This 6 Blu-Ray set of 55 films (11 of them features) and 7 short documentaries is the best collection so far of material made by American women filmmakers in the silent era. An earlier set called EARLY WOMEN FILMMAKERS also features directors from Europe & Russia. While this set contains several films which have already appeared on home video (many from Kino), it features them in new transfers and in the case of some like HYPOCRITES, vastly improved video quality. They all have new scores to accompany them. Most of these are quite suitable while a few others are not.
DISC 1 is devoted to the Solax films of Alice Guy-Blache’. There are 13 films in all including several new releases such as 3 remarkable releases from 1912, There’s ALGIE THE MINER about a gay man becoming a cowboy, A FOOL & HIS MONEY featuring an all Black cast, and CANNED HARMONY which is about sound synchronizing. There’s also a new version of her feature THE OCEAN WAIF (1916). Finally the disc includes Gene Gauntier’s1911 film THE COLLEEN BAWN which was shot on location in Ireland.
DISC 2 is devoted to Lois Weber with the premiere of many of her mid-Teen features like THE ROSARY (1913), SUNSHINE MOLLY (1915), IDLE WIVES (1916), and the film that ended her independent career, WHAT DO MEN WANT? (1921). As mentioned earlier there is a vastly improved version of HYPOCRITES (1915) which restores the film’s original order of scenes. The middle three are incomplete and there is serious nitrate damage on MOLLY.
DISC 3 focuses on serial queens Helen Holmes and Grace Cunard, genre pioneers Ruth Ann Baldwin & Cleo Madison, and comedienne Mabel Normand. There are 2 chapters of THE HAZARDS OF HELEN, 3 chapters of THE PURPLE MASK, w/Grace Cunard, Baldwin’s feature Western 49-14, and a number of Keystone shorts now known to have been directed by Normand including one of Chaplin’s best known early appearances in CAUGHT IN A CABARET.
The next 2 discs showcase films that are considered social commentary which is what distinguished the women filmmakers of the day from most of their male contemporaries. Disc 4 has Weber’s 1916 abortion/birth control drama WHERE ARE MY CHILDREN?, Madison’s HER DEFIANCE, an anti-racist short film WHEN LITTLE LINDY SANG and the first film made by and featuring Chinese-Americans. Disc 5 features fragments from Ida May Park, Alla Nazimova’s startling 1923 version of Oscar Wilde’s SALOME, and 2 Dorothy Davenport Reid Features, THE RED KIMONA (1925) which deals with prostitution, and the 1929 LINDA about a backwoods woman marrying a much older man. Last but not least is Lisa Lawrence’s MOTHERHOOD: LIFE’S GREATEST MIRACLE (1925) which is self-explanatory.
The final disc has 4 feature films including another backwoods drama THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS (1916) directed by Julia Crawford Ivers, Nell Shipman’s BACK TO GOD’S COUNTRY, (1919), Ida May Park’s BROADWAY LOVE (1918) which features a young Lon Chaney, and a very SHEIK like romance from 1923 with Norma Talmadge that was co-directed by Frances Marion.
5 of the 6 discs have special commentaries about the various filmmakers. They all run about 10 minutes and feature the same contributers. All the movies have new scores to accompany them and most are by women composers. They all work pretty well with the exception being those by the Chicago Modern Orchestra Project which seem completely independent of the movies they are accompanying.
FINAL VERDICT: Despite the fragmentary nature of some of the films, the irreversible nitrate decomposition and water damage in several of the titles plus the uneven quality of some of the musical scores, PIONEERS: FIRST WOMEN FILMMAKERS should be seen by every serious film enthusiast who is interested in a history of the movies. It should also be used as an educational tool to film students particularly women to show them what they had, what was lost, and what can and should be once again.
The Capsule Critic 