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» » By a Woman's Wit (1911)

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Captain Jasper, a Union officer, is sent on a secret service mission to the Confederate headquarters. Safe through the lines Captain Jasper, disguised as a Commissary Supply Agent, meets ... See full summary
Captain Jasper, a Union officer, is sent on a secret service mission to the Confederate headquarters. Safe through the lines Captain Jasper, disguised as a Commissary Supply Agent, meets old friends who are Northern sympathizers. Visiting Confederate headquarters, information is supplied him by an ally. Suspicion is eventually aroused against the Captain and he is arrested. Pamela, a Southern girl with Northern sympathies, decides to aid the Captain's escape. She bakes a loaf of bread with a hook and cord buried therein. Taking the bread with other delicacies to the Captain's prison she is allowed to present it to him. Being advised of the contents of the loaf of bread the Captain that night gets to the roof of his prison, lowers himself to the ground and quickly makes his escape. A month later Pamela receives a letter from the Captain saying, "I am back with my regiment, thanks to you. An opportunity to send this letter through the lines emboldens me also to enclose a ring. Will you ...

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    • Author: fr0mTheSkY
    Here's a movie that has not survived well, even by the standards of 1912. J.J. Clark is a Union spy. He has put on blackface to disguise himself as he goes behind Confederate lines to.... Well, what he's supposed to discover is never made clear. Maybe it's to secure the crucial watermelon supply. Will lovely Alice Hollister help him escape?

    Modern distaste for actors in blackface aside -- and Mr. Clark never looks like anything but some White jiving turkey to me -- the takeaway from this Kalem film is the attitude towards women. While over at Biograph, D.W. Griffith's attitude was still stuck somewhere. In the dreams of the antebellum South which his father had passed onto him, over at Kalem they were courting the modern female audience, showing how they could do things, with action movies from Gene Gauntier. In fact, Miss Gauntier starred in a series of movies about "the girl spy", who worked for the South, frequently wore trousers and never, to my knowledge, put on blackface.
  • Cast overview:
    J.J. Clark J.J. Clark - Captain Jasper (as Jack J. Clark)
    Alice Hollister Alice Hollister - Pamela
    J.P. McGowan J.P. McGowan
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