1905: RESCUED BY ROVER

Director:  Cecil Hepworth
Starring:  Blair
Length:  6:25 minutes

   1905 wasn’t a great year for movies.  I wasn’t able to find very many options for what to watch:  there was the Macedonian film “The Weavers” which, despite being the first example of Balkan filmmaking and allegedly featuring a 114-year old woman, was unavailable.  There was also “Esmeralda”, a French adaptation of Victor Hugo’s The Hunchback of Notre Dame, which might have been a fine choice.  However, I had already decided not to watch more than one movie based on the same thing for this project, and—spoilers—there’s another Hunchback adaptation I’m planning on seeing.  (More spoilers:  there’s also one instance where I’m planning to break that rule.)

   That just left the films of Cecil Hepworth, a British filmmaker who made at least two movies in 1905, according to Wikipedia.  One of them, “Baby’s Toilet”, was a three-minute film showing his infant daughter Elizabeth being given a bath.  That is pretty weaksauce—an in situ domestic scene like that might have been impressive in 1895, but this was ten years later.  Hepworth had been making movies since 1896, too, so I suppose he was just a slow learner.

   Fortunately, there’s a bit more going on in “Rescued by Rover”, his first real effort in fictional narrative.  “Rover” is about a wealthy, upper-class woman who has her infant daughter (in a returning role by Elizabeth Hepworth) kidnapped by an poor old beggar lady...  and before you get too judgmental, remember this was the post-Gilded Age, when a movie camera still cost as much as a cruise liner, and the mere thought of a wretched, lower-class untermensch getting her claws on a poor innocent babe caused your typical moviegoer to shriek in horror.

   So the kid's rich bitch—err, I mean “job creator” mother runs home and laments the kidnapping to her sister.  But luckily, the faithful family dog Rover is there to help, and runs off to find little baby Liz.  And this is where the movie gets adorable ^_^!  Rover runs all about town searching for the infant, to the assuredly-constant words of encouragement coming from the audience:  “Go get her, boy!  Go get her!  Good dog!...  Find the baby! Good dog!...”

   Rover finds the kidnapping hag in an old, run-down shantyhouse—the just rewards of her indolence, no doubt!—where she’s been keeping the baby in horrid conditions ill-befitting the child’s blue blood.  It (the dog) runs back to get reinforcements, who retrieve little baby Elizabeth and return her to the safety of her aristocratic acropolis.

   “Rescued by Rover” was the world’s first dog movie, so you owe it a great debt of gratitude if you’re a fan of “Lassie”, “Old Yeller”, “Turner & Hooch”, “Beethoven”, “Wishbone”, “Air Bud”, “Beethoven’s 2nd”, “Cop Dog”, “Air Bud: Golden Receiver”, “Homeward Bound: The Incredible Journey”, “Beethoven’s 3rd”, “Karate Dog”, “Air Bud: World Pup”, “Beethoven’s 4th”, “Air Bud: Seventh Inning Fetch”, the “Homeward Bound” remake, “Beethoven’s Big Break”, “Hotel For Dogs”, “Air Bud: Spikes Back”, “Snow Dogs”, “Beethoven’s Christmas Adventure”, “Air Buddies”, “The Dog Who Saved Christmas”, “Snow Buddies”, “Space Buddies”, or that one made-for-tv movie where Kirk Cameron and a dog exchange bodies.

   One last interesting note:  apparently this movie is responsible for the name “Rover” becoming commonplace as a dog’s name.  Before then, naming dogs “Rover” wasn’t really a Thing.  So there’s that.