Her Terrible Ordeal

Florence Barker, Violet Mersereau. W. Christy Miller

Silent 10 mins B&W 1910

An excellent early D.W. Griffith effort, this film was complete the first week of December 1909, and released six weeks later. Barker plays the secretary of a businessman. While depositing the week's profits, she is inadvertently locked in the company safe. Aware that her boss has left for the weekend, she tries to get help, worried that oxygen will run out. The boss's son arrives and quickly learns of her predicament. But he doesn't know the combination. The film reaches its fever pitch as he races to his father, whose train is heading home. A beautifully crafted melodrama.