The Female Highwayman (1906 film)

Still of the car highjacked by the female bandit

• Margaret Leslie in unverified role (very likely as the title character)[6]
• Howard E. Nicholas in unverified role
• Uncredited actors as party guests and maid
• Uncredited actor as jewelry store clerk
• Uncredited actors as occupants of highjacked car
• Uncredited actor as police officer
• Uncredited actor as bank courier
• Uncredited actors as additional police officers

According to descriptions of the film's storyline in 1906 and 1907 publications, the Selig release portrayed four crimes of a young woman in a big city. The first scenes depicted her "daring" and "carefully mapped out robbery" of guests at a posh party, including taking jewelry and cash from her own friends. Profiles of the film also describe how her next target was a jewelry store, where she employed a more subtle means of theft. While inspecting a tray of diamonds with the store's clerk, she slips a large gem out of the tray and embeds it in a wad of chewing gum she took out of her mouth. She then sticks the diamond under the ledge of the sales counter. As she departs the store, the clerk notices the jewel was missing, so he stops her and calls in a police officer, who searches the thief. No gem is found, so the clever thief is allowed to leave. Later, dressed as a man, she returns to the store pretending to be a customer interested in buying a new pocket watch. While casually inspecting merchandise, she retrieves the diamond from beneath the counter's edge.[6][7]

Scene of the police restraining the robber as a wounded officer (right) lies on the floor

In the female bandit's next crime, again dressed as a man and brandishing a pistol, she "highjacks" a car and robs its occupants.[6] She then uses the gun to rob a bank courier. Yet again attired in men's clothing, the "highwayman" confronts the courier on a sidewalk and takes a valise full of valuables. When a policeman approaches during the robbery, she turns her gun on him and holds both men "at bay" while she makes her escape, although in her getaway she drops her male "wig", which the authorities quickly find. The film then transitioned to the final scenes in which the bandit has returned to her apartment. Thinking she has successfully eluded her pursuers and is safe, she proceeds to hide the valuables when suddenly several police officers batter down the door to her room. She shoots one of the men, severely wounding him. A struggle ensues, but the bandit still manages to drink a vial of poison she had hidden. She dies, preferring to end her life rather than languishing for decades in a prison cell.[7]

The production was filmed entirely in Chicago by Selig Polyscope in the fall of 1906, prior to mid-October.[8] Scenes were shot on location along several streets of the city as well as at the company's studio and backlot, which occupied a large area near 3900 North Claremont Avenue. The company's owner, William N. Selig, viewed the 14-minute film as a landmark "feature" for the studio, being its longest screen presentation up to that time. He subsequently referred to it as the company's first "release of 1,000 feet".[9] Technically, though, the film was shy 90 feet from actually setting that landmark. Upon its release in 1906 and throughout its circulation to theaters into 1908, The Female Highwayman was consistently listed in trade publications and offered for sale by film distributors as a picture with a running length of 910 feet.[1][5]

On December 3, 1906, just nine days after the film's release, the local newspaper in Hartford, Connecticut, reports on the town's first screening of the unusual crime drama from out "of the West" in Chicago:

Hold-ups and robberies in the mountains of the West, all committed by a woman, were shown in the feature film "The Female Highwayman," in the series of motion pictures given before a large audience at the Hartford Opera House last evening. The film is new and the scenes shown were clear.[13]

"Never shown in the south before"; newspaper advertisement, Austin, Texas, June 1907

Nearly two years after the film's initial distribution, media coverage of The Female Highwayman indicates that Selig's "lengthy" production remained in circulation in United States theaters and was still a motion picture of interest to trade publications. The New York-based journal The Moving Picture World continued to update its readers about reactions to the Selig production in a feature titled "Newspaper Comments on Film Subjects". In its August 29, 1908 issue, the journal reports a pithy assessment from another recent viewer, stating only "'The Female Highwayman' is an intensely interesting picture."[14] In 1908, film distributors also continued to promote the film, describing it as "praiseworthy not only for its dramatic interest and intensity, but as well for the wonderful photography and steadiness, which are excellent throughout."[5]

Trouble for the film in Chicago's "nickel theaters"

Following its release, The Female Highwayman was added to a list of films compiled by Chicago Judge McKenzie Cleland in April 1907, a list of motion pictures presented in the city's "nickel theaters", which he collectively and publicly blamed for corrupting local youth.[15] The film industry took notice of the judge's "war" against Chicago's "cheap" theaters, as well as the proceedings of a "conference on 5 cent theaters" convened by city leaders that April to discuss the problematic pictures.[16] The Selig Polyscope Company no doubt took particular notice of that conference. The "Windy City" was not only the home of its studio operations, but having its recent "lengthy" feature included on Judge Cleland's list was certainly not good for the company's public image, at least locally.[17] The New York trade journal The Moving Picture World in its April 27 issue reports on the campaign by "McCleland" and even admits that the films on the judge's list are not really suitable for young audiences:

Judge McCleland, of Chicago, is making war on moving picture shows of the nickel variety. Writing to a Chicago paper he says: "These theatres are the cause, directly and indirectly, of more juvenile coming into my court than all other causes combined. I very much hope you will not cease to encourage the suppression of these institutions, or at least the prevention of minors attending them unless accompanied by their parents." That looks like a rather stern arraignment of a popular amusement, but possibly the judge is speaking inside the facts. At least, one is willing to admit that their effect may be somewhat different from that of the Sunday school, when he reads over the list of the films shown in Chicago last Saturday... Surely not...the kind of selections the average parent would make for his or her little ones.[17]

In addition to The Female Highwayman, some of the other films included on Judge Cleland's 1907 list were Cupid's Barometer, An Old Man’s Darling, The Bigamist, Modern Brigandage, Course of True Love, Seaside Flirtation, College Boy’s First Love, Child Robbers, Gentlemanly Hold-up, Beware, My Husband Comes, and Gaieties of Divorce.[17]

Selig bulletin with female bandit posing in dress and in a man's suit, November 1906

No copy of The Female Highwayman is listed among the film holdings of the Library of Congress, the UCLA Film Archives, in the collection of moving images at the Museum of Modern Art, the George Eastman Museum, the Library and Archives Canada (LAC), or in other major film repositories in the United States, Canada, or Europe.[19] The motion picture is therefore classified as lost or "undetermined" by film historians.[20]

• The Female Highwayman at the American Film Institute Catalog
• The Female Highwayman at IMDb