| Summary: | THE DEVIL'S PLAYGROUND is part of the film retrospective UNSEEN CINEMA that explores long-forgotten American experimental cinema. Filmed in a Rochester, New York, carriage house, this expressionist film is the earliest live-action dramatic film made by a collaboration of poets and artists in the United States. Watson devised the optical effects that distinguish the film, while Webber provided its visual design, based upon medieval frescoes. --ROBERT A. HALLER. Born to wealth, James Sibley "J.S." Watson, Jr. was considered a Renaissance man in each of his chosen fields: medical doctor and researcher, man of letters, preservationist, philanthropist, and filmmaker. After graduating medical school, Watson bought and published The Dial between 1920-29, a literary journal founded by Ralph Waldo Emerson in 1840. By the mid-1920s, he became fascinated with motion pictures and produced a striking series of films: "The Fall of the House of Usher" (1927), "Tomatos Another Day" (1930) and "The Eyes of Science" (1931) among others. --JAN-CHRISTOPHER HORAK / BRUCE POSNER. Melville Webber pursued parallel careers in art history, archeology, poetry, art, and motion pictures. He is primarily known for collaborating on films with Watson, but he also assisted Mary Ellen Bute with "Rhythm in Light" (1934). Soon after, his fortunes shifted, and he suffered a nervous breakdown from which he never recovered. --BRUCE POSNER. 35mm 1.33:1 black and white silent with music 24fps 13:10 minutes. Music added later: Alec Wilder.
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