A Beast at Bay (1912) User Reviews

Mary Pickford and the Beast

[wes-connors · 7/10 · 12 November 2007]

Mary Pickford is quite taken with Edwin August; in fact, he is her "ideal". But, Mr. August's refusal to get mixed up in a street brawl makes him look like a coward to Ms. Pickford. Meanwhile, convict Alfred Paget has escaped from prison; and, he is "A Beast at Bay". While Pickford and August go for a ride in her nifty 1900s automobile, criminal Paget ambushes one of his guards, taking the man's clothing and gun. Next, Pickford drops off August, still arguing he is a coward, and drives off. Alone, Pickford gets out of her car to retrieve a fallen garment; then, on-the-lam Paget moves in to carjack her. From a distance, August witnesses Pickford being taken at gunpoint - can he save his girl, and prove he's not a coward?

Another D.W. Griffith film with a criminal invading an otherwise unrelated situation; this time, the interest is heightened as August's cowardice does play well against the danger offered by convict Paget. August seems, possibly, a little more reasonable than cowardly, given the circumstance depicted; however, the characterizations are interesting and believable. The "parallel" stories have a structural reason to juxtapose.

The engine pursuit is genuinely thrilling - Griffith and his crew continue to offer great, innovative movie excitement. Mae Marsh is the best of the always fine Biograph supporting troupe; she's Pickford's best girlfriend. Pickford is fine as the demanding damsel; she plays the heroine with a relatively high level of resourcefulness - and, it's nice to see Mary Pickford in the "driver's seat"! Paget steals some acting honors, with his portrayal of the desperate convict. Look for a great scene between Paget and Pickford - at about 11:00 minutes in - Paget will touch Mary Pickford's curls, finger her lapel, and reach down to open her coat, suggesting sexual violation; it's creepily well-played.

******* A Beast at Bay (5/27/12) D.W. Griffith ~ Mary Pickford, Alfred Paget, Edwin August

" Mary And The Beast "

[PamelaShort · 7/10 · 25 November 2013]

This early Biograph film, directed by D.W. Griffith is the usual standard story of young pretty girl, ( Mary Pickford ) after viewing her boyfriend as a coward she dumps him. Standard bad guy enters as an escaped convict who takes the girl hostage. Of course ex-boyfriend redeems himself by heroically saving her and she rewards him by taking him back with a kiss. Edwin August, Alfred Paget, and Mae Marsh join Pickford in this fast paced tale with the highlight of a automobile chase, most exciting for audiences of 1912. Pickford as always is delightful to watch and she easily portrays a young fickle girl. Mae Marsh has a small part as Pickford's best friend. For the historical value, the early use of a car chase in this film helps to make watching " The Beast at Bay " very interesting.

Mary Drives!!

[kidboots · 7/10 · 30 December 2014]

A pretty primitive film. After seeing her boyfriend refuse to get involved with drunken rowdies, Mary brands him a coward and goes off in a huff. Meanwhile a criminal has escaped by changing clothes with a policeman - he then accosts Mary, wanting her to aid in his escape. She tries to stall her car but is threatened by the desperate man who knows her ruse. Meanwhile the boyfriend has seen all this from the train station and in an exciting climax commanders a train for a neck and neck chase!!

Certainly at this stage of her career, Mary Pickford was no Blanche Sweet - the most interesting thing in this short was seeing Mary drive the car. From the time she and boyfriend (Arthur Johnson)jump in the car, she is at the wheel and it is pivotal to the plot - she is the one who has to drive the villain to safety.

Good Griffith

[Michael_Elliott · 27 February 2008]

Beast at Bay, A (1912)

*** (out of 4)

D.W. Griffith film about a woman (Mary Pickford) who dumps the man who loves her because she feels he is a coward. Later, an escaped madman takes her hostage and it's up to the man to try and save her. Once again Griffith shows he knows how to build suspense with a little story. The ending is very well done as Griffith throws every trick (he created) in the book at the screen. Pickford is charming as usual.

You can view this at various online sites like YouTube. The quality isn't the greatest but it'll do until someone official puts it out.

I don't think I'd save her!

