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Lois Weber and Phillips Smalley, Rex, 1913: a one-reel home invasion. The maid quits; a tramp finds the key under the mat; Weber, as the mother, telephones her husband while the man comes up the stairs. The AFI notes the triangular split-screen (three actions in one frame), an overhead shot of the tramp looking up, and a car chase. Motography compared it to Griffith's The Lonely Villa. About a thousand feet. The BFI preserved a clear print.
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Women Pioneers of Silent Cinema
Lois Weber designed this Rex one-reeler with Phillips Smalley, and the triangular split-screen is her proof that a woman could run the cut as well as the scene. The maid quits, a tramp finds the key under the mat, and Weber (on screen as the mother) telephones while three actions share one frame and an overhead shot looks down the stairwell. Motography compared the reel to Griffith's The Lonely Villa; the BFI National Archive preserved a clear print of roughly a thousand feet. She is in the shot, but the job that matters is the one that framed it.
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