The Bioscope (May-Jun 1915)

738 delightful comedy scenes at the masked ball, while it gradually works up in interest to a tremendous sensation at the end. Miss Gertrude McCoy gives a very charming performance as Belle, displaying great vivacity and charm in the earlier part, where she looks bewitching in her boyish dress, and performing her sensatYonal Jeap on to the engine with a courage which must have been a: severe trial to the nerves. Mr. Augustus Phillips plays the part of Bob with his usual tact and succeeds in conveying the impression that the young man, if a trifle young, is thoroughly worthy of his very pretty sweetheart. “The Experiment” treats of hypnotism, a subject which is always of engrossing intcrest, and Mr. Reynolds Knight has utilised it with great skill for it is a subject too often abused. either being treated from an entirely farcical point of view or employed as an easy method for relieving a criminal of the moral responsibility of his actions. Mr. Reynolds shows how easily the drawing-room experiments of this mysterious science may result in very serious consequences. Max Weldon, on a visit to his college chum, George Foster, is persuaded to give an example of his power as a hypnotist. He experiments on George’s sister, Grace, and finding her a sympapathetic medium, he tells her that at midnight she must come downstairs and carry a knife from the table of the library to her brother’s room. Her father, much interested in the experiment, sits up in the library to see the result, while the two boys wait in George’s room. He starts up from a doze to find a burglar in the room and in the struggle for the knife on the table he is slightly wounded and loses consciousness. While he is in this state Grace enters and finding the knife carries it to her brother, who is horrified to find that it is stained with blood. They hasten to the library where Mr. Foster, recovering from the shock, describes his experience, and the burglar, who has not succeeded in making his escape, is arrested by the police who are Digitized by Google Tue Bioscope, May 20, 1915. called in. The experiment has been sufficient to vindicate Max’s claims and probably enough to teach him that a little knowledge is a very dangerous thing. Mr. Richard Tucker, as the amateur hypnotist, Miss Bessie Learn as the medium and Mr. Robert Brower as the interested, though incredulous, sceptic, play with a sincerity which carries conviction and arrests attention to a very interesting subject. A very different class of entertainment is provided by Mr. Edwin R. Coffin in his farcical comedy, ‘Rooney, the Bride.’ Rooney is a bricklayer, and his wife a dressmaker, who is engaged on the bridal garments of Miss Marion Bruce, about to be married to Mr. Artie Boon. Mrs. Rooney is employing her husband as a lay-figure on which to try the wedding dress when Marion arrives to superintend the finishing touches. Rooney recognises Marion as a lady on whom he recently dropped a shower of brickbats in the exercise of his ordinary idleness, and deeming discretion the better part of valour, he escapes through the window in Marion’s bridal attire. One can imagine the complication which an_ ingenious author can evolve out of such a situation. The bridegroom is waiting, his father prepared to come down handsomely in the event of his son’s marital settlement, and at the last moment no bride is forthcoming. Artie, in desperation, sets out in his motor to find his bride and fate draws Rooney across his path, flying for his life in full bridal array. The chase of Rooney, his capture and forced marriage provide incidents which could hardly be improved upon for mirthful extravagance. It is hardly necessary to say that Marion turns up in time to prevent her lover being united irrevocably to the husband of her dressmaker, and a delightful farce is brought to a triumphant climax through the agency of Mrs. Rooney. The comedy is a striking example of that particular Edison method which makes the most of its material Mr. William Wadsworth, Mr. Arthur Housman and Miss Jessie Stevens have worked together with such good result that they formi a combination which cannot fail to achieve the best results, Not the least interesting item of this programme is the wonderful film showing the powers of magnetism, one of the series in which Mr. Edison takes a special interest. Films of such educational value cannot fail in their appeal and we are pleased to note that the Edison Company have other subjects for future release of an equally attractive nature. Original from NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY