“When the Thanhouser Company set out to make a really fine film play, there are very few people who can equal their results, and none who can surpass them. The Trail of the Lovelorn is an example of the Thanhouser Company at their best. It is a story dealing with the detection of crime, and it is as skillfully conceived and constructed by the author as it is perfectly presented by producer and players. It is, moreover, that very rare thing, an entirely novel film. The form of crime it illustrates is not the conventional jewel robbery or rich-man-murder of the average film, but is a ‘stunt’ (as its perpetrators would doubtless term it) so full of ingenious originality as to be full of interest on its own account. Still more interesting, thanks to the magnificent manner in which the film is handled, is the lengthy process by means of which the detective of the play (represented with the utmost plausibility by that very finished actor, Mr. Harry Benham) tracks down and captures the miscreants after numerous failures, one of which involves the arrest of two innocent people, themselves victims of the wily wrongdoers. Although it is quite breathlessly exciting, there is no suggestion of cheap sensational melodrama in the story, which is logically developed throughout in a series of strictly natural episodes. It would be rather unfair to give away the very original idea which forms the basis of this most entertaining film, and we will, therefore, leave our readers to discover for themselves on seeing the picture the enterprising system of dishonesty with which it deals. We cordially recommend the production to all who are in search of a really excellent play, however, and we do not fancy that any exhibitor who books it will be disappointed.”
