User Reviews

A short film with simple story, but a clearly significant film. This film is featured on the 'Landmarks of Early Film' DVD and is a must for those with an interest in the cinema.

The lead female is played by Dorothy Bernard, an attractive lady of the time and showing an independence and assertiveness that can surprise some given the time period. Vintage films can often show that females were not always portrayed as the down-trodden gender, that the current politically correct vogue would have us believe.

The train chase in the film, taking into account the age of the film is a treat, and reminiscent of 'The General' (made some 15 years later).

In summary a must view for those interested in or studying the history of cinema.

A highly attractive telegraphist at a country railway station spurns the suitor who brings her a soda, but allows the station porter several liberties. A message comes through that cash is being delivered. The porter loads his revolver from a box of cartridges, collects the money bag from the train, puts it in the station secure box, then goes off for lunch. Two tramps see the money and try to steal it by getting the box key from the girl. She barricades herself in her office and sends frantic messages down the wires for help. These are picked up at the next station, and an engine is given right of way to go to the rescue. Meanwhile the tramps try to break down the door. The girl puts a cartridge from the box into the keyhole, puts the points of some scissors to the cap and hits the scissors with a hammer. It is interesting that the cartridge case did not fly backwards and injure her. The bullet however fires into the room with the tramps and scares them. They lug the secure box out to a pump action trolley (like the one in The General), and head off. The girl rushes out intent on rescuing the money and is dragged onto the trolley. Meanwhile, the porter comes out of his house with his sandwiches in time to see the trolley vanishing. A few minutes later the rescue engine arrives; he jumps on and the chase begins. These railway scenes were especially well done, with a tracking shot of the racing engine taken from a parallel road, and shots both of the engine cab and the trolley taken from above. Eventually the tramps tire and the engine catches up with them and they are caught. In the final scene the porter and the telegraphist sit on the buffer beam of the engine as it backs up the line. They share his sandwiches, then a kiss which is shrouded in steam. That romantic ending has hardly ever been bettered.

This is a pretty good silent short from D. W. Griffith, as it features bandits, a steadfast and good heroine and some nifty action. While it isn't the deepest film I have ever seen, it does make for a good film because it has a well-developed plot and is paced very well. Unlike some other films of the same period, this film has a definite beginning, middle and end and is quite watchable in the 21st century. Part of this is because the acting is somewhat restrained for 1912--being a little less over-done than you might often see at the time. Instead of hysterics, the lady in the film is cool-headed and does her best to stop two evil tramps from stealing the payroll. Pretty old fashioned, but still well made and watchable.

This is as good a film as any to track the development of editing and camera placement in early narrative short films. "The Girl and Her Trust" has the same story outline as, at least, three other Griffith shorts: "Lonely Villa", "The Lonedale Operator" and "An Unseen Enemy". All four are last-minute rescue suspense films, with few differences between them. They all result in the setup of a girl, or a few girls, locked in a room separate from thieves stealing money; the girl uses a phone, or telegraph, to call men for help. I don't know why any of the ditzes never thought of escaping out a window. At least in "The Girl and Her Trust", there's the malarkey about her fulfilling her "trust".

By no means did Griffith invent this sub-genre; he mastered it with rapid editing. It's futile to attempt to exact the beginning of the sub-genre, but the aforementioned films, especially "Lonely Villa", are remakes of a 1908 Pathé film, "The Physician of the Castle". Suspense is absent in that film; there are only 26 shots in its 6 minutes. Biograph released "Lonely Villa" the following year, and there are approximately twice as many shots in its 9 minutes. In 1912, Biograph released "The Girl and Her Trust", which has almost as many shots as the 119 that appear in the subsequent film, "An Unseen Enemy". Furthermore, Keystone parodies (such as "The Bangville Police" and "Barney Oldfield's Race for a Life") of Griffith's last-minute rescue pictures displayed even rapider, if choppy, editing.

The reason for the additional number of shots has as much to do with staging and additional crosscutting as it does with drawn-out lengths. First, Griffith had criminals and innocents in separate rooms of the setting of the crime; crosscutting between rooms prevented plots from being dull, as he stretched suspense for longer lengths. Then, there's extended crosscutting between the crime and rescuers. Indoor shooting is also Griffith's greatest weakness; he never would get past the theatricality of a missing wall.

"The Girl and Her Trust" has the benefit of taking more of the action outside, as the girl must follow the criminals to fulfill her trust. Outside, Griffith and Billy Bitzer trucked the camera beside a moving train, creating a trademark tracking shot they'd return to in "Intolerance". There's also an overhead angled tracking shot of the criminals and Dorothy Bernard on a handcar. With such innovation and time and space constraints, however, Griffith made the fallacy of not respecting the axis of action (the train goes right, and then goes left, but it's supposed to be the same direction). That can disrupt suspense. Lastly, Griffith rarely, if ever, used medium shots and close-ups in his early films. By 1912, every Griffith film had them.

