User Reviews

A woman making pastry in the kitchen chases a boy out. He remains watches as a man comes in, takes off his coat, and embraces her. The boy races off. Soon another woman enters, who is not pleased to recognize what has been going on.

I take a position between the two other reviewers. At first, it is difficult, if not impossible to tell this is a bit of hanky-panky, save for the movie's title. The woman who turns out to be the cook appears to expect the embrace, indicating a continuing relationship, that only is revealed to be illicit when the wife comes in.

Does this make the title part of the movie? When we go to see a movie titled "The Adventures of So-and-So", we expect some action. Yet the cause for Mars. Jones' future divorce is revealed only by the character's actions.

I must admit I am confused by the layout of the house. While the boy needs to be driven away from the center of the action, to remain an observer, he leaves the screen to the right. Why does Mrs. Jones enter through the door in the middle of the screen instead of from the direction the boy left?

When the film begins, the viewer THINKS the woman working in the kitchen is Mrs. Jones. In comes the man you think is her husband and they kids and cuddle a bit. However, the lady's hands are covered in flour and flour is left on the man's back and face. So, when the ACTUAL Mrs. Jones soon enters the room, she cannot help but notice the flour stains. She naturally realizes what happens and a furor breaks loose—as she dumps the bowl of flour on her hubby's head and tosses the work table over onto the floor.

The best thing about this film is the misdirection. You THINK that the first woman is the poor wife and only later do you realize what's actually occurring. Additionally, the ending, while lacking subtlety, is pretty funny in a lowbrow slapstick way. Cute and clever. My only question, however, is WHO is that little boy in the film and WHY is he just standing there like a zombie?! I don't know what he's doing in the picture.

I agree very much with the other review about this film, which, while it may bot be subtle, certainly has a certain sophistication lacking in most comedies of the period. Unfortunately the "viewer entrapment" he detects is almost certainly the result of viewing with naive modern eyes. I do not imagine anyone in 1900 would have for a moment mistaken a cook, albeit a pretty one, busily making pastry, for a gentleman's wife.

Modern eyes are also remarkably inattentive when watching early films, a reminder of the much higher degree of attention that films of the silent era required of their audiences. I cannot imagine why the reviewer remains confused by the presence of the little boy (presumably the son of the house). Even in such a short film, did he really manage not to notice the little boy sneaking out (evidently going to tell his mother what was going on)? The film was part of a whole series - "The Adventures of Jones" - shot by James White in 1899-1900 which is in fact way ahead of its time. It is perhaps the first comedy series to feature really identifiable characters (even if the name "Jones" remains somewhat generic). This does not begin to become common in films until about 1906. Moreover the stories - although still simple one-shots - are not simply "gags" but have an important element of situational comedy based on the characters developed in the course of the series. Jones is a very bourgeois gent but he is a bit of a nogood boyo - a drinking man (the subject of at least two of the other films) and an inveterate womaniser. But he is a rather charming fellow in his way, not just the stereotypical "dude". The wife is long-suffering but she too is far from being the stereotypical termagant.

What I like about this film particularly is the refreshing lack of any moralising or moral-pointing. Jones, even when found out, does not appear particularly repentant and, as for the pretty cook, it is she (and not the wife) who overturns the table as she makes her exit (my favourite moment in the film - which the other reviewer again seems to have missed). And the title ensures that the audience is left thinking a bit about the aftermath. Did Mrs. Jones really get a divorce? Unlikely perhaps. Did Jones go off with the pretty cook? Even more unlikely. But I hope at least that wretched little sneak of a boy got a good spanking from his mother for hanging around in the kitchen and a good thrashing from his father for telling tales.

Why was the Jones series not continued with? It remains a bit of a mystery. If Charles Musser is right in his conjecture that White himself played the part of Jones, it may well have been Edison's insufferable and humourless manager, Gilmore, who put an end to it. We know he disapproved of "executive staff" getting involved in acting because there was a row over White playing the fire chief in the first version of Life of an American Fireman.

"Jones" was revived a couple of years later by Edwin Porter but only for the space of one film, How John Lost his Roll, a bit heavy-handed in its humour and chiefly memorable for its animated title-sequences. D. W. Griffith would revive "Jones" for a series of comedies (with John Cumpson in he role) but, alas, humour was not Griffith's strongpoint. It was not until the 1910s and the emergence of John Bunny and Flora Finch at Vitagraph (some of which are now beginning to reappear) that "The Adventures of Jones" would have a worthy continuation. Since when "situation comedy" has never ceased to be an important element of film (and nowadays more commonly television series).