Suspense (1913)

Suspense 1913

The story   

In the first opening scene it shows a woman, the housekeeper seeming distressed as she leaves a note and the key by the door. She takes one look out the keyhole of the room where Weber is left carrying for her child all by herself. This is emphasized by how small the keyhole is when it narrows down the field of view onto the lonely mother and her infant. As she leaves a man or tramp as they call him is outside looking in through the windows of the house. As he is searching for a way in, the mother sees the tramp. The fear both have is evident on their faces when they discover each other. It then cuts to a three-way split in the screen showing the tramp finding the key by the door, the wife frantically telling her husband he is breaking in, and the husband finally understanding. This scene leaves off showing that the tramp makes his way in and as the wife is giving updates the tramp cuts the telephone line. Thus, putting her husband in the dark. When the tramp makes his way in, he does not go for the wife, instead he goes for the food. Displaying that he is a human falling to his basic needs of sustainment.  

Meanwhile, the husband is speeding to get to his wife, and he is being chased by the police. It shows the police in the rear-view mirror gaining on him which emphasizes the stress the husband is under. The husband is so stressed looking back for the police that he hits a person on the road to his house. Further, the tramp is searching the house for valuables but makes his way to the wife's barricaded door. Here he breaks in and goes for the wife. The husband, still being chased by the police, makes his way into the house, and saves his wife. The police see the tramp and finally understand the full situation.  

Suspense shows the average life of most families then and today. The mother typically is the stay-at-home mother while the husband is the breadwinner and goes to work every day. This leaves the wife alone in the house to take care of their child. This film follows this and uses it to build the suspense of what if someone breaks in. Louis Weber builds the fear a mother would experience in this situation through the camera angles that are suffocating, the three-way split screen of events unfolding in real time, and the chase of getting home in time.