The Scarlet Drop

Unexpected news delights the world of cinema: the long-lost THE SCARLET DROP by western director John Ford was rediscovered in a Chilean warehouse, and has been restored! Goes to show you how cinema can be very exciting behind the scenes as well. Although one reel of the five is still missing, this rediscovery proves to be an important missing puzzle piece within the oeuvre of one of the filmmakers at the forefront of American cinema and Hollywood.

Jaime Córdova, the Chilean film historian who restored the film, testifies: “THE SCARLET DROP goes beyond simple entertainment and gives us a glimpse of the visual elements that will become characteristic in Ford’s work. Ford always was Ford, combative and politically incorrect. By watching this film we will be able to recognise the values of the era of the American Civil War, and the theme of redemption – all factors that make Ford’s vision of US history so unforgettable.” The action sequences, the critique of racism and visible class tensions make THE SCARLET DROP stand out from other films of that era.

Harry Carey, with whom Ford often collaborated, plays “Kaintuck” Harry Ridge, a man denied permission to fight for the Union in the Civil War. Faced with this rejection, he becomes an outlaw, and moves west. Sometime later, he robs a stagecoach. On board is Calvert, the man who kept him from the army, and his daughter Molly, whom Kaintuck falls in love with at first sight.

Kaintuck Harry is another one of those men in John Ford movies who become overwhelmed by the unrelenting progress around them. Actor Harry Carey and Ford developed the character of the antihero. The director was always on the side of the outcasts, and Carey embodies this archetype, and projects both rudeness and fragility. THE SCARLET DROP resonates Ford’s talent, his pictorial sense and archetypical storytelling, taking us on an early journey through his distinct universe.

In dialogue with THE SCARLET DROP, we screen the short thriller SUSPENSE (1913), directed by and starring Lois Weber. She plays a young mother alone in a remote house trying to fend off a home invasion while her husband listens on the telephone… until the connection is broken. A desperate race against time ensues. Suspense guaranteed!

“Yours Sincerely, Lois Weber.” Thus, Weber signed her films with a title card at the end. Next to Alice Guy, Lois Weber was the most famous woman director of the silent era. As writer and director of over a hundred silent films, Weber spent much of her career sharing co-director credit with her husband, Phillips Smalley. SUSPENSE was also directed by the duo, although Weber’s distinct directing style and human screenplay is recognisable. The technical virtuosity in the action and chase scenes, the use of split screen shots and the tension build-up make SUSPENSE one of the best and most stylistically impressive films of the 1910s.

Weber was not only a master of the silent film, but for a while she was also the highest-paid director in Hollywood. She was the only woman among 250 founding members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and was mentioned in the same breath as Cecil B. DeMille and D.W. Griffith. But like so many of her female peers, Lois Weber’s part in the birth of cinema is largely (and strategically) erased. Not only her legacy came to a tragic end, but her life as well. She died destitute and forgotten. But to Weber cinema was worth all of that trouble. “A real director should be absolute”, she said. And she was. Absolutely connected to her craft.