Volume II: Filmography

LEFT IN THE TRAIN

October 18, 1914 (Sunday)

Length: 1 reel (994 feet)

Character: Drama-comedy

Scenario: From a story by Evelyn Van Buren

Cast: Marion and Madeline Fairbanks (the twins), Mildred Heller, Helen Badgley, Virginia Waite, J.S. Murray

BACKGROUND OF THE SCENARIO: This work is from a story by Evelyn Van Buren, who is better known for Pippin (a book released in 1913) and Zizi's Career (1921).

SYNOPSIS, Reel Life, October 10, 1914:

"May Pollard defies her parents and elopes. After her husband's death she writes her father, begging him, for the sake of her child, to forgive her. The old man is obdurate, however, despite the pleadings of his wife. About this time, twin girls, distant cousins of May's, go to visit her parents. They notice a sad-eyed woman with a baby on the train. She gets off at a station called Grantwood, to send a telegram, misses the train, and the twins decide to adopt the baby. They manage to smuggle it off the cars in their lunch basket. But when they reach Mr. and Mrs. Pollard's, the baby makes its presence known, and Mrs. Pollard telegraphs Grantwood station, where she relieves the distracted mother, telling her to come at once for the child. May veils herself heavily and comes, much to the disappointment of the twins. Meanwhile, the grandfather has lost his heart to the baby, and when, despite her disguise, he discovers the mother's identity, he forgives his daughter. Finding that the baby belongs in the family, the twins are partly reconciled to giving it up."

REVIEW, The Morning Telegraph, October 18, 1914:

"An obdurate father falls in love with his daughter's baby without knowing its name. Then he forgives its mother for her elopement."

REVIEW, The Moving Picture World, October 31, 1914:

"A photoplay from a short story by Evelyn Van Buren, which makes a simple, direct appeal. The twins find a baby left on the train accidentally by its mother and take it home. The child's mother turns out to be a cast-off daughter of the household. The reconciliation is effective and the whole offering pleasing."

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