This short film that Hobart Bosworth shot and starred in for Selig -- he was a leading light of cinema in this era and parlayed it into a long and successful career and good for him -- is a simple enough story: he wants to marry the girl, but her father doesn't approve, so he goes off to act as a secretary to an ill man in California, where they strike oil. Meanwhile, the girl has gotten into the movies. Now that he's rich, Hobart spots her in a film, goes to the studio and carries her off.
The acting is excellent for the era, but the photography is startlingly so. The long, slow leisurely take of an oil gusher in full throttle is quite a lovely cinematic event, a boiling spray of black pitch against a white background. It's followed up with a perfectly grand shot at the studio gate, perfectly composed, with the stone arch restricting the picture's field for a different composition. Much of the rest of the industry was just learning how to change the shape of the iris to achieve the same effect and it wouldn't be until the early 1920s that the methods used in this picture would become standard.
The acting is excellent for the era, but the photography is startlingly so. The long, slow leisurely take of an oil gusher in full throttle is quite a lovely cinematic event, a boiling spray of black pitch against a white background. It's followed up with a perfectly grand shot at the studio gate, perfectly composed, with the stone arch restricting the picture's field for a different composition. Much of the rest of the industry was just learning how to change the shape of the iris to achieve the same effect and it wouldn't be until the early 1920s that the methods used in this picture would become standard.
