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

[Joel S. Berson]

My inability to prove that the origin of "cliff-hanger" lies in "The
Perils of Pauline" will be resolved, I believe, on Monday March 17,
when Gina answers the next question in the "Fact Town Smackdown",
namely "What is the origin of the word 'cliffhanger'?"

See "Big Nate" for Saturday March 15, at
http://www.gocomics.com/bignate/2014/03/15#.UyXvd85N2z4

(Somebody's been watching ADS-L.)

Joel

At 2/28/2014 11:46 PM, Joel S. Berson wrote:
>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

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