Volume II: Filmography

THE MISTAKE OF MAMMY LOU

November 7, 1915 (Sunday)

Length: 1 reel (1,008 feet)

Character: Drama

Cast: Nellie Gilmore (Mammy Lou, a black "mammy"), Morgan Jones (father), Grace DeCarlton (daughter), Wayne Arey (lover)

SYNOPSIS, Reel Life, November 6, 1915:

"On his way to visit his fiancée, the young man saw her on the front steps in earnest conversation with a stranger. The stranger took the girl's hand, mounted his horse and rode away. Instead of waiting for an explanation the girl's sweetheart angrily demanded one. Hurt by his attitude she refused to give it. There was a lover's quarrel and the man strode angrily away. Had he remained he would have seen the young woman weeping in the arms of her old colored 'mammy.' The visitor was a man who had come to see her father, a lawyer, and he had left a large sum of money in their safe overnight. Old Mammy Lou watched her mistress that evening. With horror, she saw her take a revolver from her desk and load it. Mammy did not know that the girl feared for the money that had been entrusted in her care - Mammy believed that her young mistress planned something rash. So the old Negress took precautions, and then went to tell the fiancé what she imagined was going to happen.

"The young man ran to the girl's house and Mammy followed fast as she could. The suitor arrived soon after a tramp had entered, and found the girl trying to cow the intruder. But like most women, she was as much afraid of the weapon as she was of the tramp. The fiancé was held up by the tramp. The girl pleaded with him not to risk his life for her sake. He raised his hands submissively, and she started to open the safe. The next moment Mammy Lou came in. 'You fool man!' she cried, 'dere ain't no cartridges in dat gun? I done removed 'em so's young Missy couldn't hurt herself!' The girl's sweetheart leaped upon the intruder, and she ran to summon the police."

REVIEW, The Moving Picture World, November 6, 1915:

"The old Negro mammy sees her young mistress with a revolver and thinks she is going to kill herself. She runs and brings the lover, with whom the girl had quarreled. There is an attempted burglary and the reel closes amid great excitement. A light, pleasing number."

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