Volume II: Filmography

FARM AND FLAT

Advertisement from The Moving Picture World, June 22, 1912. (F-470)

June 23, 1912 (Sunday)

Length: 1 reel

Character: Comedy

Cast: Riley Chamberlin (the farmer), Mignon Anderson, Harry Blakemore

Note: This film was first announced for release on Friday, June 28, 1912, but Thanhouser went to a three-films-per-week release schedule (as announced on page 1073 of The Moving Picture World, among other notices), and the picture was rescheduled as the first Sunday offering. The new schedule called for releases on Sunday, Tuesday, and Friday.

ARTICLE, The Moving Picture World, June 22, 1912:

"The 'Sunday Thanhouser' is here! As the new third reel of the Thanhouser weekly output, it will be watched with interest. Farm and the Flat, a comedy, is the first picture on the new day. June 23rd is the first Sunday. The new Thanhouser comedian, Riley Chamberlin, gets a lot of laughs in the picture as a farmer. He is the owner of a pleasant country place that he wants to lease through the summer, which he would spend in the city. A city man, on the other hand, wants to lease his flat for the hot spell and flee to the country. Farmer and flat-dweller happen to hear tell of each other's situation; they promptly swap homes. But it doesn't work out right. The farmer got in bad with the newfangled flat conveniences and the city man, jay-like, bought a stolen horse from a tramp and almost ended up in jail. The reel is a long laugh."

SYNOPSIS, The Moving Picture World, June 22, 1912:

"The young city chap had a month's vacation, nowhere to go and very little to spend when he got there. So he talked it over with his wife, and they evolved a great idea. 'You want to go to the country,' the husband said. 'Now the country is full of rubes who want to come to the city. It should be an easy matter to find one who will let us occupy his farm for a month, if we will let him use this flat and our house furniture.' They advertised, and it paid. Out at Dreamland Neck, which is inconveniently located in Connecticut, lived a farmer who had long yearned to see the great city. He had heard, however, that at the Waldorf, the best tavern, they often charged $1 a day for rooms without meals, and that the cost of living appalled him. Finding a chance to see the wonders of the metropolis for nothing, he jumped at it, and the swap of homes was made with great joy on both sides.

"The trouble was that neither couple was suited for the new environments. The country people were so busy jumping out of the way of trucks and autos that they had no time to enjoy themselves, while the city folks wearied of chopping wood and trying to bring up chickens by hand. And just as they were getting sick and tired of their bargains, real unhappiness entered their lives. The country chap knew all about gas. You light it with a match and blow it out when you are through. He proved that it was possible to do this and live, but the flat was wrecked. Both he and his wife decided that it was time to go home, and they departed with a rush, just before the police, fireman and ambulances arrived. In the meantime the city chap had picked up a bargain in horse flesh, a nag and a buggy for $34. The countryman would have never made the purchase, for he knew that the outfit belonged to the sheriff, and also that the pretended owner was a tramp. The sheriff arrived shortly after the transfer of his property, and there was a fight. It was the belief of the sheriff that the city chap should accompany him to jail, but the city chap overruled him, and after a heated argument that severely injured the furniture, he escaped with his wife in the stolen buggy. When the swappers reached their respective homes, they called each other by phone and talked angrily. Still as each had injured the property of the other, they found that it would only be a waste of time to sue."

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