(Note: This is one of three short films by D.W. Griffith that I've commented on, with some arrangement in mind. The other films are "A Corner in Wheat" and "The Battle at Elderbush Gulch".)

As I was watching this I thought, 'Wait... have I seen this before? I could've swore I saw this exact same scenario in another silent short, even directed Griffith himself. This is uncan... oh, yeah, the Lonedale Operator!' Suddenly going back through my recent roladex or whatever of silent shorts I've been watching I discovered I recently watched the 1911 short, also from Biograph, called the Lonedale Operator, and as it turns out these two shorts have practically the same plot: girl is running an office for a train station, bandits come and are going to pull a robbery. The difference is that in 'Lonedale' a sick/dying father left the job for his daughter to do, and here she's just already on the job.

It might not matter to most though, since I'm sure if you're digging in to DW Griffith short films from over a century ago continuity isn't that important, so one might see this before Lonedale. I just find it lacks a certain core-story imagination, despite the fact that Griffith is certainly up to the task of creating suspense out of how the bandits come to the station and terrorize the girl. Now, it is different actresses in both (Blanche Sweet is lacking here, but Dorothy Bernard is alright), but again, I can't help but feel like if you've seen one semi-not-quite-almost helpless woman operator terrorized by thuggish bandits with a train robbery plot short film, you've seen em all.

All this said... I think I might like this one a little more if only because of the second half of the short when things ramp up and there's a sequence involving one of those things on the tracks that two people operate to move along (with the 'girl' along with, she shows some courage for her trust you know!), and this given parallel editing to the oncoming train.

I've just recently come across this tile while watching the Landmarks of Early Film and I must say I'm completely taken by it.

OK, the visual effects are very dated, but then again, the effects themselves are not what makes the movie.

The thing that really impressed me was the character development of "The Girl". At first we see a girl working at the railstation and being the one who's in charge of keeping the money (one would more likely expect a man doing that in the wild west, not a woman). Next we see a man who fancies this girl and she's concerned for the money. He calms her down. I was sure that she'd be a helpless damsel in distress and he'd come in and rescue her. And here's the thing that surprised me most - it gets deeper then that.

The girl locks herself inside as the two tramps try to steal the money. She has the key to the strongbox. Handing the key over would surely save her, but she keeps to it. Also after locking herself into the room she doesn't faint or starts panicking. No! She actually tries to get help by telepraph. One of the tramps realizes it and cuts the line. Then she even finds a way to scare them off! Amazingly she puts a bullet into the keylock, places the scisors at the back and hammers away to fire the bullet off (something even MacGyver would be quite proud of).

And when the tramps take the strongbox she chases after them! She is a real heroine. But she is overpowered and the man from earlier on (with the help of rail employees) chatches the bad guys in a locomotive/handcart action chase sequence. And to make it a truly happy ending, they even have a little romantic scene when the girl is saved and the guy offers her lunch at the front bumper of the locomotive.

Brilliant.

OK, it's shorter, black and white and with no sound effects at all, but at points it reminded me so much of the panic room... You know... People on the outside trying to get to what a "helpless" woman has in a room they can't break into. And over 100 years old - I was breathless!

The Girl And Her Trust (1912) : Brief Review -

The DW Griffith and his trust of Remaking his own film with his Brilliant Cinematic Innovations. The Girl And Her Trust has almost the same story as Griffith's 1911 short 'The Lonedale Operator' and despite the unexciting storyline (of course because we had already seen it one year before) he still manages to fetch a brilliant remake with several pathbreaking cinematic achievements. What we see in the film is, two tramps assault the telegraph office trying to rob $2000 delivered by train. The telegraphist girl, trying to help, telegraphs the next station and then the men are captured. The first question hit my head was, how did they shoot those chase sequences? Answer is, Fast moving camera in pacy motion might have been invented here. Two, how did Griffith had those cut got so clean? Because he was genius of course. From the writing point of view The Girl And Her Trust was a passionate story to tell. When we always thought that only Male Actors can be the Heroic guy in the film, Griffith shown a beautiful woman risking her life for the trust. Enthralling yet thought-changing material. Dorothy Bernard looks so pretty, that scene when the man kisses her unbeknownst, and a moment later she Blushes! I was half-dead then. How she blushed and how cameraman got that frame from so perfectly, just WOW. Next, we are into the pacy chase segment where little bit of adventure gets all the attention with pathbreaking visuals. DW Griffith is known as the inventor of Advanced Motion Picture and Magnificent Cinematic Proportions and believe me this film plays one of the most important part in forming his legacy. Overall, a phenomenal film for its time and highly influential.

