Back in the early days of silent films, Hollywood was still a sleepy village. Most of the American films were made on the East Coast...such as in New Jersey and Florida. While Hollywood had begun making movies by 1914, it was still a new thing...and Florida was still a leading location for movies in both Jacksonville and nearby St. Augustine. This is a Vitagraph movie made in St. Augustine. My assumption is that they stopped making Florida films soon after this due to the rain and heat...as Hollywood is more temperate and dry.
A lady returns home because she plans on marrying an eligible doctor in town. However, after a misunderstanding, she thinks he's interested in other women and she runs away to pout...though the doctor had actually done nothing wrong. Lillian then does something weird....she finds a letter written a hundred years ago in which it describes seeds from Africa that will make women's problems go away....and she takes one! The next morning, she awakens with a mustache and over time she begins looking and acting more like a man! Now she no longer wants a maid but a valet...so she gives one of the pills to her maid. What happens next? Well, you should see the film...but it includes Lillian now acting like an Amazon and doing such things as dressing as a man and chasing women instead of the doctor!
This is a very shocking plot when you see the film today. Before the tough Production Code was adopted by Hollywood in mid-1934, films could have anything they wanted in them. Sure, local censor boards could edit things out or refuse to release the movies in their states...but often studios just accepted this and made films with some amazing content when seen today. Most of the really outrageous stuff in films (such as nudity, bestiality, cursing and sexuality) was seen in the early 1930s but sometimes earlier films also were pretty risque. After all, 1924's "Ben Hur" features nudity and "A Florida Enchantment" is an LGBT film! Plus, Germans were making LGBT films as well in the 20s and 30s...something that would surprise folks who aren't really aware of cinema or cultural history. So, historically speaking, it is a pretty amazing picture and proves being gay wasn't something invented in the 1960s!
Now, this does not mean the film is inoffensive and won't shock a few sensibilities today. All the maids and butlers and valets in this film are played by white folks wearing burnt cork makeup to look black. It's ridiculous and pretty awful...but it was 1914 and minstrels and the like were widely accepted. My advice is accept it and just watch the film, as it would be a shame to avoid a film simply because it was made long before political correctness. It's sort like the expression 'Two steps forward, one step back'.
So should you watch it? Well, it's well worth seeing simply to dispell the widely accepted myth that DW Griffith invented full-length films with 1915's "Birth of a Nation". I've seen "Birth" mentioned many times as a first and while it might be the first American picture that is over three hours long, "A Florida Enchantment" came out a year earlier and lasted an hour...making it a full-length picture. Additionally, if you care, films like the Italian epic "Cabiria" came out in 1914 and was two and a half hours in length!
How is the film technically? Well, it looks very advanced for 1914...with a complex plot, lots of edits and very nice sets. And, while some of the camerawork is a bit primitive, it's not bad at all when seen today.
This brings me to watchability. "A Florida Enchantment" is very easy to watch if you are a patient person who watched silents. Many folks automatically dismiss silent films, though if you give it a chance you'll probably enjoy it as I did. Overall, a funny and very unusual film...one that would be great to show at an LGBT film festival to show the history of this in the cinema. Plus, Edith Storey's performance as Lillian is great and shouldn't be missed!
