This seems to be the only reel out of six to have survived from the Creaking Stairs by Rupert Julian. It is a neat fragment of a mystery movie starring Mary McLaren (a cult actress for those who know her compelling performance in Shoes by Lois Weber, 1916) and these ten minutes of suspense, fear and the disposal of a body with a surprisingly Hitchcockian touch are all the more enjoyable without the long narrative that came before and after. Universal films of the late 1910s were a great success in Europe, as the many unique prints and fragments that have turned up in the archives of Paris, Amsterdam and Stockholm prove.

Mariann Lewinsky