It's a shame that this very interesting Ford and Cunard serial has been almost entirely lost.

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Grace Cunard and Francis Ford in The Purple Mask (1916)

Francis Ford

Grace Cunard

Jean Hathaway

Episode 1: &quot;The Vanished Jewels&quot; Patricia Montez, niece of the wealthy Eleanor Van Nuys, is the most popular girl in the American colony of Paris. Her one idea is to bring comfort to the suffering poor. Her aunt, Mrs. Eleanor Van ...

The Purple Mask

It&apos;s a shame that this very interesting Ford and Cunard serial has been almost entirely lost.

Francis Ford was John Ford&apos;s older brother, taller, thinner, more handsome, and almost as talented. Together with Grace Cunard, they formed a very interesting artistic partnership. The credits attribute the direction of the works to Ford and the script to Cunard, but I suppose things weren&apos;t so clearly divided. They both star. From what little remains of their works, the stories are a fascinating blend of crime and romance. The protagonists clash in the criminal world, but there is always a clear romantic interest between them.

In this case, Cunard plays Patricia Montez, a young woman from high society who, as Purple Mask, leads a gang of hooded, Apache-style robbers, similar to Fantomas, but robbing the rich and ruthless to distribute among the poor and helpless. Ford plays Phil Kelly, the detective generally occupied with defending the very victims of Purple Mask&apos;s robberies.

Naturally, the two know each other socially, but Kelly can&apos;t imagine that this attractive young woman is his archenemy in law enforcement. Purple Mask, for his part, doesn&apos;t hesitate to help the detective, from the anonymity of her masked persona, whenever he&apos;s in danger.

The loss of most of the footage and the disastrous condition of what survives from this couple&apos;s work is one of the great tragedies of early cinema. After the serials of Perils of Pauline (1914), and The exploits of Elaine (1914), Purple Mask is inspired by the dream world of Feuillade (Fantomas in 1914 and Les Vampires in 1915), heir in turn to Protea (1913) by Victorin-Hippolyte Jasset, and who captured like no one else the appeal and cinematic possibilities of that genre of popular literature that, from Ponson du Terrail with his Rocambole and Feval, through the Zigomar novels created by Léon Sazie and the most reputed masterpieces of Leblanc with his Arsène Lupin, would reach the apotheosis of delirium and truculence with the Fantomas novels by Souvestre and Allain.

But Ford and Cunard filmed in Hollywood, at the time of Griffith&apos;s Intolerance and Walsh&apos;s Regeneration, de Mille&apos;s The Cheat, Louise Weber&apos;s morality films, and Chaplin&apos;s brilliant shorts for Mutual.

We see that these were years in which there was already a great deal of cinema of enormous quality, which had abandoned that cinema of interiors shown as theatrical scenery, and where the actors&apos; performances were not as exaggerated, theatrical, and melodramatic (well, except in Griffith&apos;s Victorian dramas) as in previous years, especially in genres that could be considered entertainment, of less dramatic intensity, where the actors were not exactly as prestigious and didn&apos;t need to show off their histrionic abilities in melodrama.

What we have left of Purple Mask are a few disjointed scenes, but what scenes! We begin with a confrontation between Kelly and his assistants and a band of Apaches, and how they are rescued by Purple Mask&apos;s band. It&apos;s a fast-paced film that uses American editing to revive the Feuillade aesthetic of death traps, hooded figures, rooftops, and disappearances.

As soon as Kelly and her assistants arrive at his apartment, another mission awaits them. The wealthy Crosby presents his latest acquisition, the famous Rahma ruby, at a reception he&apos;s hosting at his luxurious mansion, and asks Kelly to attend to ensure the evening runs smoothly. Naturally, Purple Mask already intends to steal that ruby.

