Matrimony's Speed Limit

Matrimony's Speed Limit is a 1913 silent short film produced and directed by pioneering female film maker Alice Guy-Blaché. It was produced by Solax Studios when it and many other early film studios in America's first motion picture industry were based in Fort Lee, New Jersey, at the beginning of the 20th century.[1][2][3] It is one of only about 150 films surviving out of the more than one thousand produced and/or directed by Guy-Blaché.

Matrimony's Speed Limit
Directed byAlice Guy-Blaché
Produced byAlice Guy-Blaché
StarringFraunie Fraunholz
Marian Swayne
Production
company
Release date
  • 1913 (1913)
Running time
14 minutes
CountryUnited States

The film's preservation, along with a few others by Guy-Blaché, was initially financed by the Women's Film Preservation Fund upon its inauguration in 1995.[4] It was selected to the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress in 2003.[5][6]

In December 2018, Kino Lorber released a six-disc box, Pioneers: First Women Filmmakers, made in cooperation with the Library of Congress, the British Film Institute and others. The first disc of the set is devoted to the films of Guy-Blaché and includes Matrimony's Speed Limit (1913).[7][8]

Plot

The story concerns a young man (Fraunie Fraunholz) who refuses to accept financial assistance from his wealthy girlfriend (Marian Swayne) in favor of earning his own fortune on the stock market. She concocts a plan to convince him that he will collect an inheritance from a wealthy aunt if he marries before noon. While he desperately proposes to every female he meets, she is trying to reach him before he finds a girl who will say yes. One veiled woman seems willing to accept his proposal, but (in a racist turn) she turns out to be African American (actually, a white actress in blackface). With only minutes to go before the deadline expires, he gives up his search and intends to commit suicide under the wheels of the next passing car. However, the vehicle contains both his fiancée and a minister who marries them on the spot.[9]

Commentary

In a brief essay written for a program at the Library of Congress, Professor Margaret Hennefeld remarks that the protagonist's encounter with the Black woman reveals that "the speed limit of matrimony is, in fact, racial miscegenation (in 1913 American culture)," and that the film "represents a crucial historical text that comically meditates upon the gendered, class, and racial fantasies and anxieties of early twentieth century American culture."[10]

References
  1. Koszarski, Richard (2004), Fort Lee: The Film Town, Rome, Italy: John Libbey Publishing -CIC srl, ISBN 0-86196-653-8
  2. "Studios and Films". Fort Lee Film Commission. Archived from the original on 2011-04-25. Retrieved 2011-05-30.
  3. Fort Lee Film Commission (2006), Fort Lee Birthplace of the Motion Picture Industry, Arcadia Publishing, ISBN 0-7385-4501-5
  4. "Women's Film Preservation Fund". Retrieved November 27, 2020.
  5. "Films selected to the 2003 National Film Registry". Associated Press. December 16, 2003.
  6. "Complete National Film Registry Listing". Library of Congress. Retrieved 2020-05-05.
  7. Castillo, Monica. "Kino Lorber's Pioneers: First Women Filmmakers Box Set is a Treasure Trove of Silent Film History | TV/Streaming | Roger Ebert". www.rogerebert.com. Retrieved 2020-05-05.
  8. "'Pioneers: First Women Filmmakers' Brings Forth a Time When, Unlike Today, Women Made Lots of Movies". PopMatters. 2019-01-25. Retrieved 2020-05-05.
  9. "Matrimony's Speed Limit (1913)". Silentera.com.
  10. Hennefeld, Margaret. "Matrimony's Speed Limit" (PDF). Library of Congress. Retrieved November 27, 2020.
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