Volume II: Filmography

TRULY RURAL TYPES

Lorraine Huling and Boyd Marshall in a lobby card for TRULY RURAL TYPES. Courtesy of the Wisconsin Center for Film and Theatre Research (R-1)

(Falstaff)

June 4, 1915 (Friday)

Length: 1 reel (1,010 feet)

Character: Comedy

Director: Arthur Ellery

Cast: Riley Chamberlin (Gerald Leigh, the playwright), Lorraine Huling (Phoebe, the country girl), Boyd Marshall (William Sewall, the country boy), Leo Post

SYNOPSIS, Reel Life, May 29, 1915:

"Gerald Leigh, an eminent playwright, is discouraged in his search for just the right types to take the leading roles in his new rural romance, The Plowman. At last, in complete despair, he goes to the country to take a much needed rest. There he meets Phoebe Newell and her swain, William Sewall. Leigh watches their courtship - and at last is convinced that here, at last, he has found two truly rural types. Though the young country people appear shy and unsophisticated, he is convinced that each of them possesses the making of a successful player. He induces them to return with him to the city, promising that he will make them famous. Phoebe and William make a tremendous hit. On the opening night, jaded New Yorkers wildly applaud these wonderful 'discoveries' of the playwright. But the next morning Leigh learns that his stars are a young married couple, already famous as heads of a stock company in one of the smaller cities, whom, in his early search for 'types' he actually had turned down. Now Leigh is not so keen about 'types' as he used to be. For he has learned that really clever actors can play almost anything."

REVIEW, The Moving Picture World, June 12, 1915: This review is reprinted in the narrative section of the present work.

REVIEW, The New York Dramatic Mirror, June 2, 1915:

"Good high class comedy characterizes this one-reeler. It shows the theatrical manager despairing of finding rural types in the city and postponing the opening of his new play. The actor pair, whom he refused, precede him, and he sees an apparently ideal country couple and trains them to act in his play. The morning after the opening night he is astounded at the theatrical notices which advertise the success of an old stage couple. The psychology of the thing, of course, is that which differentiates in the common mind, the city type from the country people. The scenes there with the couple pretending to make love were really good."

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