HET GOUDEN FEESTMAAL (1910)
aka The Golden Supper
Article 4066 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 10-20-2012
Directed by D.W. Griffith
Featuring Dorothy West, Charles West, Edwin August
Country: USA
What it is: Romance of noble sacrifice

Two men love the same women. She marries one of them, but falls ill and dies. Her husband, heartbroken, leaves to become a monk. However, the other man discovers that she is not really dead…

The putative reason for the inclusion of this title into the realms of fantastic cinema is that it involves one of the classic horror motifs, that of premature burial. However, the horror of that particular concept has to do with the buried one’s discovery they have been entombed and forgotten, with little chance of escape. However, this short simply doesn’t go in that direction; the other man is present when she stirs in the tomb, and he takes her out long before any terror of premature burial takes place, thus somewhat marginalizing it in terms of its fantastic content. That being said, this is a typical D.W. Griffith short of the period, though it does display his usual skill at editing and storytelling.