The Lonely Villa is a 1909 American short silent crime drama film directed by D. W. Griffith and starring David Miles, Florence Lawrence, 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. It was released on June 10, 1909, along with another D. W. Griffith split-reel film, A New Trick.
Contents
Plot
Three burglars check out a house. One of them then delivers a fake letter summoning the house's owner, Mr. Cullison. Before he leaves, Cullison gives his wife a pistol, but the crook manages to unload it unnoticed. The butler and a maid receive time off, and Cullison is driven away by his chauffeur, apparently leaving the wife and three daughters all alone.
The crooks break down the front door using a crowbar. Mrs. Cullison and her daughters flee to a room, lock the door and barricade it. Meanwhile, the man's car breaks down. He takes the opportunity to use the telephone at an inn to call his wife. She tells him what is going on. He borrows a horse-drawn wagon from gypsies, and he, a policeman and two men from the inn gallop to his home. When the robbers break down the second door, the family take refuge in a third room, but the burglars soon get in. One tries to open a safe, while a second rips a necklace off the woman's neck. Just then, the rescuers arrive and save the day.
Production
Filming took place on April 29–30 and May 4, 6 and 14, 1909, in Fort Lee, New Jersey, and at Biograph's studio in New York City.
Griffith used cross-cutting to create tension. A series of alternating shots depicts the mother desperately defending her children from intruders, with shots of the frantic father returning at high speed to reach his imperiled family. Griffith, by incrementally shortening the length of each cross-cut "heightened the excitement" of the event.