Volume II: Filmography

A MASSIVE MOVIE MERMAID

Production stills courtesy Dominick Bruzzese. (F-864, F-865-1 & F8-865-2)

(Falstaff)

August 30, 1915 (Monday)

Length: 1 reel (1,005 feet)

Character: Comedy

Scenario: Lloyd F. Lonergan

Cast: Arthur Cunningham (leading lady, the mermaid), George T. Welsh (director of the Desperation Film Co.), Jack Speis (general manager)

SYNOPSIS, Reel Life, August 28, 1915:

"The director of the 'Desperation Film Company' is putting on 'the greatest water tragedy ever written.' when, in the midst of the scene-making, the leading lady leaves in a huff. The distraught director sends a hurry call to the studio for another leading lady, one who can swim. The cast director looks over his stock of pictures, and finds Pansy listed as a graceful swimmer. Her face is pretty, so he notifies her to report to the director in a bathing suit. Pansy once had been petite, but now she compares favorably for size with the European war debt. The despairing director, at first glance, is about to send her away, when the camera-man whispers hoarsely in his ear, 'Better give her a try-out. The light is failing.' So Pansy gets her chance. From the moment Pansy takes the deck of the yacht, the sublime is turned into the ridiculous. The director himself tumbles head foremost into one of the side-splitting scenes. 'Great stuff! I got every foot of it,' confides the cameraman - and his ungrateful superior calls him several kinds of a fool. The picture is printed up and run off in the projection room for the general manager. The director of Desperation tragedies waits in chilly apprehension outside. Then the manager and his staff come out, shouting with laughter. 'You will do all our comedies hereafter,' says the manager. And the director rushes away to secure Pansy as his star."

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

"A beach comedy, showing some moving picture actors in the throes of producing a drama. The leading lady - a fat man in disguise - crabs the performance and then the director falls overboard, turning the intended tragedy into a farce. There are some laughable situations in this."

# # #