Volume II: Filmography

HOW FILMY WON HIS SWEETHEART

October 28, 1913 (Tuesday)

Length: 1 reel

Character: Comedy

Scenario: Arthur S. Crosskey

Cast: Riley Chamberlin (Filmy), Muriel Ostriche (ticket seller), Lydia Mead

Notes: 1. The film title was subject to numerous misspellings of "Filmy," with "Flimy" appearing various times in schedules in The Moving Picture World (including in the issues of November 1, 8, and 13, 1913), "Philmy" in a review in The Moving Picture World, November 1, 1913, and "Philiny" in various listings in The New York Dramatic Mirror. 2. This film represented Lydia Mead's first screen work for Thanhouser. 3. A guinea (21 shillings; equal to a pound plus one shilling) in the British monetary system was worth slightly more than $5 in equivalent U.S. funds.

ADVERTISEMENT, Reel Life, October 25, 1913:

"Filmy operated the picture machine at the theatre and, being rejected by his lady love, was very nervous all evening. In fact, he threw some of the pictures on the screen upside down and the audience howled. Filmy was 'fired' by the red-hot manager and you'd have thought his love prospects were worse off than ever, wouldn't you? Instead his bad luck sent him good luck and the girl."

SYNOPSIS, The Moving Picture World, November 1, 1913:

"Filmy, an operator at a picture palace, visits his sweetheart, proposes to her, but is rejected by her father on the plea that his position is too humble, and his salary of two guineas [Ed. note: equivalent to slightly more than $10] is not enough to support Stella. Filmy is decidedly absent-minded on account of this, with the result that he puts a feature film on the screen backward, for which he gets the 'bounce.' He then gets a job as a cameraman with a local producer, but instead of taking a local flower show, he takes a policeman spooning with a servant maid; then some lovers in the park, and finally wanders into Lord Montgomery's grounds and takes his lordship spooning with the cook. 'I will give you 5,000 pounds [Ed note: about $24,000] to destroy that film. If my wife sees it, I am ruined,' said the lord. Filmy accepts and Stella's pa willingly accepts Filmy as a son-in-law with his newly acquired wealth."

SYNOPSIS, Reel Life, October 25, 1913:

"Filmy won his sweetheart just by being so desperately and so romantically absent-minded, that he blundered into a fortune. Lots of good things in life seem to come to us in about that way - not by any conscious virtue of our own, but purely by a happy accident. The play is a delicious piece of absurdity - and yet quite like life, after all. Filmy is an operator in a 'Picture Palace' (which stamps the comedy as English at once). He has long been attentive to Stella, and one evening he proposes - only to be rejected by her father - who refuses to see in a two-guinea picture operator a desirable match for his daughter. Filmy is so upset that he puts a film on the screen backwards - and loses his job. He is lucky enough, however, to get another place, as camera man with a local producer, and is sent out to photograph the Flower Show. Instead, he comes back with pictures of a policeman spooning with a servant maid, two lovers in a shady recess in the park - and a scene in the grounds of Lord Montgomery, in which his lordship appears in a romantic scene with his cook. Montgomery gets wind of the film, offering Filmy 5,000 pounds to destroy it. The camera man joyfully accepts - and rushing to Stella's pa with his newly acquired wealth, is promptly accepted. For a good laugh, and plenty of English local color (which, someway, always tickles the American sense of humor) the play is unique among the new offerings."

REVIEW, The Moving Picture World, November 1, 1913: This review is reprinted in the narrative section of the present work.

REVIEW, The New York Dramatic Mirror, November 5, 1913:

"This farce, although without much strength of plot, holds the interest from start to finish. Philiny [sic], a motion picture operator at something like $7 per week (they get that only when necessary to make a plot), loves a girl, but has been rejected, not because of his looks, nor of his family connections, but because of the $7 per by a very practical and sordid-minded father. We see him back on the job, so indifferent that he runs his films backward. For that he loses his job. He is engaged by another firm to take local events, and starts out with a camera. A fat woman flirting and a policeman taking a drink (not of water) are his first two scoops. His third is that of one of the local aristocracy making love to his mother's maid. The destruction of this particular length of film nets Philiny all the available cash that particular local aristocrat carried with him. Philiny is discharged for incompetency, but the sight of all that cash wins him his sweetheart. The part of Philiny is well acted throughout. It is refreshing to note that both Philiny and his sweetheart are what one might call middle-aged."

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