User Reviews

A beautifully lensed drama from D. W. Griffith in which fishermaiden Blanche Sweet finds herself abducted by a gang of smugglers after stumbling upon their illicit booty. Sweet gives a finely nuanced performance, but Edwin August as the boyfriend who comes to her rescue is guilty of overplaying his hand at times.

This one-reel drama by D.W. Griffith has plenty of tension in it, but it also has a somewhat unfinished look, primarily because the story as it stands does not flow as smoothly as it could have. One possible explanation is that some of the inter-titles that might explain things further could be missing. But it also could be the case that Griffith, still in the earlier stages of his career, may have gotten preoccupied with the key scene(s) and did not devote enough attention to setting them up carefully.

The story has Blanche Sweet as a contented young woman living near the sea, who finds herself in sudden peril at the hands of a crew of a gang of seagoing ruffians. The first part shows her happening on them in the midst of their smuggling activities, and being abducted; the last part shows her in increasing danger aboard their ship. The concept of "The Lesser Evil" comes into play in this last portion, when it begins to look as if all hope of rescue is gone.

The movie is weakened by the first part not fitting together all that well. It takes longer than it should to make clear what the unsavory sailors are up to, and why Sweet's character will be in their way. It makes for an unnecessary distraction at the point when the suspense ought to be increasing steadily. This is where a simple inter-title (which may once have existed) would save a lot of trouble.

Once the climactic situation is set up, it is clear enough what the dangers are, although Griffith's personal perspective on them is emphasized rather strongly. It ends in an interesting and somewhat thoughtful fashion that helps out noticeably in making up for the somewhat simplistic tone of the rest of the movie.

A confusing early film, directed by D.W. Griffith. Blanche Sweet and Edwin August are deliriously happy. He's a fisherman, and she's his "fishermaiden". Ms. Sweet enjoys hanging around the seashore; where, one day, she stumbles upon nasty Alfred Paget and a gang of smugglers. The smugglers nab and gag Sweet; then, they take her on their ship. Looking for his missing girl, Mr. August witnesses the kidnapping from the shore, and runs fro help…

While the film delivers its promised thrills, the characters' actions and motivation are often difficult to understand. There are also some strange bits of business; for example, why isn't Sweet locked in the boat room, and for what purpose does she momentarily pick up a gun? So, "The Lesser Evil" is what?

*** The Lesser Evil (4/29/12) D.W. Griffith ~ Blanche Sweet, Edwin August, Alfred Paget

This is a short film by D. W. Griffith for Biograph Studios and is full of some pretty exciting action. Blanche Sweet is an apparently nice girl that was kidnapped and secreted aboard a boat. The only problem is, WHY?! There's really no context and I had no idea why some crew members from a sailing ship kidnapped the woman in the first place and why later they tried to kill the captain and take the boat. Some explanatory inter-title cards or making the film longer than 13 minutes might have taken care of all this. With just a little more work, this could have been an excellent little film. And, given that it's a Griffith film, you KNOW that the woman will be rescued (they always are in his films)--so there isn't all that much excitement or suspense. It's a time-passer and that's all.

Griffith loved to shoot along the shoreline and on the water. His settings, always so lifelike, take on a poetic quality along the shore, and the sight of the motorboat knifing through the water to rescue Blanche Sweet, with its beautiful wake..... in any case, in this short, Griffith managed to combine his love of the shooting the water with one of his heart-in-your-throat chases, as the captain raises his gun to shoot Blanche's brains out before his mutinous crew can defile her.

Yes, it works. Rent the Kino dvd and see for yourself.

Although Griffith directed more than five hundred pictures, almost all of which survive, he has a vast corpus of works that are rarely seen, because so many people concentrate on his best features and perhaps a dozen of his best-known shorts. Kino is to be applauded for including a sizable number of his lesser-known, but equally powerful shorts in their most recent compilation, and for hiring John Mirsalis to do scores.

The Young Woman is first in love with an humble Fisherman. Then she gets kidnapped by pirates, lead by an apparently extremely evil Captain with a giant mustache. But the story takes a twist. The pirates mutiny, and the Captain shoots several of them. Finally, locked together in a small cabin with only one bullet left, and the lustful, filthy, savage pirates beating down the door, the Captain offers the Young Woman a choice: instant death now, or a Fate Worse Than Death? She covers her eyes with her hands and nods her choice. Luckily, the cops get there Just In The Nick Of Time. Now the story takes an even stranger twist. The Captain puts the gun in his own mouth, but the Young Woman stops him and distracts the cops while he escapes. In the last shot, the Young Woman is gazing longingly through binoculars at The Captain swimming to the distant shore, until the Fisherman reminds her who just rescued her. Although we fade out on her snuggling up to her Fisherman, we know that she's now stuck with a dilemma: does she love Will Turner, or Jack Sparrow? A wonderful story with Moral Ambiguity and Complex Characters!

A sea and fishing village love story, with fisher folk, smugglers, beauty in danger and distress, and the hero coming to the rescue with U.S. revenue men in a speedy, wave-leaping motor boat. It is well acted, giving realistic naturalness and rough humor. In fact, because of the skillful manner in which the whole situation has been handled, it impresses one as having much freshness of interest. The "lesser evil" is death; the heroine preferred death to being the sport of a smuggler's ship-load of drunken, mutinous sailors. The hero arrives in time. The camera work is commendably fair. - The Moving Picture World, May 11, 1912