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.
