Why I think "cliff-hanger" arose from the 1914 "Perils of Pauline"

[Joel S. Berson]

For the "unadulterated thrills, equal[ing] all the preceding five
[episodes] put together"; for the fact that the actors did (or were
believed to have done) the stunts themselves, and for the dangling
from ropes over the side of a precipice.

I note also that while this imminently life-threatening peril is
resolved within the episode, at the end Pauline is left in another
peril.  (Although the review doesn't say this, she has been thrown
bound and gagged into the attic of a house.  In the next episode we
see that the house goes up in flames due to the indifference of the
villain; that is the mortal peril of episode seven.)

Review in the New York Dramatic Mirror of episode six (balloon and
cliff), 1914 June 3, p. 31, col. 1, under the heading "Feature Films
of the Week".  NY Public Library microfilm.  I transcribe the review in full.
-----
      The perils in this episode are not photo-play illusions, they
are facts, and the wonder of it is that two players, able to earn
very respectable livings without risking their necks, were willing to
dally with death that the eye of the camera might record a new
sensation. For unadulterated thrills, this episode equals all the
preceding five put together, and then has a few to spare. When
electric fans fail, it should send cold shivers up and down a sensitive spine.
      People who have become accustomed to watching Pearl White and
Crane Wilbur moving about with feet planted on firm ground, after the
manner of cautious humans, may be shocked to find them dangling
between heaven and rocks with only a light rope to prevent their
reaching both at once. They slide down ropes and crawl up ropes,
singly and together, and they show, among other things, that it takes
a lot of courage to be a motion picture actor when Charles Goddard is
writing the scenario.
      Working through his two villains, Owen and Hicks, Mr. Goddard
decreed that Pauline be enticed into the basket of a balloon and that
the ropes be cut, allowing the balloon to sail up into the sky. When
she is nearing the clouds, Pauline drops the anchor overboard and it
lodges in a crevice in the rocks part way down a precipice. She
slides down the rope, but not to safety by any means. After a few
moments of watchful waiting, Harry appears at the top of the
precipice. He attaches a rope to his automobile and joins her,
falling the last half dozen feet, for the villains above have severed
the strands.
      Confronted by the problem of reaching level ground, Harry
climbs hand over hand up the anchor rope leading to the balloon, then
pulls the cutting cord that the bag may fall and give them the length
of rope necessary to descend the precipice, a sheer drop of some
seventy feet. This little journey is accomplished with Miss White
clinging around Mr. Wilbur's shoulders. To complete the day's work
and the episode, Harry is knocked senseless by Hicks and Pauline is
kidnapped, an experience to which she must be pretty well hardened.
Every scene in this thriller was clearly photographed.
D.
-----

Joel

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