1916FalstaffOne reelComedy

Pansy Post, Protean Player

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

“The manager of an employment agency was extremely unhappy, because when he was so fortunate in the selection of applicants that when they once obtained a place they never left it. Fate, however, brought a meeting with Pansy Post, Protean Player. Her lightning change act had failed upon the stage and she was headed for New York, walking. The manager suggested to her that she be his entire staff of domestics, changing costumes until a customer was satisfied, and that as quickly as possible she would leave her new place and come up and divide the commissions with him. This arrangement worked like a charm for a while. Then the unexpected happened. Pansy’s last employer, who had hired her under several different disguises, came in and complained that her ‘last girl’ had run away and had been married to her son. The poor manager scowled at the unhappy mother and simply said, ‘Woman, your son has ruined my business.’ He knew what he meant, but the woman didn’t, and often wondered why the loss of one applicant should put a flourishing Intelligence Office’s business out of commission.”

Summary from Reel Life · 18 March 1916

What the papers said

1 review

“A clever idea is pictured in this comedy number. An actress, out of a job, conspires with the manager of a employment agency and appears in various costumes before women who call for help. She hires out as a colored girl, a Swedish girl, and an Irish girl before the trick is discovered. An amusing number of its kind.”

The Moving Picture World · 1 April 1916

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Cast and crew

Cast
Edith Diestel as Mrs. Gray
Frances Keyes as Pansy
Jay C. Yorke as manager of the Intelligence Office

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Bowers’ notes

The term “protean” refers to someone who assumes different roles; after Proteus, the sea god who assumed different forms. The term, used often in the theatrical trade, recurs in Thanhouser advertising and notes; e.g., those for A Desert Tribesman and Harry’s Waterloo.

From Volume II: Filmography of Q. David Bowers’ Thanhouser Films: An Encyclopedia and History, reproduced with permission and unchanged. Read the history of 1916 →

Cite as: Bowers, Q. David. Thanhouser Films: An Encyclopedia and History, “Pansy Post, Protean Player”. thanhouser.org/films/pansy-post-protean-player/

Where a print is held

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