Volume II: Filmography

MOVIE FANS

British release title: DREAMS OF GREATNESS

(Falstaff)

April 30, 1915 (Friday)

Length: 1 reel (1,012 feet)

Character: Comedy

Director: Arthur Ellery

Cast: Lorraine Huling (the stenographer), Billy Sullivan (the shipping clerk), Ernest Warde, George Platt, James Dunne

Notes: 1. "The" was added to the beginning of the title in numerous notices. 2. In a review in The New York Dramatic Mirror, May 12, 1915, Billy Sullivan was listed incorrectly as "Harry" Sullivan.

ADVERTISEMENT (signed by Edwin Thanhouser), The Moving Picture World, May 1, 1915:

"On April 30th, which is Friday, the Falstaff Comedy Day, I release the Falstaff comedy in one reel entitled The Movie Fans. I'm not going to say a word about this, but if it is not what I told you Falstaff Comedies will be, I want you to do the talking to me - and go as strong as you like! That's all!"

SYNOPSIS, Reel Life, April 17, 1915:

"A young clerk and a stenographer meet in a movie theatre. They fall in love and marry. They have been drawn together by common ambitions. He dreams of being a successful scenario writer, and she of starring on the screen. But, as time passes, their hopes are not realized. Instead of fame, the girl receives the honest love of her young husband, and the clerk is grateful to be able to keep a job and support his devoted wife. When their baby daughter is born, all dreams of wealth and glory pass out of their heads forever. And they agree that for them 'future greatness' is bound up with the health and happiness of their little Laura."

REVIEW, The Moving Picture World, May 15, 1915:

"A slight comedy offering, showing how two people meet at a moving picture theatre. He dreams of being a great scenario writer, she of becoming an actress. Billy Sullivan and Lorraine Huling play the lovers. Rather pleasing for a light subject."

REVIEW, The New York Dramatic Mirror, May 12, 1915:

"The idea behind this 1,000 foot refined comedy is a good one, so good, in fact, and so well presented, that is one is liable to overlook the good looks of the leading characters, Lorraine Huling and Harry Sullivan. What is more, it is all about the picture industry itself. And it is highly imaginative. He goes to the picture show and imagines himself as the author of the films, while the girl next to him, who has histrionic aspirations, pictures herself as the leading lady of the picture she is viewing. This imaginative material, of course, gives play to some very excellent dissolve work, and plays the two young people, who eventually marry and lead a normal domestic existence, very much into the camera's eye. It is another of the acceptable Falstaff comedies."

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