Volume II: Filmography

AS OTHERS SEE US

August 18, 1912 (Sunday)

Length: 1 reel (split with Warner's Waxworks at the end)

Character: Fairy story

Director: Lucius Henderson

Cast: Marion and Madeline Fairbanks (pixies Tinker and Pam)

SYNOPSIS, The Moving Picture World, August 24, 1912:

"Pyxies [sic] are generally better than fairies, for they take a great interest in the doings of their human neighbors, and when they see things going wrong, they are very likely to interfere and set matters straight. Two energetic pyxies lived near a certain village, and were much grieved to find that the majority of the people over-rated themselves. So they decided to straighten things out. Did you ever see a pyxies' Truth Machine? It is a wonderful invention, and a person who goes in one end of it comes out the other, not as he seems to be, but as he really is. So these pyxies decided to test the contrivance, and place the villagers where they really belonged. A notice posted on the village square caused great curiosity. There was no trouble in securing customers, for the privilege of trying the contrivance was free. And a free show always does a big business. The pyxies put the villagers through the machine, and revealed them in their true colors. Then, being kindhearted pyxies, they restored them to their former station in life, for, of course, it would never do to let others see us as we really are all the time. But these villagers learned their lesson, each one who had been through the mill tried to correct his or her faults."

REVIEW, The Morning Telegraph, August 25, 1912:

"European picture makers have succeeded far better than Americans in the production of allegorical themes, and so it is not to be wondered at when an attempt in that direction is made by an American concern it falls short of the ideal. On the other hand, it may be that this is an importation released under Thanhouser's name. It is not a poor offering by any means, but its studio sets and contrivances are too artificial in appearance to completely suggest the allegory. The Pixies - 'Tinker' and 'Pam,' - hover over the village street where the populace gather to gossip. A warning is posted against the vanities and deceptions of the mortals who are called upon to visit the Pixies and there be shown in their own realities. The mortals are taken into the cavern of the Truth Teller one by one, and there placed in a machine which grinds them forth and makes each one appear as he or she really is. A gossiping, spiteful old woman comes out as a cat, a vain woman is made ugly, an old simpleton becomes an infant, and thus the weaknesses of humankind are pointed out until there is little left to the imagination. The mechanism of the Truth Teller would have been more in harmony with the idea if it were made to appear as a more artistic contrivance, and the cavern itself is rather poorly made. The village street is better, and the appearances and disappearances of the Pixies are well carried out."

REVIEW, The Moving Picture World, August 24, 1912:

"In the child division; for juveniles it will make fun."

REVIEW, The New York Dramatic Mirror, August 21, 1912:

"The film tells an allegorical story of how the Pixies, Tinker, and Pam, visited the mortals and cured them of many of their foibles. In its own quaint way it is amusing and suggests that much can be done with the theme when this sort of proper care is exercised. The Pixies see in the world below all its vanity, and the call upon the Diviner of Truth to cure these people of their weaknesses. The mortals are invited to see the truth teller, who is a sort of sausage machine where the mortals are put through a stunt that remodels them physically and is supposed to accomplish the same thing mentally. Then the Pixies, depart to the upper regions, and supposedly the mortals have been relieved of their vanity."

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