Schneider's Anti-Noise Crusade is a 1909 American silent film comedy written and directed by D. W. Griffith, produced by the American Mutoscope and Biograph Company in New York City, and co-starring John R. Cumpson and Florence Lawrence. At its release in April 1909, the short was distributed to theaters on a "split reel", which was a single reel that accommodated more than one film. This short shared its reel with another Biograph comedy directed by Griffith, A Rude Hostess.
Original contact-print paper rolls of both motion pictures, as well as projectable safety-stock copies of them, are preserved in the Library of Congress.
Plot
The film depicts the mounting frustrations experienced by Mr. Schneider, who is living with his wife in an apartment. There he is trying desperately to concentrate on writing a special composition or "poetic effusion" for his "Liederkranz" (choir) while being repeatedly distracted and increasingly annoyed by activities and noises that surround him. He must cope with the rambunctious behavior of his young nephew Fritz playing a trombone, a squawking pet bird, a phonograph, and tolerate his wife and another musician practicing the violin. The following summary of the screenplay, which is from Kemp R. Niver's extensive 1985 reference Early Motion Pictures: The Paper Print Collection in the Library of Congress, provides additional details about the plot:
Cast
John R. Cumpson as Mr. Schneider
Florence Lawrence as Mrs. Schneider
Anita Hendrie as Lena, Mr. Schneider's sister
Arthur V. Johnson as violinist
Jeanie MacPherson as maid
Owen Moore as first thief
Herbert Prior as second thief
Tony O'Sullivan in unverified role
Clara T. Bracy as extra
Flora French as extra
Mack Sennett as extra
Production
The screenplay for this short is credited to D. W. Griffith, who also directed the picture at Biograph's main studio, which in 1909 was located inside a large renovated brownstone mansion in New York City, in Manhattan, at 11 East 14th Street. The comedy was filmed there on interior sets in just two daysMarch 8 and 9, 1909by Biograph cinematographers G. W. "Billy" Bitzer and his assistant Arthur Marvin.
Biograph's uncredited actors
Identifying cast members in early Biograph releases such as Schneider's Anti-Noise Crusade is made more difficult by the fact that the studio, as a matter of company policy, did not begin publicly crediting its performers on screen, in trade publications, or in newspaper advertisements until four years after this short's release. John R. Cumpson and Florence Lawrence, although co-stars in this short, were uncredited in their roles on screen and in print, as were the rest of Biograph's relatively small staff of "photoplayers" in the studio's productions in 1909. At that time, Lawrence was already gaining widespread celebrity among filmgoers. Few people, though, outside the motion picture industry knew her name, so the actress was referred to by admirers and in news publications as simply "the Biograph girl".
Release and reception
After their release on April 8, 1909, Schneider's Anti-Noise Crusade and its split-reel companion A Rude Hostess circulated to theaters throughout the United States for the next year. The two shorts were widely promoted in newspapers and in film-industry publications. One unnamed reviewer for the New York journal The Moving Picture World evidently found Schneider's Anti-Noise Crusade to be refreshing and wholesome entertainment, describing it to readers as "a clean bit of comedy" and "a welcome relief from some of the inane things that pass for comedy."