the orphanage Cindy in the pantry one of the boy orphans helps himself to some of the wooden [Music] matches reading Anne's Palm Cindy predicts that there will be no breaking of the hoodoo until an is [Music] married The Borrowed matches have wound up in the boy's [Music] dormatory and fall to the floor [Music] inevitably where the matches fell is just where the matron steps [Music] a signing made Rolls like this one combining tomb boyishness with moments of P the studio was grooming May to follow in Mary pigford's [Music] footsteps out for evening drives are the vances and the naps and it's the vces who first see the fire already out of control Goldie is missing oh these night scenes were of course shot in the daytime and blue toned stock achieved the night effect today filters are used to darken the scene as usual Goldie gets all the attention but the Naps are quick to appreciate an's heroism [Music] amid roaring flames and collapsing Timber Boy Meets Girl the orphans are temporarily homeless so the Naps take Anne with them and her big adventure begins she even gets to ride in an automobile [Music] for the first time in her life Anne enjoys kindness and affection [Music] in early 1916 DW Griffith was actively preparing his Masterwork in tolerance as well as running the Fine Art Studio and supervising some 50 Productions with Lillian Gish Douglas Fairbanks and other stars but he still found time to write the story of hudu an under his pseudonym of Granville Warwick and to personally supervise its production the Naps are becoming increasingly fond of Anne and hope that the temporary adoption can become legal and permanent and an remembering Cindy's prophecy is hoping that Jimmy will be the husband who might break her hoodoo for two happy years there's no sign of the hoodoo and Anne tries on her first grown-up dress for her first date with her first bow having May Marsh show she's grown up was one of Griffith's favorite bits of business he had her do the same thing well into the 20s in the white [Music] rose and how did sophisticated teenagers of 1916 plan their future they studied furniture and and fashion in Vogue of [Music] course and then the treat to top them all a visit to the town's little movie house what they're about to see is a spoof of the early westerns made in New Jersey the triangle company which made hudu an had Williams Hart under contract now and made the industry's Best Western westerns so they could well afford this genial Jive at the eastern western already westerns had collected so many cliches that both audiences and producers were able to laugh at them yet even now 50 years later they are still as popular as ever done of course a little more seriously than this parody the hero is a veteran Griffith player Carl Stockdale presumably used here because of a slight resemblance to Heart The Villain at the window shoots his gun into the air and Carl clutches his chest producer Griffin may have been kidding the Western tradition here but he respected it too the same year that he made this film he also produced The Fall of the Alamo the first movie Spectacular about Sam Houston and Davey Crockett director Lloyd Ingram remained associated with the Western in a far more reverent capacity also one of his biggest hits of the late 20s was the Fred Thompson epic Jesse James while in the talki era giving up Direction in favor of his first love acting Ingraham was a prominent character player in scores of westerns throughout the 30s and [Music] 40s back home an is rumaging in the attic and finds an old revolver and like young movie fans of all eras she likes to play at being an actress like many early film players May Marsh came from a film family her sister margarite was a popular leading lady and her brother Oliver Marsh was one of the leading cameramen of his [Music] day next door the battling higgins's are ated again [Music] Mrs Higgins ominous threat is overheard by the [Music] [Applause] passerby an's acting in her monodrama becomes intense the gun fires and Mr Higgins Falls couldn't have done any [Music] harm her worst fears confirmed her hoodoo has reappeared and as the original title put it has grown into the Dignity of tragic fate [Music] but if the hudo has returned so has the survival Instinct that Anne learned so well at the orphanage [Music] [Music] Mrs Higgins misses her husband not very much of course and Anne is more and more concerned why hasn't the body been discovered [Music] the room is empty no sign of a [Music] body and then a discovery that changes her confusion to to abject Terror a blood stain on the [Music] step why of course it must have happened just as in the movie Mr Higgins must have crawled away and died alone too frightened to know what else to do she tries to erase that blood trail [Music] odd actions which naturally attract the interest of the detective on the prow for Clues to Higgin [Music] disappearance Jimmy's arrival brightens an's Gloom for a moment his career as an an artist is finally launched note that Jimmy's address is Riverside New York although all the exteriors so far have clearly been California in 1916 Hollywood was still such a rural community that to make story locals seem more important they were identified as being on the East [Music] Coast an's Joy is shortlived how can she a murderous ever marry [Music] Jimmy Jimmy doesn't understand why she is throwing away this chance at happiness and an can't explain as a result Jimmy is convinced that she's been merely amusing herself with [Music] [Music] him the detectives report to Mrs Higgins no results in the search for her husband [Applause] incidentally one of the detectives is Elmo Lincoln soon to achieve fame as the movie's first Tarzan the one coming down the steps [Music] first detective Lincoln spots The Telltale blood stain what was reported as a disappearance might be a murder [Music] an is torn by a struggle of conscience should she let Mrs Higgins take the blame for a crime she may have committed herself [Music] there is only one decent thing to do [Music] [Applause] and then the corpse walks [Music] in a ghost no the grief stricken Widow has her sparring partner back again P Higgins hadn't been shut he had fainted took off to recuperate in the fresh air and had gone to sleep in a hay [Music] stack and all the complications are satisfactorily if not too logically removed M just in time for a typical Cinderella [Music] ending because she had been teamed so much with Bobby Haron on the screen and seen frequently with him off screen and had been absent from the screen for several months before hudo an rumors naturally started around Hollywood that they had been secretly married actually they had not and the next year may Marsh married her one and only real life husband the California Banker Lou Lee Arms ahead for May Marsh lay years of stardom in the 20s usually as the innocent girl victim of unscrupulous Heavies this is the rat made in Europe Miss Marsh also turned in many fine performances in the talkis especially under director John Ford well into the 1960s