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June 7, 2025

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The Cinémathèque française screens a film by Sidney Olcott

Web page from the Cinémathèque française website announcing the screening of The Girl Spy Before Vicksburg.

The event is rare enough to merit a mention. On Thursday, June 12, 2025, at 6:30 p.m., the Cinémathèque française will be screening a film directed by Sidney Olcott in its large auditorium at 51, rue de Bercy, in the 12th arrondissement of Paris. The film is "The Girl Spy Before Vicksburg", a 14-minute reel shot in Jacksonville, Florida, and released theatrically in the U.S. on December 28, 1910.

A new episode in “The Girl Spy” series, the adventures of a young Southerner, intrepid agent of the Confederate army. The Girl Spy stars Gene Gauntier, the Kalem Girl, the company's star actress and screenwriter for Olcott's films. Alongside her, the faithful: J.P. McGowan, Robert Vignola.

A copy of The Girl Spy Before Vicksburg is kept at the Nederlands Filmmuseum
(Amsterdam) under the title De Dappere Dochter Van Den Commandant with Dutch intertitles.

"The Girl Spy Before Vicksburg" is the fifth installment in Nan's series of adventures, inaugurated by "The Girl Spy: An Incident of the Civil War" (May 21, 1909), followed by "Further Adventures of the Girl Spy" (April 1, 1910) and "The Bravest Girl in the South" (April 22, 1910).

This time, Nan is summoned to the headquarters of the Southern army. Her father, the troop commander, explains the situation: Union soldiers are crossing the region with a wagon full of gunpowder. But he doesn't have enough men to intercept it, so he relies on her. He gives her a wig, a Union soldier's uniform and a forged order to cross enemy lines. Before carrying out her mission, she goes to reassure her mother.
We find her on horseback, racing towards the objective. She spots the convoy and manages to join it. She hides behind the wagon carrying the gunpowder, knocks out the driver, hides him and takes his place to give the impression. Taking advantage of a moment of calm, she places an explosive in the wagon and lights the fuse. The wagon explodes, and Nan takes off running, but is pursued by the awakened Northerners. In an undergrowth, she runs out of breath, falls but gets up again... She dives into a river and hides there long enough for the Northerners to give up the chase. Exhausted, Nan finds her way home and falls into her mother's arms, desperate to get home.

Nan, The Spy Girl blows up the wagon carrying the Yankee army's gunpowder.

The film was well received by the trade press. At the time, they weren't very critical, simply telling the story. The articles were often supplied by the film's producer. In this case, the weekly trade magazine The Moving Picture World (January 7, 1911, p. 88) points out an anachronism: “The producers have made a serious mistake. Dynamite was not used for such purposes as early as the Civil War.” Alfred Nobel's invention dates back to 1866, a year after the end of the American Civil War.

For the record, Gene Gauntier is reviving his film debut. I told the story in a previous article entitled The Paymaster, Gene Gauntier's very first film role.
The year was June 1906, in New York. A stage actress, the young woman accepted Sidney Olcott's offer to try her hand at the movies “to put three dollars in her pocket”. The meeting was set for Sound Beach, Connecticut. Except that Gene Gauntier hadn't fully grasped the scope of the script. The heroine (GG) was to be thrown violently into a pond.
Biograph producer Franck Marion, who thought the location was great, said to his new actress: “You can swim, of course.
- “Well, no!” replies Gene Gauntier.
I summarize the exchange (it's in the article). The actress complies, measuring the cost of her refusal to take everyone home without shooting. All she asked was that her safety be guaranteed.

Gene Gauntier couldn't swim. But the young woman had endured far crueler ordeals: (Gene Gauntier's Hidden Child).

In “The Girl Spy Before Vicksburg”, she doesn't hesitate to throw herself and hide in the river. She shows tremendous energy. She emerges triumphant.
She proved her self-sacrifice in another film,"The Colleen Bawn" (1911), where she was violently thrown into one of the lakes at Killarney in Ireland. No consequences.

Delighted to see an Olcott film screened in France's temple of cinematography! I do have one regret, however: two other films in the - as yet untitled - “Girl Spy” series have survived. They would have been perfect accompaniments to “The Girl Spy Before Vicksburg”, as they corresponded to the program's theme: "Nasty Women, les effrontés du cinéma".
A great opportunity to show the films of Sidney Olcott, “the great forgotten man of film history”, in the words of Jean Mitry, the great French film historian. These are films splashed with the talent of his favorite actress (and screenwriter) Gene Gauntier.