The ability to maximize every shot is a hallmark of great filmmakers. Here, for example, we see the guests arriving at Crosby&apos;s mansion in a wide shot, and shortly afterward, a car pulls up in front of the house. A close-up shows the side of the car, with the driver in the foreground in the front seat, as well as a female figure, whom we suspect is Montez, in the dark rear of the vehicle. We see through the car windows the facade of the mansion and the guests getting in, the door on the opposite side of the car opens so that the woman gets out backwards, and then, more surprisingly, we see that there was another lady in the car, and how that medium shot can be used to show the real Montez who sticks her head out of the window approaching the camera to, turning the shot into a close-up, give instructions to the driver, obviously a member of her gang.

Ford and Cunard always show enormous care, unusual for the time, in the composition of shots and in taking advantage of their narrative possibilities; as well as a remarkable interest in establishing symmetries within each shot and in the editing between them. When Cortez and Kelly meet at the party, one shot shows them chatting while having some punch; they know each other in high society, and both are aware of the interesting relationship between them. Then, when they separate, the filmmakers show their attraction and, at the same time, rivalry in a series of close-ups of Cortez and Kelly that alternate at a faster pace: Cortez turning his gaze to the right with a certain irony and flirtatiousness, Kelly also turning to look to the left with what appears to be bewilderment and distrust. There are few instances during this era in which compositional and rhythmic possibilities are so highly valued. This is something they would take to its maximum expression in the unforgettable first shot of Unmasked a year later. This cinema of sinister criminals will continue to leave us with some of the great masterpieces of silent cinema and will demonstrate its ability to adapt to the most diverse artistic movements, from German Expressionism (with Lang&apos;s Dr. Mabuse at the forefront) to Russian revolutionary cinema (Barnett&apos;s Miss Mend).

Francis Ford was John Ford's older brother, taller, thinner, more handsome, and almost as talented. Together with Grace Cunard, they formed a very interesting artistic partnership. The credits attribute the direction of the works to Ford and the script to Cunard, but I suppose things weren't so clearly divided. They both star. From what little remains of their works, the stories are a fascinating blend of crime and romance. The protagonists clash in the criminal world, but there is always a clear romantic interest between them.

In this case, Cunard plays Patricia Montez, a young woman from high society who, as Purple Mask, leads a gang of hooded, Apache-style robbers, similar to Fantomas, but robbing the rich and ruthless to distribute among the poor and helpless. Ford plays Phil Kelly, the detective generally occupied with defending the very victims of Purple Mask's robberies.

Naturally, the two know each other socially, but Kelly can't imagine that this attractive young woman is his archenemy in law enforcement. Purple Mask, for his part, doesn't hesitate to help the detective, from the anonymity of her masked persona, whenever he's in danger.

The loss of most of the footage and the disastrous condition of what survives from this couple's work is one of the great tragedies of early cinema. After the serials of Perils of Pauline (1914), and The exploits of Elaine (1914), Purple Mask is inspired by the dream world of Feuillade (Fantomas in 1914 and Les Vampires in 1915), heir in turn to Protea (1913) by Victorin-Hippolyte Jasset, and who captured like no one else the appeal and cinematic possibilities of that genre of popular literature that, from Ponson du Terrail with his Rocambole and Feval, through the Zigomar novels created by Léon Sazie and the most reputed masterpieces of Leblanc with his Arsène Lupin, would reach the apotheosis of delirium and truculence with the Fantomas novels by Souvestre and Allain.

But Ford and Cunard filmed in Hollywood, at the time of Griffith's Intolerance and Walsh's Regeneration, de Mille's The Cheat, Louise Weber's morality films, and Chaplin's brilliant shorts for Mutual.

We see that these were years in which there was already a great deal of cinema of enormous quality, which had abandoned that cinema of interiors shown as theatrical scenery, and where the actors' performances were not as exaggerated, theatrical, and melodramatic (well, except in Griffith's Victorian dramas) as in previous years, especially in genres that could be considered entertainment, of less dramatic intensity, where the actors were not exactly as prestigious and didn't need to show off their histrionic abilities in melodrama.

