Thanhouser Company trademark: a T and C monogram inside an octagonTHANHOUSERCompany Film PreservationBuy DVDs

1915FalstaffOne reelComedy

The Actor and the Rube

Also released as The Actor and the Bumpkin

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

“Hi Jenkins, the crankiest farmer in Dillville, gets the whole village down on him, including the spinster whom he wishes to marry. After losing heavily at poker in the local hotel, he leaves for New York to see the sights and forget his troubles. A well-known actor sees him pass the club window, and is seized with a fancy to impersonate the grotesque old fellow. An ‘accidental meeting’ is arranged, and the actor studies his original. He makes up, and goes to Jenkins’ home town, where his agreeable personality soon turns the popular mind in Hi’s favor. He wins at poker. The spinster smiles upon him. And when Jenkins returns, having received a tip from the actor, that if he is silent all will be well, he finds himself the best-liked man in the village. His grouchy disposition never comes back. And he marries the lady of his choice. This is the first of the releases under the Falstaff brand, which replaces the Princess in the Mutual program. Refined, single reel comedies will be released under the Falstaff brand each week.”

Summary from Reel Life · 3 April 1915

What the papers said

2 reviews

“A fresh comedy number, in which a rube, unlucky at cards and love, decides to visit New York. Here he meets an actor, portrayed by Riley Chamberlin, who makes up as the rube and goes back to his home town. He fools the inhabitants and wins at both love and cards. The conception is original and pleasing.”

The Moving Picture World · 24 April 1915

This review is reprinted in the narrative section of the present work.

The New York Dramatic Mirror · 28 April 1915

Have you seen this film, or a print of it?

Prints of films thought lost still turn up in attics, private collections and archives. A record like this one is how the next one gets found.

Tell us about a print

Cast and crew

Director
Arthur Ellery
Cast
Boyd Marshall as his friend
Edward N. Hoyt as Hi Jenkins, the rube
John Reinhard
Kenneth Clarendon
Leo Post
Morgan Jones
Riley Chamberlin as the actor
Writer
Philip Lonergan

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

Watch instead

Films you can watch from the same company

Matched by cast, director and kind
A frame from Mme. Blanche, Beauty Doctor13:35
1915 · Same directorMme. Blanche, Beauty Doctor
A frame from The Decoy. A frame from The Decoy (1914), from the Thanhouser restoration on Vimeo.16:08
1914 · Same leadThe Decoy
A frame from Crossed Wires30:58
1915 · Same leadCrossed Wires

More about this film

Bowers’ notes
  1. This was the first release in the Falstaff comedy series. Made under the personal supervision of Edwin Thanhouser, these one-reel comedies replaced Princess films on the Friday schedule. 2. With Their One Love and Monsieur Nikola Dupree, this was one of three films screened in New Rochelle for film critics brought to the studio for a day by Thanhouser’s new publicity director, Leon J. Rubenstein. The intent was to acquaint reviewers with the forthcoming series of pictures made under the personal supervision of Edwin Thanhouser, and “guaranteed” by him to be of good quality.

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, “The Actor and the Rube”. thanhouser.org/films/the-actor-and-the-rube/

Where a print is held

Held by
No print known