Volume II: Filmography

THE WINDOW OF DREAMS

June 15, 1916 (Thursday)

Length: 3 reels

Character: Drama; Than-O-Play

Director: Howard A. Mitchell

Scenario: Agnes C. Johnston

Cast: Grace DeCarlton (May Cameron), Bert Delaney (Jack, her fiancé), Clifford Gray and Betty Lawson (newly married couple), Carey L. Hastings (Martha)

Note: The headline on the synopsis for this film in Reel Life stated: "A gripping drama of the heart, starring Barbara Gilroy, beautiful young star." Grace DeCarlton was intended.

SYNOPSIS, Reel Life, June 10, 1916:

"May Cameron had intended to devote her life to becoming a great violinist until she met Jack. When she played the violin she thought more of the shining ring on the fourth finger of her left hand than of the notes her fingers were making. Her happiness seemed too good to be true. It was so golden that she dreaded anything that might cloud it. [He bought] a golden canary, incarnated, and with the help of Martha smuggled it into her apartment. Then he wrote a note, saying that the bird's name was Joy. May had been spending the afternoon walking in the woods and was waiting for him at their accustomed meeting place. She started up toward a hill to watch for him from above, but some workmen were busy there and they warned her that she had better keep away. Later, Jack arrived and refused to tell what kept him. May became suspicious and a quarrel ensued.

"Jack, provoked, declared that if May really, loved him she would trust him. May was hurt, so Jack went tramping up the hill. He did not notice the men getting the fuses ready for the blast. But when they came down the hill to warn May she called to Jack. He hurried towards her - towards the place where the deadly flame had just come to the end of the fuse. There was a terrific explosion. When the smoke cleared away May crawled painfully toward the still form. May, crippled for life by the accident, a few months later was back in her little room. She sat in a wheelchair, and all day long she stared across the court at the vacant window, where she used to see Jack. Then one day the apartment across the court became tenanted. It was bitter irony to May to watch Sue and Bob, so evidently a newly married pair, flaunt their ecstatic happiness before her eyes. But later it became her one approach to pleasure, to watch them as the months passed, and when one day Sue bent over some sewing and handled with reverent joy a half-crocheted bootee May got out her wedding dress.

"But troubles came to the little home across the court. Bob lost his position. Bob looked in vain for work. Then one day, when Bob was late and Sue had retired to her bedroom in tears, May saw him come in and sit down at the window to read a letter. She demanded the letter. He refused, for it was about his position. Then a little gust of wind snatched the letter from Bob's hands and carried it across the court and deposited it in May's lap. She called across the court. Sue, a little resentful, came over. May showed her the letter. Sue beckoned across the court for Bob to come over. May told them that they must allow her to lend them the money to tide them over their difficulties until the husband could get another position. She reached into her sewing basket and pulled out a beautiful christening robe, which she had been working on. They went away happily and May took up her violin with a great peace in her heart."

REVIEW, The Moving Picture World, June 17, 1916:

"This three-part production is one of rare artistic treatment. The theme is simple and concerns in the first place a tragedy caused through a young woman's jealous disposition, when her lover is killed and she becomes a cripple for life, and in the second place her opportunity to avert a domestic rupture between a newly-married couple whose life she is able to observe from her window. A full review of this excellent production will be found on another page of this issue."

REVIEW by Margaret I. MacDonald, The Moving Picture World, June 17, 1916:

"More of an impression than a drama, a production in which we are scarcely conscious of the number of its parts, which, by the way, are three, a simple theme clearly outlined and not overburdened by detail other than that which has a direct bearing on the play is what constitutes this perfectly natural and deeply pathetic picture. Agnes C. Johnston is responsible for the scenario which was directed by Howard C. Mitchell, with a cast consisting of Grace DeCarlton, Bert Delaney, Clifford Gray, Betty Lawson, and Carey L. Hastings. The production teaches a valuable lesson to the oversuspicious wife and the sweetheart by showing the untold sorrow which the jealous disposition is capable of causing to all concerned. In the instance presented in the picture a mere trifle is the cause of a terrible tragedy.

"A lover late for his appointment with his sweetheart because he is engrossed in leaving her at home a canary which he names 'Joy,' suggesting that she can always keep it in its cage so that it will never escape from her, meets his death a few minutes later through the pettishness of the sweetheart, who, absorbed in her fancied grievance, allows him to wander on a hillside that is about to be blasted. In attempting all too late to make him understand his danger she herself is made a cripple for life. The remainder of the story shows the invalid observing from her window the domestic life of a newly-married couple who have come to live next door. At the moment when their bark strikes the breakers she is able from her superior knowledge and the part played by circumstances to smooth their path and be of use in a financial crisis. Grace DeCarlton is to be especially commended for her intelligent work in this production."

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