Volume II: Filmography

CHECKING CHARLIE'S CHILD

(Falstaff)

December 2, 1915 (Thursday)

Length: 1 reel (1,025 feet)

Character: Comedy

Scenario: Lloyd F. Lonergan

Cast: Kenneth Clarendon, Jr. (baby), George Marlo (Dick), Isolde Illian (Dot, his wife), Glen Jones (porter)

SYNOPSIS, Reel Life, November 27, 1915:

"Charlie was devoted to his child, but his employer had no use for a howling baby at the office. Charlie's wife had gone to a whist, and had nowhere else to leave the infant, so he was up a tree. At last he gave the baby to the office boy, and told him to check him at a nearby department store. That night the office boy lost his check. The attendant refused to accommodate him with a baby, so the office boy swiped a lusty youngster and ran back to Charlie. Charlie was in such a hurry that he didn't notice that he had somebody else's baby. Next he was arrested for kidnapping. Charlie's wife was summoned to bail him out. The phone rang, and an officer announced that a chap in the store 'round the corner wanted to speak with Charlie's wife. Taking up the receiver, she was overcome to hear her baby say 'Goo! Goo!' Mrs. Charlie headed a rescue party to the telephone booth, where the infant was found cooing merrily. The enthusiastic young mother kept insisting that 'it was too cute for anything in a baby to have called her up.' But the office boy next morning had a more scientific explanation. It seemed he had found the check in his hat, and had been in the act of phoning the father at the police station when Mr. Charlie's voice over the wire had frightened him away. So he had left the baby to do the talking."

REVIEW, The Moving Picture World, December 4, 1915:

"In this comedy the mother of the child goes to a bridge party and leaves the youngster with its father. Charlie's employer takes objection to his time in the office being spent taking care of his child. The child is therefore taken to a department store by the porter and checked in at the nursery. A mix-up of babies occurs later because the porter loses the check."

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