Friends - 1912 - 6/10
On surface, a lightweight love triangle.
Dora has two admirers. Dandy Jack and Grizzly Fallon.
While she prefers Dandy, he is breezy, and uninterested in a serious relationship.
When Grizzly asks for her hand, she must decide.
Griffith Biograph short boasts stellar cast (Mary Pickford, Lionel Barrymore, Henry Walthall, even a young Harry Carey).
These early Silent Westerns always stand out for costumes, a wild mix of hats and outfits, probably closer to what the West had been 20 years earlier. By the 1940’s, all cowboys appeared to have shopped at Miller’s Outpost.
This print comes from the Mary Pickford Foundation, and is clean, but has a modernist score of piano and repetitive synthesizer. It grew on me, yet it is essentially incongruous.