What we have left of Purple Mask are a few disjointed scenes, but what scenes! We begin with a confrontation between Kelly and his assistants and a band of Apaches, and how they are rescued by Purple Mask's band. It's a fast-paced film that uses American editing to revive the Feuillade aesthetic of death traps, hooded figures, rooftops, and disappearances.

As soon as Kelly and her assistants arrive at his apartment, another mission awaits them. The wealthy Crosby presents his latest acquisition, the famous Rahma ruby, at a reception he's hosting at his luxurious mansion, and asks Kelly to attend to ensure the evening runs smoothly. Naturally, Purple Mask already intends to steal that ruby.

The ability to maximize every shot is a hallmark of great filmmakers. Here, for example, we see the guests arriving at Crosby's mansion in a wide shot, and shortly afterward, a car pulls up in front of the house. A close-up shows the side of the car, with the driver in the foreground in the front seat, as well as a female figure, whom we suspect is Montez, in the dark rear of the vehicle. We see through the car windows the facade of the mansion and the guests getting in, the door on the opposite side of the car opens so that the woman gets out backwards, and then, more surprisingly, we see that there was another lady in the car, and how that medium shot can be used to show the real Montez who sticks her head out of the window approaching the camera to, turning the shot into a close-up, give instructions to the driver, obviously a member of her gang.

Ford and Cunard always show enormous care, unusual for the time, in the composition of shots and in taking advantage of their narrative possibilities; as well as a remarkable interest in establishing symmetries within each shot and in the editing between them. When Cortez and Kelly meet at the party, one shot shows them chatting while having some punch; they know each other in high society, and both are aware of the interesting relationship between them. Then, when they separate, the filmmakers show their attraction and, at the same time, rivalry in a series of close-ups of Cortez and Kelly that alternate at a faster pace: Cortez turning his gaze to the right with a certain irony and flirtatiousness, Kelly also turning to look to the left with what appears to be bewilderment and distrust. There are few instances during this era in which compositional and rhythmic possibilities are so highly valued. This is something they would take to its maximum expression in the unforgettable first shot of Unmasked a year later. This cinema of sinister criminals will continue to leave us with some of the great masterpieces of silent cinema and will demonstrate its ability to adapt to the most diverse artistic movements, from German Expressionism (with Lang's Dr. Mabuse at the forefront) to Russian revolutionary cinema (Barnett's Miss Mend).

Episode 1: "The Vanished Jewels" Patricia Montez, niece of the wealthy Eleanor Van Nuys, is the most popular girl in the American colony of Paris. Her one idea is to bring comfort to the suffering poor. Her aunt, Mrs. Eleanor Van Nuys, is likewise charitably inclined. The Children's Asylum, a refuge for orphans, is the principal hobby in Mrs. Van Nuys' scheme of charity. To her friends, Patricia is affectionately known as "Pat." The result of Pat's popularity has been to give the spirited girl an excellent opinion of herself, and when Phil Kelly snubs her she resents it and resolves to go to any length in retaliation. Kelly is a famous detective, known all over Europe as "The Sphinx." Pat's first venture, in retaliation for Kelly's rudeness, is to steal her aunt's jewels. She then notifies Kelly. Pat hides the jewels in her dressing table drawer. They are stolen by Jacques, the butler, who takes them to the rendezvous of his fellow Apaches, the Café Chat Noir. Pat has noticed Jacques' suspicious conduct and follows him to the café. She is followed by Phil Kelly and two of his assistants. Pat is disguised as an Apache's sweetheart, and bribes her cabman to assume the role of her lover. They enter the café and participate in the festivities. Pat sees Jacques displaying to his pals the Van Nuys' heirlooms. By deftly whirling her dancing partner to the table where Jacques sits, she manages to stumble and strike the butler's arm. The jewels fall from Jacques' hands. Pat picks them up and as she is leaving the place Phil Kelly confronts her. In her surprise, Pat drops the gems upon the steps. She dodges past the detective and makes her way home. Kelly observes the jewels lying on the ground, and pocketing them, departs.

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