The Trainer’s Daughter
R: J. Searle Dawley, Edwin S. Porter. K: Edwin S. Porter. D: Edward Boulden, Miss DeVarney, William Sorelle, Mr. Sullivan. USA 1907

“This film was co-directed by Edwin S. Porter and J. Searle Dawley, who considered himself as the first motion picture director and would direct more than 180 films between 1907 and 1926. It is an interesting example of the transformation of cinema from simple action to more complex narrative when the cinematographic language was not developed enough to allow the public to understand the story without exogenous elements. The story is the following: Jack, owner of a racehorse, and the daughter of a horse trainer are in love. The trainer would rather have his daughter marry Delmar, the owner of a whole stable. Jack and Delmar enters into a wager concerning the outcome of a race in which they both have horses competing and the trainer’s daughter agrees to marry the winner. Delmar realises that his horse cannot beat Jack’s and he bribes a stable boy to dope Jack’s horse, a plan Jack’s jockey overhears. The jockey attempts to intervene, but Delmar and the stable boy overcome him and hide him in a deserted house. The jockey manages to escape but is not in any condition to ride. The trainer’s daughter convinces Jack to let her take the jockey’s place and she wins the race.

Without intertitles, which Edison did not use at the time, the story is difficult to follow. Given that the film is loosely based on a 1904 play by Theodore Kremer, ‘A Race for Life’, which was well-known at the time, it is possible that some of the audience were familiar enough with the story to understand it. It is also possible that the viewers were given a document summarising the action. (…)  I have added a few subtitles which are sufficient to understand and appreciate the film. There are indeed many interesting features in it. The film is almost entirely filmed on location on a racetrack and several panning shots give a good view of the track. The film uses also continuity editing to move action from one place to another and crosscutting to show parallel actions and increase suspense, notably to show how the jockey manages to free himself while Jack and the trainer’s daughter are in the paddock and a bugler calls the horses to the start line. There is also a cut to a subjective camera iris shot when Delmar looks in his binoculars at Jack’s horse on the racetrack. One weakness of the film is that all shots are long shots or very long shots, which does not make it possible to have a good view of the facial expressions of the actor. The last shot is missing and the still photograph replacing it seems to indicate that it was a medium shot. The result of the race is also not clearly shown. It is only when the horses return to the paddock that we see the trainer’s daughter raising her arms in a sign of victory.”
A Cinema History

“J. Searle Dawley isn’t a film or Hollywood giant. Directing films for Edison beginning in 1907, Dawley would eventually go out west and make films for Paramount and its predecessor company Famous Players Film Company. The third of three major collaborators director Edwin S. Porter would work with, Dawley somewhat inherited his ‘mentor’s’ straight forward, chameleon style, although he would take it further into the silent era. Nevertheless, Dawley made his last film in 1926. But he left behind a legacy of adaptations. This was not a novel concept even in the earliest days of cinema. But Dawley’s innovation was transposing themes and conjuring visuals inspired by the source material, giving rise to the Hollywood method of telling previously told fictional, and indeed, even ‘true’ stories.”
Tristan Ettleman
Medium

J. Searle Dawley on this site:

>>> Rescued from an Eagle’s Nest
>>> The Song that Reached His Heart
>>> Frankenstein