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

[Dan Goncharoff]

There is a similar scene in the earlier Adventures of Kathlyn.

DanG
On Feb 28, 2014 10:47 PM, "Joel S. Berson" <Berson at att.net> wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       "Joel S. Berson" <Berson at ATT.NET>
> Subject:      Why I think "cliff-hanger" arose from the 1914 "Perils of
>               Pauline"
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> 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
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org