The Perils of Pauline (1914)

After watching the biographical film about Pearl White, I was curious in exploring the series that made her famous. What I managed to find was an hour long film combining the first chapter in the series where Pauline first embarks on her adventurous lifestyle with boyfriend and nefarious guardian in tow and the last where Pauline is rescued by her brave puppy and decides to finally settle down. While I can see how they certainly offered an exciting series for early movie viewers to get behind, the parts I saw unfortunately did not have nearly enough examples of Pauline showing off her spunky spirit and Pearl’s impressive stunt work. Included on the DVD was a short called Katchem Kate about a young woman who decides to become a detective. Kate, like Pauline, is a plucky heroine which makes me wonder if roles for women might have been better in very early films compared to many of the decades that followed.