Cinema News and Property Gazette (1912)

X. FILMS.— Supplement to THE CINEMA. August, 1912. Celeste, in coquettish mood, endeavours to draw from him information regarding his country's defences, Sec. He displays the plans he bears. She fails, however, to obtain them. Glancing at the portieres, where the Baron stands revealed to her view, held there with Carter's pistol at his back, she interprets his glance to propose coffee to the young officer. It is brought. Stealthily and unseen, from the folds of her dress, the woman takes a vial containing a drug which she puts in the young man's cup. Celeste, with a winning grace, hands him the cup, cajoling and coquetting 'the while. The lieutenant raises the drugged cup to his lips, but he is saved by the firm hand of the avenger. The woman is horrified. Carter hands Howe the newspaper article, saying : " I am that man ! " The officer, realising the danger so narrowly averted and well-nigh panic-stricken with fear and rage, would commit violence upon his arch-betrayer, but Carter bids him depart, claiming her for his own vengeance. The young man, breathing a prayer of gratitude, departs. In the midst of the denunciation which follows, the Baron emerges from hiding. He is unbound and, being warned, is ordered by Carter to go. Left alone with the victim of her former plots, the woman realises her pending doom and becomes terror-stricken. Securing the pistol placed by him at hand she turns it upon herself, while he gazes coldly on, the relentless executioner. NORDISK, 25, Cecil Court, W.C. "A CHILD OF GENIUS."— Released August 10th. Length 705 feet. This is a bright little comic that will raise many a laugh. Poor little Tommy, the infant prodigy, weighing somewhere about sixteen stone, tires of amusing audiences by performing on his violin. Though all the girls pamper him and pet him, he cares only for one. Attired in the stage-manager's fur-lined coat and silk hat, he elopes with his amorita, but does not get further than the police-station, as cabby wants his fare, and Tommy has forgotten to provide himself with the "needful.'' Tommy and his charmer have a rough time when his father arrives to square matters. PASQUALI. New Agency Film Co. "POLIDOR, AN ADOPTIVE FATHER. "—Released, August 4th. Length, 637 feet. This is one of the best of the Polidor series. The little man finds a child abandoned on the step of the house he is passing and takes it to the police station. None of the officers will take the infant, and Polidor at last volunteers to give it a home. He is greatly surprised and gratified to receive an official notice telling him that he will be paid £'l a month for the maintenance of the child. It does not take Polidor long to reckon out that if one child pays him so well, one hundred will pay him still better, and he straightway makes it his business to acquire every child he can lay hands on. Here an infant is stolen from a perambulator, there a whole family is lured away from its nurse, and finally Polidor lures the entire pupils of a boys' and girls' school from their preceptors and carries them to his house. Naturally complaints are made to the police and Polidor's house is raided, and he learns that his arithmetic is faulty after all. PATHE FRERES, 31-3, Charing Cross Ro., W.C. "TWO SETS OF KEYS."— Released August 14th. Length 545 feet. Vv'iffles, just married to a young and charming wife, receives a broad hint from his father-in-law, that it would be well if he were to hand over the keys of his bachelor flat into his keeping. Wiffles complies with ready grace,. for has not he a duplicate set of keys? He promises himself some jolly little evenings with his own particular pals in the flat, and at the first opportunity, goes to gives it a look over. It requires dusting, and Wiffles donning a short apron sets to work. Now it happens that the other set of keys left in his father-in-law's desk has been found by his wife and mother-in-law. The former suggests that they should pay a surprise visit to her husband's recent domicile, and her mother agrees to the proposition. Both ladies set off with the keys, little dreaming that the loss of them is seriously to affect their selfconstituted holder, he having arranged to meet a particularly charming lady friend at the flat that same afternoon. Bella, as this lady is called, has already arrived, and has naturally mistaken Wiffles in his, apron, for a domestic. Wiffles tries to explain, and in a rather compromising attitude, is found by his mother-in-law on her arrival. The storm bursts, and before there is calm again, the father-in-law (who has hurried to the flat in the hope of meeting Bella on the public stairs), enters through the front door left ajar. His appearance explains much to his infuriated wife, and Wiffles, declared innocent of any wrongdoing, watches with fiendish joy, whilst the elders settle matters in their own way. RELIANCE. Western Import Co. "HIS LOVE OF CHILDREN."— Released August 14th. Length 985 feet. John Keddon is a middle-aged man who is passionately fond of children. Fie spends a great deal of his time at the home of a widow friend who is happily blessed with three beautiful children. He meets there Helen Knox, who is acting as Governess to the three children. Realising that she could create the happy home life that he so craves, he asks her to marry him. She willingly consents, but after the marriage greatly disappoints him by turning from the beautiful home he has made for her to the allurements of society. Finally, one Sunday morning, again compelled to eat a lonely breakfast, he decides to take the children up to the Zoo without his wife's knowledge. While at the Zoo he is seen by a gossipy friend of his wife's. She goes at once to the wife and tells her what she has seen. She goes at once to the widow's home, and there finds her husband has already returned with the children. She accuses the widow of trying to steal her husband, and the widow in turn tells her how she has disappointed her husband in his ideal of home life. In order to prove her assertion she leads the wife to the nursery door and there shows her the children with her husband. He is having the time of his life telling them stories. The wife realises what a failure she has made of her married life. She begs her friend to pardon her, and she steals quietly away to her own home. Later, her husband finds her there in tears, which leads to a complete understanding and reconciliation. REX. J. F. Brockliss, New Compton Street, W. -Released August 17th "THROUGH FLAMING GATES. Length 1,000 feet. She sat in fretful mood before the fireplace, staring into the glow of the embers. Perhaps she saw in the flitting, fleeting fantasies of the flames the lights and sights of the ball-room, for her face lit. up with girlish glee, to darken again when the unpleasant truth recurred to her, and she chided herselffor having married a man who was wedded to his professional duties. But the lure of the lights is too strong for the moth. The brillance of the ball-room beckoned its boisterous invitation to her yielding thoughts, and putting the baby girl to bed, she went where lights were bright and people merry, and gaiety clamoured its hilarious message in the ears of the happy throngs. But at home a grim record was writing itself on the walls, writing a mother's negligence in writhing flames. The fire in the hearth, left to its own mischievous irresponsibility had set the house ablaze. It was then that some psychic influence transmitted a message to the mother, and amid the gaiety of the ball-room her mind recognised its ominous import. . . She decided to return. home. The child had been rescued by firemen. She entered the debris of destruction, called vainly for the child, and surmised it had perished in the flames of her selfishness. And amid the ruins of regret, her mind found oblivion .... The child-voice called, and the cry pierced the wreck of the slumbering brain, and the light came to her mind. The father entered to see the child in the penitent mother's arms and took both little women to his heart, while the flame of love consumed the memory of the woman's dereliction.