Film · Rex · 1913
Pass it on
Suspense
30Leave it.
A tramp at the door, a wife on the phone, and the screen split for both fears.
Take controlThis scores 30. Suspense cannot be blocked by name on this shelf. The lock is the phone. Block it
The review
The screen splits, which is the trick I sat down for, and Lois Weber spends a 1913 reel on it. A wife is alone. A tramp is at the door. She is on the phone to her husband. You hold both fears at once. The empty house is the whole plot, so the split isn't decoration.
A house can watch it. I wouldn't turn it into a talk about marriage. The marriage is a phone line and a man who isn't in the room. What you get is the distance. Short, tense, done. I didn't need another reel, and Weber doesn't offer one here.
Journal
Keep Suspense in the record.
No house has filed a sentence for this yet.
Live Historic number 30. Yours can differ.
The glance
Industry and Piety and Courage and Republic and Temperance and Truth and Stewardship are the thin ones.
Does anyone here do a real job, and does that job matter?
This phone is set for a grown person, just me. Change the ages.
Consider this
Casino Royale
43 instead of 30
Casino Royale is still a thriller film, and it scores 43 instead of 30. What you gain is industry: He watches the table.
The eight
- 2Industry
No one's job is the point; the phone is only how she reaches him.
- 5Household
A wife alone and a husband on the phone: the marriage is the gap.
- 2Piety
Conscience is not the drama; the tramp at the door does not pause.
- 4Courage
She is on the phone to him with a tramp already at the door.
- 2Republic
A private house and a tramp; no town is owed anything in the reel.
- 4Temperance
One empty house, not a serial built to make you buy the next peril.
- 3Truth
No lie gets exposed; the split screen only holds both fears at once.
- 2Stewardship
Nothing is left but the scare; the empty house was the whole plot.
Where to watch
Finding the page.
Live Historic · Suspense · 30IMDb
