"cliff-hanger"

[Ben Zimmer]

On Tue, Jan 21, 2014 at 8:52 PM, Joel S. Berson wrote:
>
> At 1/21/2014 02:25 PM, Baker, John wrote:
> >I think Jon may be right to look to _Variety_.  A search of the
> >Variety archives provides several early examples, of which the
> >earliest is from 6/16/1931:  Neither John Mack Brown or John Wayne,
> >announced for Universal's serial, "Battling with Buffalo Bill" will
> >be in the cliff hanger.
>
> Thus earlier than the 1933 Perils, which Wikipedia says is a
> cliff-hanger.  It says the 1914 silent, with Pearl White, did not.

Indeed -- when Variety reported that Universal was planning to remake
"The Perils of Pauline," the news came in an article headlined "U
Programs 5 Cliff Hangers" (June 6, 1933, p. 6). So it was already a
known expression.

A bit more on cliff-hanging (though nothing to antedate the 1931
Variety cite, previously found by Fred)...

This 1916 article credits D.W. Griffith with pioneering the
cliff-hanging trope to build suspense within a film, rather than from
one episode of a serial to the next:

===
http://books.google.com/books?id=JbYaAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA150
"Motion Pictures and Advertising Pictures" by Don Herold
The Photographic Journal of America, April 1916, Volume 53, p. 150
One way in which he [D.W. Griffith] put _interest_ into moving
pictures was to leave his hero hanging to a cliff. Previous to David
Griffith there was a precept that moving-picture scenes should follow
each other consecutively. Griffith borrowed from the novelist the
device of suspended interest, and left his hero hanging on a cliff
while he took up some other phase of the story. Then, later, he came
back and got his hero off the cliff.
===

Pearl White was definitely associated with cliff-hanging in the public
imagination when the "Pauline" serials were popular (though again, no
mention of cliff-hanging at the end of an episode):

===
Balitmore Sun, Jan. 21, 1917, p. 5
She [Pearl White] is equal to any emergency and has a special talent
for looking attractive, even while hanging by her toes from a cliff or
in other perilous situations.
===

Here's a mention of what typically happened to Pauline at the end of
an episode -- leaping from a cliff, rather than hanging on to one:

===
New York Times, May 20, 1928, p. X4
Filming Poor Pauline in the days when all movie serials ended with a
leap from a cliff or a balloon could have held no more thrills than
did Africa for Mr. Patterson.
===

--bgz

--
Ben Zimmer
http://benzimmer.com/

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