The Last Drop of Water (1911)

Why it's here:
We added this film, an early Western, into our list in order to beef up on some early era times we'd moved through too quickly.

Specs:
Just 15 minutes, black and white; easily available online in the public domain. We watched on youtube.

Our family's average rating:
6.5

More about the film and our reaction to it:
This is surprisingly good. So much so that I imagine most modern viewers (even those with no experience watching silents) would find it entertaining. It is directed by D.W. Griffith and you can really see just how good a director he was. He was excellent at using the camera to focus your attention, with cutting and editing film, with changing the camera's perspective and filming backgrounds (like extras in crowd scenes), to allowing the actors to really act and, in short, just filming a story in a very complete way.

The Western format is such a staple of American film, it feels odd to hark back in time to its earliest roots and see how many of the conventions we are now so used to were first employed. He's got the Indian attack on the wagon train. (Not sure about this, but the Indians may in fact be played by Native actors). He's got the hard-drinking cowboy who makes good. He's got the girl-next-door in peril, the stark landscape and the empty canteens. However, I think none of these can properly be called cliches when you're filming them in 1911!

I was fascinated by the landscape that looked to me like Arizona, with cholla and prickly pear and short scrub. But it turns out that Griffith filmed this in the deserts around the San Fernando Valley in California. I was surprised to learn that because the film was made before the movie industry had re-located itself to Southern California, but, apparently, Griffith took his film company on location in winter to California and was one of the first directors to chose this area to make films.

Iconic shot: