The Perils of Pauline (1914 serial)
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| The Perils of Pauline (1914) | |
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| Directed by | Louis J. Gasnier Donald MacKenzie |
| Written by | Charles W. Goddard George B. Seitz |
| Cinematography | Arthur C. Miller |
| Distributed by | General Film Company & Eclectic Film Company |
| Release date(s) | 31 March 1914 |
| Running time | 20 chapters |
| Country |  United States |
| Language | English |
| IMDb profile | |
The Perils of Pauline was a motion picture serial shown in weekly installments featuring Pearl White as the title character, a perpetual damsel in distress.
She is menaced by assorted villains, including pirates and Native Americans. Contrary to popular belief, neither Pauline nor its successor, The Exploits of Elaine, used the so-called "cliffhanger" format in which a serial episode ends with an unresolved danger that is addressed at the beginning of the next installment. Although each episode placed Pauline in a situation that looked sure to result in her imminent death, the end of each installment showed how she was rescued or otherwise escaped the danger. The serial had 20 episodes, the first being three reels and the rest two reels each. After the original run, it was reshown in theaters a number of times, sometimes in edited, shortened versions, through the 1920s. Today, The Perils of Pauline is known to exist only in a shortened 9-reel version released in Europe in 1916.
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[edit] Plot
The premise of the story was that Pauline's wealthy guardian Mr. Marvin, upon his death, has left her inheritance in the care of his secretary Mr. Koerner until the time of her marriage. Pauline wants to wait a while before marrying, as her dream is to go out and have adventures to prepare herself for becoming an author. Mr. Koerner, hoping to ultimately keep the money for himself, tries to turn Pauline's various adventures against her and have her "disappear" to his own advantage.
[edit] Behind the scenes
Surviving chapters of Pauline are noteworthy for their unintentionally funny title cards and dialogue captions, filled with misspellings, poor punctuation, and terrible grammar. This was accidental. Pathé, the theatrical distributor, exported the film to France, where it was recut and adapted for home-movie use. All of the printed captions were translated into French. Later, when the American home-movie industry beckoned, the original English titles had been scrapped, so the French technicians tried to translate the titles back into English. Current prints of The Perils of Pauline contain these badly re-translated title cards. Thus, in "The Pirate's Treasure" Pauline detects a time-bomb and says, "What is that tic-tac I can hear." In the same episode she spies one of the quaint locals and observes, "Here is an original old man."
The term cliffhanger may have originated with the series, owing to a number of episodes filmed on or around the New Jersey Palisades. One of the more famous scenes in the serial was filmed on the curved Ingham Run trestle in New Hope, Pennsylvania on the former Reading Company's New Hope Branch, now the New Hope and Ivyland Railroad line. The trestle still stands, just off Ferry Street, and is now referred to as "Pauline's Trestle". The railroad is also a tourist attraction and offers rides from New Hope to Lahaska, Pennsylvania, crossing over the original trestle.
Milton Berle {b.1908} claimed this as his first film appearance, playing the character of a young boy, though this has never been independently verified. The serial did mark one of the early credits for the cinematographer Arthur C. Miller, who was transferred to the project from the Pathé News department.
Pathé, the France-based company that during the first part of the 20th century was the largest film equipment and production company in the world, established an American factory and studio facility in Jersey City, New Jersey in 1910 and also established the Eclectic Film Company as a subsidiary distribution company for both its American and European product. Although the Jersey City plant produced moderately popular comedies, dramas, and newsreels largely directed at the US market, Pauline was the first American-made Pathé effort to achieve worldwide success under the Eclectic banner.
[edit] Sequels and remake
This successful serial was quickly followed by The Exploits of Elaine, also starring White. Many imitations and parodies followed, heralding the first golden age of the American film serial.
The Perils of Pauline was remade by Universal Studios in a 1934 sound version and an updated 1967 comedy.
[edit] Parodies
References to Perils appear in 1960s animated cartoon television shows Dudley Do-Right and The Perils of Penelope Pitstop.
[edit] Cast
- Pearl White - Pauline
- Crane Wilbur - Harry Marvin
- Paul Panzer - Koerner / Raymond Owen
- Edward José - Sanford Marvin
- Francis Carlyle - Owen's Henchman, Hicks
- Clifford Bruce - Gypsy Leader
- Donald MacKenzie - Blinky Bill
- Jack Standing - Ensign Summers
- Eleanor Woodruff - Lucille
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
- The Perils of Pauline at the Internet Movie Database
- The first chapter of the Peril of Pauline at Google Video
- Scenes from the 1914 version were filmed on the New Hope & Ivyland Railroad.