RATING - 7.5/10*

By - #samthebestest

The Girl and Her Trust, like all films made in the early 1900s, is very simple and very short, but Griffith introduces a number of filmmaking techniques that remain widely in use to this day. Earlier films generally played like a stage play, with minimal cutting or editing, and each scene taking place in the same location and generally in the same shot. The Girl and Her Trust was one of the first films to suggest that editing could create artificial environments by linking sets together, and it also gave a better idea of what exactly was going on (the close-up of the girl as she places the bullet in the keyhole is a great example).

Besides that, this film also had a very well-made chase at the end, in which the good guys are in a locomotive chasing the bad guys (the guys who stole the $2000 from the girl - her 'trust') who are pumping furiously on a railroad handcart. Although technically crude by today's standards, this scene had every necessary element of a good chase sequence, and it works very well. The film also introduced the idea of cross-cutting in filmmaking, as well as the idea of filming outdoors (a technique barely and clumsily employed by Edwin Porter in The Great Train Robbery). The Girl and Her Trust is a historic film, but as with all films that were made in the early 1900s, you need to keep its age in mind. It's not going to blow you away with visuals or sound, but if you keep in mind the time period in which it was made, you can begin to really appreciate its innovation.

Dorothy Bernard (as Grace) is a railroad telegraph operator, admired by all, especially by men. Though men like W.C. Robinson try to tickle her fancy, she prefers Wilfred Lucas (as Jack). After the two flirt, Ms. Bernard receives word that a $2,000 payroll will be arriving by train, and placed in her trust. This attracts some bad elements; specifically, tramps Edwin August and Alfred Paget; they are plotting steal the $2,000...

Director D.W. Griffith's "cross-cutting" makes "A Girl and Her Trust" an exciting early silent, improving on the his earlier "The Lonely Villa" (1909); however, the story situation is not nearly as good as the forthcoming "An Unseen Enemy" (1912), with the Gish sisters, which also improves on "The Lonedale Operator", which this film is practically a re-make of... Bernard performs very well as the heroine; Mr. Lucas steals both her heart, and co-acting honors. Griffith's cast of "extras" is always extraordinary. Though memorable, the way Bernard uses: a bullet, a keyhole, and scissors as a gun may have you shaking your head.

***** A Girl and Her Trust (3/12/12) D.W. Griffith ~ Dorothy Bernard, Wilfred Lucas, Edwin August

A lot of Griffith's shorts around this period were remakes of earlier Biograph films, which just shows how he was constantly trying to refine and rework ideas. This, a retelling of the acclaimed Lonedale Operator, is among the very best.

The gradual development of the acting in Griffith's films was now really beginning to bear fruit. Much has been made of use of props in this film. The props not only help to define character by the way the performers handle them, but they actually set up elements of the story – drawing our attention for example to the box of bullets. This is a rare romantic lead role for Wilfred Lucas, seen a year or so earlier blacked up as the slave in His Trust, but he is very good. There's also a bit of comic relief from Walter Long as the snubbed suitor at the very beginning.

There is more speed and complexity to the cutting in The Girl and Her Trust than previous Biograph pictures. Griffith was now experienced enough at setting up spaces and sequencing shots that he could get away with this many angles and set-ups without it looking like a jumbled mess. The result is often exhilarating, and the ride-to-the-rescue really seems to have come of age.

The Girl and Her Trust also features a rare tracking shot. Many have cited the lack of camera movement in Griffith's work as a weakness. After all, they say, cameras had been moving since the early 1900s. But I think Griffith's approach was intentional and informed, and could even be considered a forerunner of the "invisible camera" technique of directors such as John Ford and Joseph Mankiewicz decades later (e.g. no camera movement unless following an actor or key object, so as to focus audience attention on the action, not the technical aspect). Whatever the case, these tracking shots certainly do the trick. It is particularly effective to show the train passing behind trees, posts and buildings, which help give the chase sequence a kind of beat and make it more intense.

What is really special about The Girl and Her Trust though is its tight, even structure. The tranquil beginning establishes the characters, the romantic angle and the possibility that danger may be near. The action then begins with a claustrophobic, "trapped heroin" scenario, which is followed up with the excitement of a chase. In the final moments, both the danger and the romance are resolved and, in perhaps the best closing shot of Griffith's Biograph career, the train backs away from us, the lovers embrace, there is a blast of steam… and fade out. Perfect.

