This movie was released in December, 1911. It was written by Jim Henderson who wrote the delightful "Girl and her Trust" for D.W. Griffith, which was released in March 1912. These two film highlight the leap that the cinematic arts took at the beginning of 1912. This film is totally stage bound with little action, motion or drama. The struggle between good and evil is all internalized in the pained face of star Joseph Graybill. It is a psychological story that is quite uncinematic.
Graybill is a hotel clerk. He is in love with Mabel Normand a stenographer. Graybill overheads some guests talking about getting rich in the stock market. He invests money "on margin" and apparently loses it. He has to come up with $2,000 or be arrested. All of this information is simply communicated to us in title cards. We then see Graybill struggle with the question of robbing a safe containing money deposited by a guess. He steals the money but his sweetheart, Mabel persuades him to return it. He does so just in the nick of time, as the hotel guess visits the safe to retrieve his money.
There is a subplot, which involves the man's elderly mother, at least I think she was his mother. She dies for no apparent reason and I guess Graybill is happy that she didn't die while he was still a thief, but after he returned the money. What is it with Griffith and little old mothers anyway. Remember the rocking carriage from "Intolerance." The death of the mother distracts us from the film's original problem that Graybill still does not have the $2,000 he needed to pay for his stock market gambling. We never do find out what happens to Graybill, so the film has an unresolved feeling.
The moral is "Don't Gamble." Why? Because it will lead you to stealing. Then we get the second moral "Don't Steal." Why? Because your girlfriend won't like it and your mother will die. It is quite childish and silly.
Without much cinematic flair, Griffith's tendency to moralize like a Sunday School Teacher dominates here. It is not a pretty quality and drags the film down.
Anyways, Mabel Normand does a fine job in this her first film for Griffith. She appears in her sleeping gown here. I suppose that would have been considered a bit risqué in 1911.
Film historians should certainly want to see this because of Griffith's and Normand's participation.
Graybill is a hotel clerk. He is in love with Mabel Normand a stenographer. Graybill overheads some guests talking about getting rich in the stock market. He invests money "on margin" and apparently loses it. He has to come up with $2,000 or be arrested. All of this information is simply communicated to us in title cards. We then see Graybill struggle with the question of robbing a safe containing money deposited by a guess. He steals the money but his sweetheart, Mabel persuades him to return it. He does so just in the nick of time, as the hotel guess visits the safe to retrieve his money.
There is a subplot, which involves the man's elderly mother, at least I think she was his mother. She dies for no apparent reason and I guess Graybill is happy that she didn't die while he was still a thief, but after he returned the money. What is it with Griffith and little old mothers anyway. Remember the rocking carriage from "Intolerance." The death of the mother distracts us from the film's original problem that Graybill still does not have the $2,000 he needed to pay for his stock market gambling. We never do find out what happens to Graybill, so the film has an unresolved feeling.
The moral is "Don't Gamble." Why? Because it will lead you to stealing. Then we get the second moral "Don't Steal." Why? Because your girlfriend won't like it and your mother will die. It is quite childish and silly.
Without much cinematic flair, Griffith's tendency to moralize like a Sunday School Teacher dominates here. It is not a pretty quality and drags the film down.
Anyways, Mabel Normand does a fine job in this her first film for Griffith. She appears in her sleeping gown here. I suppose that would have been considered a bit risqué in 1911.
Film historians should certainly want to see this because of Griffith's and Normand's participation.
