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1915PrincessOne reelComedy

An Innocent Burglar

No copy you can watch online. No print is known to survive. What follows is what does: the release, the cast, the story, and what the trade press said at the time.

The story

“Edwin Marshall worries his parents and his sister, Mary, with his wild ways. To pay his gambling debts he enters the home of Hal Davis, who is in love with Mary, and is in the act of helping himself to valuables when Davis discovers him. Marshall confesses his motive and the other young man gives him the money. This act and the fact that Davis loves his sister, cause Marshall to reform. Later, Davis’ sister, Helen, visits him and she and Edwin are strongly attracted. Mary, on receiving a necklace from her fiancé, leaves it on her dresser near an open window. Its mysterious disappearance leads to her brother’s being accused of the theft and sentenced to prison. Helen alone believes him innocent. Just in the nick of time she finds out that the real burglar is an organ grinder’s monkey, and secures evidence which frees Marshall.”

Summary from Reel Life · 16 January 1915

What the papers said

2 reviews

“Edwin Marshall is accused of a theft of which Helen Davis thinks he is innocent. She finds that the burglar was an organ grinder’s monkey. Edwin is released.”

The Morning Telegraph · 17 January 1915

“In which a monkey, belonging to an Italian organ grinder, enters a window and steals a necklace. The action almost brings disgrace upon the reformed heroes. Boyd Marshall and Muriel Ostriche are the lovers. The story is slight in plot but quite interesting.”

The Moving Picture World · 30 January 1915

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Cast and crew

Cast
Boyd Marshall as Edwin Marshall
John Reinhard
Muriel Ostriche
Irene Farrington as Helen Davis

Every name opens that person's page, with each film they appear in and which of them you can watch.

Watch instead

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Matched by cast, director and kind
A frame from The Decoy. A frame from The Decoy (1914), from the Thanhouser restoration on Vimeo.16:08
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A frame from The Marvelous Marathoner13:12
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A frame from Crossed Wires30:58
1915 · Same leadCrossed Wires

More about this film

Bowers’ notes
  1. Some notices omit Muriel Ostriche and mention Reenie Farrington as the co-star with Boyd Marshall. This may have been because Miss Ostriche had announced her intention to depart from Thanhouser, or had already left, by the time this film was released. In any event, Thanhouser cast listings for Princess films were often unreliable. Reel Life, January 16, 1915, assigns the role of Helen Davis to Reenie Farrington in its cast listing on page 12. However, if Muriel Ostriche did not play this role, at least she was in the film, for she is pictured in a still from the production, and captioned as Muriel Ostriche, on page 15 of the same Reel Life issue, and in the same issue on page 32 an advertisement notes concerning the film: “A comedy-drama with many novel situations ably presented by Muriel Ostriche and Boyd Marshall.” 2. The January 30, 1915 issue of Reel Life carried this notice: “Pretty Rene [sic] Farrington, daughter of Frank Farrington, who played Braine in The Million Dollar Mystery, is now leading lady of the Princess Company, taking the place of Muriel Ostriche. She will play leads opposite Boyd Marshall.”

From Volume II: Filmography of Q. David Bowers’ Thanhouser Films: An Encyclopedia and History, reproduced with permission and unchanged. Read the history of 1915 →

Cite as: Bowers, Q. David. Thanhouser Films: An Encyclopedia and History, “An Innocent Burglar”. thanhouser.org/films/an-innocent-burglar/

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