[planktonrules · 6/10 · 12 August 2013]

In "A Beast at Bay", Mary Pickford plays a woman who seems a bit odd. When some guy insults her boyfriend and wants to have a fight right there in the street, she is mad when this boyfriend (Edwin August) refuses to fight. She sees him as a coward and dumps him.

A bit later, an escaped convict happens upon this lady and takes her hostage. When the now ex-boyfriend sees this, he comes to the rescue like an action hero. And, in the end, she is thrilled to have such a he-man for her own.

Apart from the awful message, this isn't a particularly outstanding D.W. Griffith film. Part of it is that for a high-speed chase, it's amazingly slow and uninteresting. Part of it is because the plot isn't all that great. Watchable but far from his best work. Griffith and Pickford would go on to make far more distinguished work.

Nice shots, silly story

[thinbeach · 4/10 · 27 December 2015]

Unfortunately high quality prints of this don't exist online at the moment, for this is outdoors Griffith, which visually, is always a treat. Even in 1912 he had a recognizable style, opting for odd angles over the typical parallel shots of the time - making everything from roads to hedges look interesting. His typical repetition of locations is also on display here, though not nearly as much usual, as we move from towns to roads to countryside.

The story is pretty silly though. A woman, believing her man to be a coward for avoiding a street fight, ditches him, only to be taken over by an escaped criminal, who her man must then save her from. It didn't make me feel much at any stage, though the action scenes involving a car racing alongside a train were a thrilling sight, and one which he repeat a few years later in his epic 'Intolerance'.

I would not engage in a brawl either.

[mickeythechamp · 5/10 · 29 June 2023]

It´s fun to see how the duel storytelling of Griffith comes to life here. A signature of his no doubt. This is a fine little movie. Nothing crazy, nothing bad. It has it´s ups and downs and while being a simple story it´s told well. The technical aspects are where it´s lacking here in terms of clear framing and cutting. But I think this is an ambitious movie no doubt with the costumes, guns and number of vehicles used.

After a convict escapes the police he is on the run and finds a woman who is upset at her boyfriend for not engaging in a brawl. He kidnaps her and the boyfriend has a chance to make amends.

This is no doubt a big scale idea. Many cars, different kinds, the tracking shots, the use of a train, no doubt this must have been ambitious to do. It´s fun to see a movie from this time cut lose and just do it.

Sadly, some of the action isn't shown well here. The police officers using a train really doesn't show well and creates a flat scene. Some of the cuts, especially towards the beginning are very ugly.

This is a cute and fun story. The duel nature of the narrative coming together makes sense and works well. The idea of a man that needs to redeem himself by fighting a even worse thread than the original is fun. I think that the woman overreacts a bit with the first encounter, but it is to push forward the movie.

I love the language that Griffith use. It´s so dramatic and sounds so good. The convict speaking to the girl towards the end sounds so cool. I don't like that the black screens overexplain what´s about to happen or what just happened. We can see that.

This was a decent watch. Some cool ideas and a fun concept. But overall a bit lacking in the technical and story department.

Thrilling car train chase and race

[adt125 · 8/10 · 20 August 2008]

The plot is nothing special and the outcome expected. Everything needs to be tightly contained to fit the reels in these very early films so we cant expect the same characteristics of a feature film.

What is interesting about this film is that Mary Pickford mentions it in her writings and interviews and was well pleased with herself because Griffith gave her some praise for her dare-devil driving. In other words he said 'good girl' which Mary said made her feel quite good. (Obviously Griffith was short on compliments).

This was one of the first and is claimed to be the first 'real' car chase and train race. Mary said she got up to 54 miles per hour in the chase and went around the corner quite fast (Griffith wasn't happy until she did it fast - almost too fast) her driving coach was hidden on the floor of the car out of site in this scene. Mary said that her mother Charlotte actually stayed at home prayed for her while she was doing this chase scene. So this was something special in the history of film making. There is also excitement in the car behind Mary also in the chase - they went over a small raise in the dirt road fast and the back seat passengers (open top) were thrown up into the air about a foot. A little faster and you feel they would have been thrown out.

This shows that Griffith was pushing for something than the mundane and, achieved it.

Early in the film you should note that Mary is very comfortable driving the car, a real natural and you get the feeling she had lots of practice. She loved owing and driving cars.