This short drama is quite a masterpiece for its time, using every available technique along with great skill in story-telling and photography, all of which take a fairly simple story and make it interesting, believable, and exciting. There is good detail that helps define and explain the characters, expert use of cross-cutting and editing to heighten the suspense, and a nice variety of indoor and outdoor settings. Dorothy Bernard also deserves credit as the young woman willing to risk danger in order to fulfill her trust.

Many of Griffith's short films show not only masterful technique, but also an impressive efficiency that wasn't always present in his later, longer features. "A Girl and Her Trust" is one of the best of all his shorter movies, and it deserves its place as one of the best-remembered and most praised movies of its era.

One of D.W. Griffith's earliest works while still at Biograph. Really shows the inventiveness and desire to go further by Griffith, which would lead to works such as The Birth of a Nation and Intolerance. Shows some early techniques that Griffith was experimenting with such as cross-cutting, close-ups, and outdoor filming. The Girl and Her Trust is a great representation of early 20th century film by one of the best directors ever, D.W. Griffith.

Tracking shots in film allow viewers to follow action backwards, forwards or alongside. In Biograph's March 1912 "The Girl And Her Trust," D. W. Griffith, in one of cinema's first tracking shots, places his camera both on a truck bed and on tracks to capture the sequence of the apprehension of kidnappers by a rescue train.

"The Girl and Her Trust" is almost a carbon copy of the 1911's "The Lonedale Operator," about a female telegraph operator who is held up by a pair of robbers intent on stealing payroll money she's holding for a company. Contrasting the two movies made a year apart directly shows the progress Griffith was advancing in establishing new cinematic techniques. The difference is especially noticeable in the chase sequence about two-thirds into "The Girl and Her Trust."

Griffith has heightened the action of his later film by having his camera capture both the train rescue and the robbers' attempt to get away with the loot in a sequence of cross-cutting edits. He had his cameraman, Billy Bitzer, place his camera on a flatbed truck and drive on a parallel road to the tracks following a speeding train. Even though other directors may have thought of this idea, Griffith was the first one to record cinema's first trucking shots to the vast American public.

To film the thieves in their attempt to escape with the money using a handtruck on the same train tracks, Griffith situates his camera high above the pair's handcar. The series of shots, with the female telegraph operator as a hostage on the handcar, is technically a tracking shot, using the train tracks to film the robbers frantic pumping of the rails.

Essentially, trucking and tracking shots are the same "following shots' which capture people or vehicles' movements without them traveling out of frame. Pedantics will split hairs and claim a trucking shot is one utilizing a moving vehicle on wheels to place the camera on, while tracking shots solely rely on rail tracks to have a camera dolly filming on them. Tracking shots have been used ever since the "Phantom Ride" movies of the late 1890's where a camera is posted on a train and records the landscape going by.

The only fault of Griffith's in the rescue sequence was his violation of the 180-degree rule, where his axis of action fails to follow the rule of directional consistency. He has his train and handcar traveling from right to left and then left to right, confusing viewers into thinking the two will eventually crash into one another.

In another shot of brilliance, during the final sequence, where the operator's boyfriend and the movie's heroine are sitting on the front of the train, Griffith cuts to a medium shot of the pair. This reflects the two getting extremely close to one another after their ordeal. Then, in a unique shot at the time, the camera remains stationary while the train reverses itself. It's a shot that stands as an aesthetic testimony of Griffith continuing to bring art into his films.

Girl and Her Trust, The (1912)

*** (out of 4)

D.W. Griffith short has a female telegraph operator being held up by a couple tramps who plan on stealing $2,000. Once again seeing a Griffith film from this period compared to what else was around just shows why they say the man invited film. Here Griffith uses the editing to build nice tension and some real excitement as the tramps kidnap the woman and head off with the good guy following. The train sequence is brilliantly done and this is 15 years before Buster Keaton's The General.

Before watching this, I had never seen anything from D. W. Griffith. I know, what kind of film buff am I if I haven't seen a single film by that director? I'd heard of him but never watched any of his work. I saw this on Kino's "Movies Begin" DVD set and I must admit the director did a great job. Even though the thing is only 15 minutes, it tells its story very well, with uses of cross-cutting, tracking shots, stunts . . .

The story concerns a telegraphist girl who has to guard a shipment of money ($2,000.00 to be exact). Some tramps find their chance, and attempt a robbery but, the girl is brave and will do anything to stop them. Griffith used some clever techniques to make the story well told. For the locomotive chase, they mounted the camera on a truck and drove along after the train. The cross-cutting between outside and inside the station is also well done and helps build the suspense. Kino also thought to put an orchestral soundtrack which helped make the film even more exciting. It all looks pretty good for the time and even today holds up very well. This isn't "Birth of a Nation" but for what it is it is very good.