Death's Marathon

In a short D.W. Griffith silent film, things happen fast. In here, we witness a little courtship from two men, both after the same girl. The woman marries one of them, then has a baby, then marriage troubles and then witness a climactic suicide scene. All of this happens fast. You had to condense things back in the film business in the early 1900s because the average film was only 10-20 minutes long, although by the mid Teens films began to slowly lengthen.

Anyway, the losing beau for the girl's affections winds up racing across town to save the other's guy life. He's the one in dire straits. The ending is shocking, is all I will say.....certainly not what was expected.

Henry B. Walthall, as the fickle and then troubled husband, is the star of the film, although Walter Miller and Blanche Sweet have key roles, too. However, it is Walthall and his strange facial expressions that grab the viewer's attention more than anything else, I believe. (The scene with him on the telephone is pretty haunting.)