Charles Hill Mailes (1915) 🇺🇸
The subject of this sketch will be recognized by exhibitors and picture-goers as one of the best all-around actors on the screen today.
Charles Hill Mailes for three years has been one of the foremost members of the Biograph stock company. In that time he has played many leading parts, divided among all classes of work. He has been as successful in comedy as in dramatic portrayal, although it is in the latter that he has been most frequently seen. Mr. Mailes through his desire to remain in the East has been impelled to resign from the engagement which he has held so long and which has been so pleasant. He is now enjoying a bit of a vacation at his home in Whitestone, Long Island.
Mr. Mailes has had wide experience on the stage. For two years he played in Irish character with Joe Murphy and previously he was in Shakespearean repertoire. He played Cash Hawkins in William Faversham’s production of The Squawman. He portrayed Spanish Ed in the New York run of The Virginian. He was the Scotchman with Jamieson Lee Finney in A Fool and His Money. He also played Gus for two seasons in the original Clansman company. His last appearance on the stage was in the part of the Murderer in The Oath, in which he made a decided hit. As illustrating the versatility of Mr. Mailes it may be pointed out that he played with equal success such widely divergent characters as Cash Hawkins in The Squawman and Justice Prentice in The Witching Hour. Another one of his successes was as Jeffries, Senior, in The Third Degree.
Mr. Mailes has been seen much recently in the two-reel productions of the A. B. company. He played the lead in the recent release of “Cousin Pons,” for which there is an unusual demand by exhibitors. He played Laroque in “The Romance of a Poor Young Man,” the Man in “The New Magdalen,” Dalton in “The Ticket-of-Leave Man,” and the Count in “On the Heights.”
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“File No. 113”
Biograph’s two part adaptation from Émile Gaboriau’s novel is a strong picture.
Reviewed by George Blaisdell.
The release of the Biograph Company for January 26 forges another link in the chain of two-part adaptations from fiction and stage classics which are proving so popidar with picture followers. “File No. 113” is taken from the first of the novels of Émile Gaboriau, whose untimely death, in 1873, at the age of thirty-eight cut short the writing of a series of detective stories that in the half dozen years they had been before the public had brought international fame to their author. M. Lecoq, the noted predecessor of Sherlock Holmes, enters the story in its last quarter. Plainly his crime-detecting methods are of the simple, common sense sort used by the policeman of the world of fact — and are none the less interesting by reason of it.
File No. 113 is a well-told story and well staged and acted. Louise Vale has the role of Valentine, who as a young woman brings into the world a son, who immediately is taken from her by her mother, the Countess. Hers is a skillful portrayal of the woman who loses prospective husband and is robbed of her, or their, son, only to be confronted twenty or more years later with a reminder of her early misfortunes in the guise of the real son, but actually a swindler, trading on both her maternal love and her fear of discovery by her banker husband and young daughter.
Franklin Ritchie is Louis, who becomes master of the family estate following the death of his father and the disappearance of his brother, Valentine’s lover, when in self-defense he has too vigorously taken his own part against his rival. It is Louis who aspires to rob Valentine through imposing on her one of his confederates when later in life, after dissipating his fortune, he has fallen into evil ways. William Jefferson is Raoul, the bogus son. Jack Drumier is Fauvel, the husband of Valentine. Hector V. Sarno is Lecoq. Alan Hale is Prosper, the clerk of Fauvel, wrongly accused of robbing his employer’s vault. Gretchen Hartman is Madeleine, the daughter of Fauvel, and in love with Prosper.
There are dramatic situations. One that particularly stands out is where the smooth Louis brings Raoul to the home of Valentine and introduces him to the matron as the son she had not seen since the hour of his birth. Here is a real opportunity for strong acting — and it is accepted.
A thrilling scene is the battle with pistols when the two thieves quarrel over the spoils. The lamp is extinguished; the flashes vividly show what is happening. The ending is a happy one. Lecoq, in the office of the police chief, tells Valentine Raoul is not her son; furthermore, Fauvel continues to believe Raoul was only a nephew — Valentine’s great secret remains a secret.
It is interesting to note that the principals are introduced on the screen — not the whole cast at the beginning, but in the more logical form of announcing each one just prior to his entrance into the story.
Scene from File No. 113 (Biograph).
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Totten skillful in “Amateur Prodigal.”
Joseph Byron Totten displays great skill in the way he portrays the leading role in “An Amateur Prodigal,” an Essanay photoplay taken from the story of Albert Payson Terhune. He brings out the pathos which the part of John Andrews calls for in a way that touches the heart without going to the other extreme of making it too melodramatic, which a less skilled player might easily fall into.
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M. Schwartz, of the Reliable Feature Film Company of Chicago, and his son, William M. Schwartz, are in New York for a few days. They announce they have taken the Vitagraph’s production of “The Christian” for Wisconsin.
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Lubin entertains newspapermen.
The Critics Association of Philadelphia, composed of the musical and dramatic critics of the morning and afternoon newspapers, paid an official visit to the Lubin Manufacturing Company this week and spent an entire day inspecting the big establishment and watching the making of photo plays.
Mr. Siegmund Lubin took the newspapermen on a tour of the plant, and, incidentally, showed them a number of machines and devices that he has but recently perfected, and which will do a great deal toward improving motion pictures.
The critics struck a day when many interesting scenes were being filmed in the studios, and they had an opportunity to, not only meet, but to watch Romaine Fielding, George Terwilliger, Joseph Kaufman, John Ince, Joe Smiley, Edgar Jones and Barry O’Neil direct their respective companies. Following a luncheon tendered the visitors by Mr. Lubin, the critics were shown some special reels.
The party included George Rogers, The Inquirer; J. Howard Bonte, The Morning Ledger; Harvy Maitlant Watts, The Morning Ledger: Henry Starr Richardson, The Evening Star; A. Duross Ferris, The Evening Telegraph, and Herman Dieck, The Record.
Collection: Moving Picture World, January 1915
Moving Picture World, 1910s, 1915, Charles Hill Mailes