This Solax production from Alice Guy, "The Coming of Sunbeam," is very reminiscent of her prior year's "Falling Leaves" (1912). Both are about sick children, and the family's coping and reactions to the illness. The contagion in the prior film was tuberculosis, but here we get the more generic "fever," so it doesn't quite count for my list tracking pandemic-related films. It also doesn't have the poetry of the seasonal descending foliage and the sister's pitiful attempts to reverse the progression. What this one does benefit from, however, is some superior film technique and subtler acting.
The illness here is merely a plot point to reunite a patriarch with the daughter he disowned, who at some point became pregnant with the child, "Sunbeam," who will be ill. See, the woman left the kid in a box on her father's doorstep and wrote a letter to the servants not to tell him that she's his granddaughter. The old man's heart is softened by kiddie, so when mom returns as a nurse to bring his beloved granddaughter back to health, all's right again, I guess. Never mind the story, though, unless you like that sort of melodramatic mistaken identity. At most, one could argue it as slight critique against rigid patriarchy.
More interesting methinks is the use of match cuts to closer views for a bit of scene dissection and the different lighting schemes, in addition to a bit more nuanced acting than one sees in some of the earlier Solax films. The same old guy from the last Guy film I saw, "The High Cost of Living" (1912), also seems to play the father here. As opposed to the purely pathetic, if sympathetic figure he played last time, this character is one that becomes sympathetic to us at the same time that he becomes so of other characters. I also appreciate the reactions of some of the cast of servants--the sort of thing that would've called for broad gesticulation in other films around the same time, including some of Guy's earlier work, is done here almost entirely with small changes in facial expressions. The match cuts work to similar effect by bringing us closer to moments of affection as characters interact with Sunbeam.
There's some good use of low-key lighting here, too. One is a repeated shadowy shot by a fireplace, with the first happy shot of grandfather and granddaughter contrasted later by the grandfather sadly alone as the girl is sick. In another scene, a cut must've been employed for a seeming change in diegetic lighting as, first, a lamp is turned off and, second, a curtain is opened to bring in moonlight. It's just a lovely film to look at, and the print is in very good condition until the scratchy final shot.
The illness here is merely a plot point to reunite a patriarch with the daughter he disowned, who at some point became pregnant with the child, "Sunbeam," who will be ill. See, the woman left the kid in a box on her father's doorstep and wrote a letter to the servants not to tell him that she's his granddaughter. The old man's heart is softened by kiddie, so when mom returns as a nurse to bring his beloved granddaughter back to health, all's right again, I guess. Never mind the story, though, unless you like that sort of melodramatic mistaken identity. At most, one could argue it as slight critique against rigid patriarchy.
More interesting methinks is the use of match cuts to closer views for a bit of scene dissection and the different lighting schemes, in addition to a bit more nuanced acting than one sees in some of the earlier Solax films. The same old guy from the last Guy film I saw, "The High Cost of Living" (1912), also seems to play the father here. As opposed to the purely pathetic, if sympathetic figure he played last time, this character is one that becomes sympathetic to us at the same time that he becomes so of other characters. I also appreciate the reactions of some of the cast of servants--the sort of thing that would've called for broad gesticulation in other films around the same time, including some of Guy's earlier work, is done here almost entirely with small changes in facial expressions. The match cuts work to similar effect by bringing us closer to moments of affection as characters interact with Sunbeam.
There's some good use of low-key lighting here, too. One is a repeated shadowy shot by a fireplace, with the first happy shot of grandfather and granddaughter contrasted later by the grandfather sadly alone as the girl is sick. In another scene, a cut must've been employed for a seeming change in diegetic lighting as, first, a lamp is turned off and, second, a curtain is opened to bring in moonlight. It's just a lovely film to look at, and the print is in very good condition until the scratchy final shot.
