This is a very neat and well-delivered comedy. It is not as wonderful as the more surreal The Mystery of the Leaping Fish (the same year) or When the Clouds Roll By (1919) but it is still very enjoyable.
There is a 9.5mm Pathescope version of the film (just ten minutes) available on youtube and, although it is terrible condition, it is very interesting to observe the changes made from the original in abbreviating the film from the original 45 minutes. Jimmy, who, in the original, film is Douglas' rival and the father's chosen son-in-law is here changed into the brother, presumably because all of the business between him and the girl is cut (as is the part of the maid, whom he flirts with by mistake in the original after she has changed clothes with the heroine). Quite a neat little edit (since the final scene is cut) is to transpose a scene from near the beginning where the overs kiss to the end, thus providing an alternative punch-line.
There is however a third change that has nothing to do with the abbreviation and is a shocking reminder of a rather unpleasant change that had taken place in US society between the time when the film first appeared in 1916 (with its sly reference at the beginning to pre-wartime slogans "preparedness" and "watchful waiting") and the early to mid-1920s when this Pathescope version would have appeared. In the original the father has Douglas and the priest arrested as "escaped lunatics". In this Pathescope version they are arrested as escapees from Ellis Island. In 1921 the Quota Act had been passed in response to growing anti-immigrant sentiment and, from being the place where immigrants were welcomed to the US, Ellis Island had become essentially a detention centre for (now) illegal immigrants....
There is a 9.5mm Pathescope version of the film (just ten minutes) available on youtube and, although it is terrible condition, it is very interesting to observe the changes made from the original in abbreviating the film from the original 45 minutes. Jimmy, who, in the original, film is Douglas' rival and the father's chosen son-in-law is here changed into the brother, presumably because all of the business between him and the girl is cut (as is the part of the maid, whom he flirts with by mistake in the original after she has changed clothes with the heroine). Quite a neat little edit (since the final scene is cut) is to transpose a scene from near the beginning where the overs kiss to the end, thus providing an alternative punch-line.
There is however a third change that has nothing to do with the abbreviation and is a shocking reminder of a rather unpleasant change that had taken place in US society between the time when the film first appeared in 1916 (with its sly reference at the beginning to pre-wartime slogans "preparedness" and "watchful waiting") and the early to mid-1920s when this Pathescope version would have appeared. In the original the father has Douglas and the priest arrested as "escaped lunatics". In this Pathescope version they are arrested as escapees from Ellis Island. In 1921 the Quota Act had been passed in response to growing anti-immigrant sentiment and, from being the place where immigrants were welcomed to the US, Ellis Island had become essentially a detention centre for (now) illegal immigrants....