Alias Jimmy Valentine (1915)
—
Robert Warwick | Robert Cummings | Maurice Tourneur (Director | Writer)
Rest of cast:
Alec B. Francis | Frederick Truesdell | Ruth Shepley | Johnny Hines | D. J. Flanagan | Walter Craven | John Boone | George Cummings | Thomas Mott Osborne | Nora Cecil | Madge Evans | Paul Armstrong (Play) | O. Henry (Story) | William A. Brady (Executive Producer)
—
”Alias Jimmy Valentine.”
Paul Armstrong’s strong melodrama makes hit as picture offering (World Film, five reels).
Reviewed by Hanford C. Judson.
The quality of its story is the big thing in any picture, and the quality of Alias Jimmy Valentine is known. The picture is one of the kind of which there is no question or doubt; that it is a very good offering everyone, we think, will be quite agreed. The spectator who wants’ “high brow” stuff and the one who wants “low brow” stuff can generally get together on simple, human stuff and that this picture, in both plot and detail, furnishes richly.
Maurice Tourneur directed the picture in the Peerless studio, with Robert Warwick in the leading role as “Jimmy.” Ruth Shepley plays the girl. John Hines plays “Red,” the pal of Jimmy, and the other crook of the three is played by Alec Francis. Doyle, the detective, is played by Robert Cummings. There are many delightfully small details; but there is nothing in the whole offering that is, in this way, quite so pleasing as “Blinkey,” the clever penman, done by John Starkey. Scenes actually taken in the big pen at Sing Sing are included. These pictures are full of interest and, just at this time, have a news value, due to the work of the new warden, Thomas Mott Osborne, the rich man, who is reforming methods of treating prisoners and is remaking many of them into men. Warden Osborne is shown on the screen. The staging and scene-making throughout is convincing and worthy.
The quality of the story comes, in part, from the breadth of its emotional appeal to human affections; it’s a love story of several different kinds. First there is good human stuff, and we can sympathize with it, in the friendship of the crooks against the background of police activities. Then comes the showing of Jimmy’s respect for women and the first, faint twittering daybreak of a real love story. It was through Jimmy’s strength and not through his weakness that he is arrested and brought to book for the robbery of the bank. It was due to the fight he has with the cad to protect the girl on the train. He goes to prison and the pals who are gathered together in a long-term reunion are denied long conversations; but they have their signs and understanding. For his good deeds Jimmy gets a pardon and soon there is a real love story within him, and this is reinforced by his attitude towards his old chums. He would herd them all on the straight path and does his best for them.
There is good dramatic construction in Jimmy’s finally winning his right to happiness. He is successful in business, but his past still holds him liable. He has worked out a false alibi so cleverly that it fools the relentless detective. He then wilfully relinquishes its safety to secure the safety of the little sister of the girl he loves — he lets the detective see that he is able to open the safe, for the child is shut in it. The girl sees it too and the detective’s heart is touched and he tears up the papers asking for information about alias Jimmy Valentine.
—
Scene from Alias Jimmy Valentine (World Film).
Collection: Moving Picture World, March 1915
—
see also