This comedy really stands out from others made in the US in the year precisely because it is not being played for laughs but has really a certain charm as a "domestic drama" of everyday life. Even the invention - a subject on which Edison was not entirely ignorant - turns out to be a perfectly sensible one.
Edison films of this period frequently have a strong "public service" element (the company made films with anti-tuberculosis and work safety organisations) and many companies were making films with patriotic content. Here the wartime theme that is introduced in the scenes where the wife is working as a "conductorette" gives the story a very particular topical feel but another refreshingly unconventional thing about it is that it treats this theme very much at second degree and could even be said to be mildly mocking the whole notion of "patriotic" effort. Flagg, who plays the inventor, could afford to do this precisely because he was not a movie star but was nevertheless himself something of a celebrity in a suitably patriotic context. Cartoonist and illustrator, he was the face of "Uncle Sam" in the famous wartime recruitment poster, which he had designed in 1917 (although simply based on the earlier British recruitment poster that featured Lord Kitchener). He also serves, as it were, who also sits and draws (or invents improvements to elevators). It really makes a pleasant change to see a US short of this period which does not contain the usual knockabout comedy and one which also, unusually, spells "patriotism" with a distinctly small "p".