That Girl of Dixon’s (1910)

movie

Country: USA
Genres: Drama, Short
Release: 1910-02-25
Director: Ashley Miller
Writers: N/A
Language: None | English
Stars: N/A
Runtime: min
Awards: N/A
AKA: That Girl of Dixon's , That Girl of Dixon's (United States of America)
Plot: The little heroine is the daughter of Dixon, a foreman in one of the big cotton compresses, the mighty workings of which are shown in the picture. We see her, early in the picture, showing her fear and repulsion for the black bottle, which spells so much tragedy these days. A child in years, she takes a child's way of ridding herself of the object of her dislike by surreptitiously removing the bottle when her father seems to be taking too much of its contents. Then follows a scene in which the father recovers the bottle. In his drunken fury he forgets himself, and would abuse the child who is trying her very hardest to save him from himself. Here the young hero of the story comes upon the scene. In passing Dixon's home he sees the small tragedy which is taking place at the gateway and interferes. He is successful in protecting the little girl, but arouses the sullen anger of the chronically inebriated father. When he reports the occurrence to his own father, Dixon is sent for and discharged. This, added to the incident of the morning, furnishes fuel to an intense drunken hatred in the man's breast. He works himself into a passion over the incident and decides to administer a thrashing to the youth, even though he is the son of his employer. He sends a note by a small colored boy. which, purporting to come from the girl, asks the young man to come to the compress and protect her again from the beating which she fears as a result of the day's happenings. The boy says nothing to his father, but goes at once to the cotton compress. Men are leaving for the night, and the place is almost deserted. As the young fellow, looking for the girl, approaches the great machine, he is confronted by Dixon. An altercation ensues, in the course of which the youth is felled by a blow on the head from a piece of wood which Dixon picks up from the floor. The sight of the boy lying senseless at his feet increases his fury, and his befuddled brain conceives the awful idea of sending the boy into eternity by placing him on the compress, whose mighty jaws compress hundreds of pounds of cotton into a thin wedge, and starting the machine. This he does and runs away, and we see the great bed move upward with its human freight until it almost touches the upper platen. Fortunately, "That Girl of Dixon's" has seen the youth enter the compress house, and, her suspicions aroused because it is after quitting time, has followed him. She arrives just in the nick of time, too, when another two inches of pressure would have killed the boy. Dashing forward, she reverses the lever and the machine slowly returns to its first position. The boy's father shows his gratitude by giving the girl a chance in life; a chance to get away from her present surroundings and build up a new future, and the last scene of the picture contains a brief suggestion of one way in which the future probably worked out.
IMDB:tt1498873