The Idler (1914)

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Charles Richman | Walter Hitchcock | Lloyd B. Carleton (Director)

Rest of cast:

Cathrine Countiss | Claire Whitney | Stuart Holmes | Maude Turner Gordon | William T. Carleton | Harry Spingler | C. Haddon Chambers (Play) | Arthur Shaw Clifton (Assistant Director) | William Fox (Presenter)

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The Idler

Charles Richman and Cathrine Countiss Do Excellent Work in Box Office Attraction Five-Part Subject.

Reviewed by George Blaisdell.

In his portrayal of Mark Cross, the leading character of The Idler, which the Box Office Attraction Company is presenting in five parts, Charles Richman gives a performance that goes far to overcome the handicap of a loosely knit medium. His support, too, by Cathrine Countiss and a cast including Claire Whitney, Stuart Holmes, Walter Hitchcock, Harry Spingler and Maud Turner Gordon, is excellent. In its earlier stages the adaptation of Haddon Chambers’ story does not bite; there is a lack of clarity, of cohesiveness.

The picture is well staged, and it is plainly to be seen that expense has not been spared, even in minor matters. The story has wide scope — of marked contrast — of country estates and of the primitive West; of drawing-rooms and of bar-rooms. We see men of position in society in England transferred to the open. The strength of the story is concentrated in its latter half; here it is that the action holds.

Mr. Richman has the role of a man of means who finds his hasty marriage to an actress debars him from seeking the hand of the woman he really loves. John Harding, a man without means, in love with the same woman, goes to the western states and meets Cross, who has previously emigrated. When Harding gets word from home that he has fallen heir to the family estates he makes preparations to return, but just before doing so he accidentally shoots a man he is trying to save from getting entangled in a card game. Harding gets away and returns to England, where he wins the woman for whose hand the two had been suitors, failing to reveal to her that the wife of Cross had been killed in the States and that consequently he is free. It is when Cross and the brother of the man who had been shot return to England that complications follow fast. In the end there is a happy reconciliation.

Miss Countiss has the role of the woman deceived by Harding. She displays skill as well as feeling in her interpretation. Claire Whitney, too, as the sister who falls in love with the young man come to England on revenge bent, is a factor in the picture. Stuart Holmes is Simon, the brother; Walter Hitchcock is Harding, and Miss Gordon, the actress wife.

Some of the scenes that stand out are of the coaching party, the stormy interview in the dressing-room, with the dancers on the stage in the background; the fire in the bar-room, and the many clashes between the conflicting elements when the men have returned to England.

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Scene from The Idler (Box Office)

Collection: Moving Picture World, January 1915