Suspense (1913 film)

Cast

Plot

A servant leaves a new mother with only a written letter of notice, placing her key under the doormat as she leaves. Her exit attracts the attention of a tramp to the house. The husband has previously phoned that he is working late, the wife decides not to ring back when she finds the note, but does ring back when she sees the tramp. Her husband listens horrified as she documents the break in, then the tramp cuts the line. The husband steals a car and is immediately pursued by the car's owner & the police, who nearly but not quite manage to jump into the stolen car during a high-speed chase. The husband manages to gain a lead over the police but then accidentally strikes a man smoking in the road, and checks that he is OK. Meanwhile the tramp is breaking into the room where the wife has locked herself and her baby, violently thrusting himself through the wood door, carrying a large knife.

Lon Chaney connection

The film has been asserted as Lon Chaney's earliest extant film based on a brief scene in which a similar individual appears on camera. Jon C. Mirsalis writes "Some Chaney fans have doubted that it is actually Chaney in the film, but close examination of a high quality 16mm print clearly showed that the Hobo is played by Chaney." The documentary Lon Chaney: A Thousand Faces states that his film debut occurred after his wife's suicide attempt in April 1913 and "his earliest films were made at the first studio to open in Hollywood, Nestor." Though, well-known Chaney scholar, Michael Blake's A Thousand Faces: Lon Chaney's Unique Artistry in Motion Pictures does note that the possibility exists of Chaney performing in a role during a period of unemployment in 1912, but notes that he rejoined the Clarence Kolb and Max Dill's company in San Francisco, California in September 1912. Blake specifically dismisses Chaney's appearance in Suspense in his book, A Thousand Faces: Lon Chaney's Unique Artistry in Motion Pictures.

Release

Suspense was released on July 6, 1913 by the Rex Motion Picture Company. A print of the film is preserved at the film archive of the British Film Institute.