His Trust (1911)

Clever and entertaining enough to recommend even to members of the 1%

The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.

It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

His Trust (1911) **** (out of 4)A Union soldier goes to fight in the Civil War and asks his black servant George (Wilfred Lucas) to take care of his wife and children. After the soldier dies the servant must do everything he can to keep the family strong. I think this here is one of Griffith's strongest shorts and I'd add that I also think this film shows black in the most positive way of any early film I've seen. The debate on the blacks being in blackface could go on and on but Griffith worked from his own group actors. I think the film is incredibly strong story and action wise. The battle sequences aren't the biggest that the director handled in his career but they are still full of excitement and wonder. I think their greatest aspect is how realistic they are. The story itself is a quite touching one as the servant must do whatever he can to protect the family since he gave his word to do so. Loyalty and love are subjects Griffith would tackle many times but the special detail here really makes this movie stick out among the five-hundred plus that he made.

His Trust is not particularly remarkable as Griffith Civil War shorts go, except for one aspect. Along with its sequel His Trust Fulfilled, it features the only heroic black character in all his films. That's not to let Griffith off the hook for the appalling racism of Birth of a Nation – this is still a rather patronising portrayal, not to mention the ridiculous use of white actors in blackface. However it is further proof that Griffith was not an out-and-out racist, and it even hints tentatively at miscegenation.Throughout Griffith's dozen or so Civil War shorts he made while at Biograph you can see the battle scenes evolving. In the one here, the emphasis is more upon chaos than heroism. It's an important development, although Griffith never quite mastered the depiction of war as tragedy – he could never get away from trying to make action sequences exciting. Still, there is some good staging here, with Griffith foregrounding individual soldiers being shot against the backdrop of gun smoke, making the casualties stand out and appear real.The battle sequence is brief however, and you can see what Griffith is really trying to develop here is the emotional angle. Unfortunately, while the family scenes are given prominence, they are not done especially well. The scene of the soldiers going off to war is actually a step backwards from the very similar one in his previous civil war film In the Border States. The shot composition is rather messy, and you barely notice Claire McDowell slipping indoors, distraught. Another weakness is that Griffith fails to visually introduce Wilfred Lucas' character. The significance of the "old Negro servant" is mentioned in the opening title, but in his first scene he is shoved to the side of the frame, and the all important moment where the trust is given takes place half on and half off screen.The standout moment in His Trust is towards the end, where the mother and daughter watch their home burn to the ground. It's said that Griffith invented the face in cinema. Well, he probably also invented the back. As in The Unchanging Sea, this is a good example of how he faces actors away from the camera to convey sadness with the subtlety of their body language. There's also a great bit of emotional punctuation as the house finally comes crashing down. However, this well-staged moment is not enough to save what is overall a rather dull picture.

In this story, Negro servant "George" is asked to look after his master's wife and child when he ("Colonel Frazier") goes off to war. Soon, the master is killed in the Civil War. It's bad enough the man died, but then the heartless Yankees came and looted the house and burned it down. George goes into the fire and retrieves the small child and the Frazier's sword - a sentimental piece offered to his wife after her husband's death. George, the woman and child - all homeless - then find a shack and poor George has to sleep outside. End of story.Wilfred Lucas played "George;" Dell Henderson, "Col. Frazier" and Claire McDonald played Frazier's wife. She had a very square face that reminded me a bit of Demi Moore. For a film made in 1911, I thought the battle scenes were pretty good and were probably considered "big production" at that time.I know the obvious flaw of having all white actors play the black people will turn off a lot of viewers but that's the way it was for the first three decades or so in film-making, and you just accept it as a "product of its time." Otherwise, this was a decent little drama for when it was made and that ending, with George curling up on the front steps to sleep, was very powerful, I thought.

This short film combined with his epic BIRTH OF A NATION is definitive proof that D. W. Griffith had both contempt for Black people and believed strongly in the myth that the "Old South" was paradise for the slaves! The film begins with the Master going off to war and all the slaves crying and wishing him luck (in real life, they probably would have cheered--hoping he'd get his head blown off!). But, as luck would have it, the man soon is pushing up the daisies (that's DEAD to all you who don't understand American slang). His sword is the only thing that returns home. A bit later, the house with the sword catches fire and a devoted slave not only saves the little White girl, but returns to rescue the sword! Then, at then end, he houses the girl and her mom in his shack (a mansion compared to most real slave quarters) and sleeps outside like some sort of devoted dog. Oh, and did I mention that all the Black actors were really White folks in dark makeup?! While I must admit that Griffith made some great films and was very, very important to the early film industry, there must be a lot of people who would love to know he's burning in Hell for his depiction of Black Americans!! This film is important historically and probably should be seen by teens to know just how far we have come.