The race with the train is brilliant and you get a real sense of speed and tension and close competition.

This little piece deserves a high rating simply for the car and train race.

Suspenseful, even now

[wmorrow59 · 8/10 · 17 December 2015]

The opening shots of this Biograph drama might remind comedy buffs of Charlie Chaplin's 1917 short The Adventurer: an escaped convict, in old-style striped prison garb, is being pursued by several guards with rifles. But it's clear almost immediately that the prevailing mood of this film is quite different, and not at all comic. The title character of D.W. Griffith's A Beast at Bay, that aforementioned convict (played by Alfred Paget with frightening intensity), is a dangerous man, and the more we see of him, the more we realize that the film's figurative title is chillingly apt.

While the pursuit continues, we meet a young couple who today would be termed upper-middle class. Because the husband (Edwin August) is going on a trip, his wife (Mary Pickford) drives him to the train station in their spiffy automobile. For modern viewers it may be a little surprising to see the wife take the wheel, considering the time period, but circumstances demand that someone must take the car home after the husband departs. (Plus, it's crucial to the plot that she can drive, and in any case Mary looks quite capable of handling the vehicle.) However, when the husband refuses to respond to a drunken tramp who shouts insults at the pair, Mary is disappointed, and calls her husband a coward. She drops him off at the train station and drives away, still miffed.

Meanwhile, the escaped convict has subdued one of his pursuers, and forced him at gunpoint to switch clothing. Now dressed as a prison guard, the man confronts Mary—who has stopped her car briefly—and forces her to drive him out to a remote area. The husband witnesses this from a distance, and takes after them with the other prison guards, who have just arrived. They follow Mary and the convict in a hastily commandeered train, which races alongside the car, then hop out and give pursuit on foot. By this point, the convict has hustled Mary into an abandoned shack, and is on the verge of assaulting her when her husband intervenes. There is a wild fight, but ultimately the convict is subdued. Mary is reunited with her husband, who has demonstrated his courage in the most direct and irrefutable fashion imaginable.

That, in essence, is the story, and it's a simple one. What makes this film worth watching today, over a century after it was produced, is the way Griffith builds suspense with his skillful editing. The tempo, in the early scenes, is leisurely, but once the convict forces Mary back into her car, and the chase begins, the shots come faster and faster. We get caught up in the action, and it's thrilling. The images of the car racing alongside the speeding train are beautifully done, thanks to Billy Bitzer's camera, which was dutifully racing alongside as well. One need only watch other films of this era, that is, the stodgy ones made by lesser talents, to see how accomplished Griffith and his team had become by this time. Audiences of 1912 must have been beside themselves during the chase. But the success of A Beast at Bay isn't due solely to fast vehicles or rapid editing; both Mary Pickford and Alfred Paget give passionate, heart-felt performances. Their scene together in the shack is alarming, particularly when the convict sneers at Mary's fine clothes, then slowly pulls open her jacket. The implication is obvious, and Mary's subsequent panic looks all too real. In the film's final moments, once the "beast" has been hustled away, Griffith lets us down easy with a gentle touch of humor, as if to assure us that everything is okay now. It comes as a relief. This is one silent drama that still has the power to draw us in, thanks to gifted players and a director who knew exactly what he wanted, and how to achieve it.

Genuinely suspenseful

[MissSimonetta · 9/10 · 7 March 2018]

I'm fond of DW Griffith's short work and A Beast at Bay is one of his finest. This crime-thriller is about a young woman (played with spunk by Mary Pickford) who's taken hostage by a ruthless convict on the run from the authorities. Her estranged boyfriend and the police pursue the two as Mary is forced to drive her kidnapper to safety.

The chase at the heart of the film is a highlight of Griffith's 1910s work as a whole, in my opinion. It's tightly edited and genuinely thrilling even by the standards of 2018. However, the acting is also superb. Mary Pickford was one of the top actresses of the 1910s and 1920s, and for good reason: she had charisma and she felt genuine. Alfred Paget plays the heavy and he too is fantastic, feral and menacing.

