Rescued By Rover (EOTWS)

End Of The Week Shorts #7.2 extract: Rescued By Rover (1905)

Rescued By Rover is an intriguing example of a paradigm of seeming anxiety in early narrative films. With immediate and unmotivated conflicts - such as a baby being stolen, just because - we see a depiction of meaningless chaos within society that is fancifully confronted and quashed that is present within many other films. Further examples of this would be the very similar Rescued From An Eagle's Nest (1908), Suspense (1913) and the numerous fantasy/horror films - examples of those coming from Chomón and Méliès. 

This is probably just a result of snappy plotting with very little characterisation and an idea that I'd need to explore further, but is an interesting paradigm nonetheless.