Fighting Blood (1911)

Before you dismiss this one-reel western as just more nickelodeon fodder you should know that it provides a couple of firsts, and is also rehearsal for one of silent cinema’s greatest achievements.

George Nichols stars as Ezra Tuttle, a Civil War veteran who, along with his wife and nine children, has built a cabin in the wilds of Dakota. The titles tells us that brood constitutes “the Grand Army of the Dakota Hills,” and the old man works them with military regularity. His wife (Kate Bruce) watches with pride as the kids practice close order drills. Note that the youngest two provide the aw-how-cute factor.

One evening after the workout, the oldest son, Richard (Robert Harron) requests permission to leave base to visit his girlfriend (Florence La Badie) at a nearby homestead and “the General” refuses. The two men argue the point until the old man wallops his son. Richard, furious, “goes AWOL,” a tear in his eye, while he leaves “the flouted father” sitting in sadness. 

After his visit with his girl and her parents (Kate Toncray and Francis J. Grandon), Richard returns home to face his punishment. Finding the door bolted against thim, Richard rides off to discover a rampaging war party. He rides back to his girl’s cabin and warns the family to load the wagon and “ride for your life. The Sioux are coming!” 

He gallops after the wagon, slinging shot over his shoulder. The father is killed (we assume mom is too) and Richard picks up the girl and takes her to his father’s cabin. The little army, fortified by some neighbors who have come to hole up with them, grabs rifles and starts firing through windows and cracks in the walls at the besieging Indians.

And here’s where director DW Griffith gives us a preview of the great action finale of Birth of a Nation which will follow this film in four years. He cross cuts between the homesteaders in the cabin, the encircling Indians, and Richard and the real Army galloping to the rescue. Cameraman Billy Bitzer even gives us some overhead shots of the Tuttle cabin so we can see the danger the settlers are in as the Indians fire the house.

IMDB assures us that somewhere in the crowd shots Lionel Barrymore, Mae Marsh, and Blanche Sweet can be found, but I can’t find them. If indeed Barrymore is present, it is one of the firsts—his first film, that is. Some sources say that he acted in an earlier film, The Paris Hat in 1908, but there is no proof that such a movie exists, and Barrymore was actually living in Paris in 1908.

The other first is that this is the first of over 100 movies based on a story by Zane Grey, one of the most frequently filmed writers in history.