Douglas Messerli | Rebels Without a Good Cause [Introduction]

rebels without a good cause

by Douglas Messerli

 

From 1909 to 1911, Kalem pictures featured a series of six short films, all directed by Sidney Olcott, written and starring Gene Gauntier about a girl spy, Nan, working for the Confederate cause during the Civil War.

     The films include The Girl Spy: An Incident of the Civil War (1909), The Further Adventures of the Girl Spy (1910), The Bravest Girl in the South (1910), The Love Romance of the Girl Spy (1910), The Girl Spy Before Vicksburg (1910), and To the Aid of Stonewall Jackson: An Exploit of the Girl Spy (1911).

      These shorts all feature Gauntier as a rough and tumble hero, willing to go through the most difficult of feats, and who at one point or another cross-dresses in order to achieve her goals. They were inspired by the real-life woman spy Belle Boyd. They were shot at Kalem studios near Jacksonville, Florida.

      The adventures are important, in part, because they were the precursors to the popular serial films in the 1910s starring Pearl White and Grace Cunard, which featured women able to take on their male counterparts; but also, in terms of LGBTQ+ history because they represented the first wave of US films featuring strong and daring women as cross-dressers, which included also The House of Closed Shutters (1910), The Red Girl and the Child (1910), Taming a Husband (1910), and Judith of  Bethulia (1914), among others.

       Only three of these films remain available, the first held at the at the Library and Archives Canada, the second at The British Film Institute and The Library of Congress, and The Girl Spy Before Vicksburg at the EYE Filmmuseum in Amsterdam.