Volume II: Filmography

HELP! HELP!

(Falstaff)

August 20, 1915 (Friday)

Length: 1 reel

Character: Comedy

Scenario: Lloyd F. Lonergan

Cast: Riley Chamberlin (Judge Quinn), Zenaide Williams (Melinda, a black lady, the cook), Glen Jones (her husband, the porter), Carey L. Hastings (Mrs. Noble, the housekeeper), Bill Carroll (Mr. Forsythe, her fiancé), Peggy Burke (Rosie O'Daley, the housemaid), Leo Post (Pat Mahon, her sweetheart), Everett Sullivan (August Dollar, man-of-all-work)

Note: The title appeared erroneously as Help! Help! Help! in some listings.

SYNOPSIS, Reel Life, August 14, 1915:

"Everybody in Crossville had trouble keeping 'help' except Judge Quinn. His household ran on, year after year, undisturbed. The neighbors said: 'It must be that they love the dear old man so, that they can't even imagine leaving him.' Little did they know, on one occasion, the Judge was threatened with the loss of all his servants. It chanced that the porter husband of his colored cook took it into his head to leave the railroad and settle down, with Melinda to get his meals. Simultaneously, Mrs. Noble, the housekeeper, received a letter from her fiancé in Canada, saying that he was coming for her. Rosie, the housemaid, was seen accepting a diamond ring from Pat Mahon. And August Dollar, the man of all work, fell for fat wages offered him by a millionaire auto maniac. But the Judge cleverly disposed of every one of these individuals who would have broken up his domestic happiness. The porter he prevailed upon to take passage to Europe to enlist in the cause of the Belgians. The Canadian was deported. Mahon, who was a race track tout, was easily sent up for vagrancy. And the millionaire auto maniac was put in prison for speeding. It's a simple matter to solve the help problem if you have the law on your side."

REVIEW, The Moving Picture World, August 28, 1915:

"Riley Chamberlin is featured in this as a judge with a houseful of servants. When the women try to leave and get married he sentences their sweethearts to jail. There is an amusing idea in this, worked out with a fair degree of strength."

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