The best scene involves Mary and the convict holed up in an abandoned shack. Given a brief respite from the cops, the convict leers at Mary, mocking her clothes and implying through his prolonged pawing of her clothes that he plans to rape her. Mary's mounting fear is played with great economy: her face constantly flickers between a forced smile and silent terror, and her shriek when she discovers what the kidnapper plans to do with her feels so real that you can almost hear her despite the silence.

A must-see for silent film buffs.

A Beast at Bay review

[JoeytheBrit · 8/10 · 23 June 2020]

Griffith's expert use of cross-cutting heightens the suspense in this pacey thriller in which Mary Pickford is abducted by escaped convict Alfred Paget, while jilted boyfriend Edwin August gives chase by locomotive. The focus on action gives it a modern feel, while Paget makes a big impression as the desperate convict.

A Gentleman Fights Only When Necessary

[boblipton · 8/10 · 21 December 2020]

When Edward August refuses to thrash a drunken man who heckles him, Mary Pickford lets him out at the train station and says he is a coward. Meanwhile, Alfred Paget escapes from prison. He takes Mary prisoner and forces him to drive him to safety. Paget spots the abduction and leads the pursuit in a train whose tracks parallel the road.

It's prime Griffith at his short-subject peak. The pursuit is cut among three groups (Miss Pickford and Paget in the car, prison guards on the road, and August on the train, leading to a thrilling conclusion. Notice how the train in motion is shot to indicate speed and excitement, with its swiftly turning wheels, and steam pouring out of the engine.

Griffith invented few, if any of the parts of the film grammar that he used, and which became the standard model for cinema. He did put them all together, and knew how to use them to create a movie that was truly exciting. Other directors would follow in his wake for the next decade.

Very exciting one reeler! Mary drives wickedly well!

[mmipyle · 8/10 · 12 March 2021]

"A Beast at Bay" (1912) is a single reel Biograph directed by D. W. Griffith, starring Mary Pickford, Edwin August, Alfred Paget, Mae Marsh, Charles West, Robert Harron, Christy Cabanne, and many others. Exciting, and somewhat innovative, Griffith combines fast cars, a speeding train, and three groups of people - two chasing and one racing away - as cops and husband go after wife who's captured by the baddie, Paget. Paget's an escaped con. Pickford is a fickle (description borrowed from IMDb caption describing what film's about) wife who has just called her husband a coward because he refused to fight a drunk on the street who's belittled both of them and drops her husband off at the train station and takes off driving the family automobile home. Husband (her ideal) is Edwin August. On way home creepy escaped convict Paget hijacks Mary and car and has Mary speed away. Husband sees all this. He finally, after some finagling, gets police and train to chase after car. Lots of ensuing and thrilling events, especially the driving - the chasing cars and the train! Paget's definitely not someone you'd want to run into for any reason!

This is very exciting still! It must have been a gobsmacker in 1912. Mary's ability at driving the vehicle (which she says in memoirs reached 54 mph!) got Griffith's praise, something very rare evidently.

Still packs a punch. Highly recommended.

Griffith's editing and Bitzer's Camera Work are Outstanding

[jayraskin · 9/10 · 13 November 2023]

I've been watching a lot of early Mary Pickford, Biograph movies from 1908-1910. They feature some great naturalistic acting.

There's a definite advance in camera work and editing in this 1912 film. There's much more depth of field also. It is breathtaking to see a racing car and a racing train in the same shot hundreds of feet apart.

The version I watched was an Official Mary Pickford release on YouTube with music by Dan Light. The music was excellent and really added to the excitement of the movie.

This seems to be a 13 minute, 11 second version, but it is identical to a 17 minute, 53 second completely silent version running on the Daily Motion Site. I thought that the 13 minute version might have cut something, but everything is the same and the 13 minute version just seems to run the frames at a faster rate.

Authentic love on screen

[wjgqdwgr · 10/10 · 26 June 2023]

Let me start off by saying Im no expert on movies not yet anyway. But as a part of a free online film class im taking for fun I was supposed to watch this. And I have to say that the last scene where the two characters just show affection for one another . Something felt so real and true about it I forgot they were characters and I was just watching two people who "love" eachother interact and I found the simplicity beautifully authentic despite this being a really old film .

Why are reviews required to be 600+ characters long? Now I just have to type mini jumbo until I can submit mhmm pasta ?