The Lonely Villa

The Lonely Villa is a 1909 American short silent crime drama film directed by D. W. Griffith. The film stars David Miles, Marion Leonard and Mary Pickford in one of her first film roles. It is based on the 1901 French play Au Téléphone (At the Telephone) by André de Lorde. A print of The Lonely Villa survives and is currently in the public domain. The Lonely Villa was produced by the Biograph Company and shot in Fort Lee, New Jersey. It was released on June 10, 1909, along with another D.W. Griffith split-reel film, A New Trick.

Plot
A group of criminals wait until a wealthy man leaves to break into his house and threaten his wife and daughters. The wife and daughters take refuge inside one of the rooms, but the thieves break in. The father finds out what is happening and runs back home to try to save his family.

Cast

 * David Miles as Robert Cullison
 * Florence Lawrence as Mrs. Robert Cullison
 * Mary Pickford as the eldest Cullison daughter
 * Gladys Egan as the youngest Cullison daughter
 * Adele DeGarde as the second eldest Cullison daughter
 * Charles Avery guest at the Inn
 * Clara T. Bracy
 * John R. Cumpson as At the Inn
 * Robert Harron
 * Anita Hendrie as The Maid
 * Arthur V. Johnson as At the Inn
 * James Kirkwood as Among Rescuers
 * Florence Lawrence
 * Violet Mersereau as At the Inn
 * Owen Moore - A Burglar
 * Anthony O'Sullivan as A Burglar
 * Frank Powell
 * Herbert Prior as A Burglar
 * Mack Sennett as The Butler/A Policeman

Production
The Lonely Villa is notable for one of the earliest applications of “cross-cutting in a peril-and-rescue sequence”, a cinematic method used to create suspense.

The film, 12-minutes in duration, includes a series of alternating shots depicting the mother desperately defending her children from intruders, with shots of the frantic father driving at high speed to reach his imperiled family. Griffith, by incrementally shortening the length of each cross-cut “heightened the excitement” of the event.