Volume II: Filmography

THE STOLEN INVENTION

September 16, 1910 (Friday)

Length: 1,000 feet

Character: Drama

SYNOPSIS, The Moving Picture World, September 17, 1910:

"John Deering is a poor inventor living modestly with his wife and only daughter. He has approached Mr. Cobleigh, a capitalist, with a proposition to share the profits of a new invention with him, providing that he (Cobleigh) furnish the capital to swing it. Cobleigh comes to see the model of Deering's invention and is greatly impressed with it. Cobleigh offers Deering a small amount of money for the invention, but Deering refuses to accept it. Then Cobleigh, having failed to get his invention by fair means, determines to secure it by foul. He drugs Deering, and the result of the poison is to make the inventor temporarily insane. While in this condition, Cobleigh has Deering transferred to an insane asylum. Then he forges the inventor's name to the bill of sale and thinks that his crime will never be discovered.

"Deering's daughter, Grace, failing to induce her sweetheart, Tom Reynolds, to aid in rescuing Deering, breaks into the asylum and takes her father out singlehandedly. She conveys him to a camp in the woods where her tender care restores him to health. Then she takes him home again and he demands his rights from Cobleigh. The latter denies that he owes Deering a cent, and the inventor goes to law. Tom, who acts as his counsel, shows by enlarged stereopticon views of the two signatures that Cobleigh had traced the one from the other. Cobleigh, overcome by the revelation of his crime, is arrested, and the Deering family and the faithful Tom are happy."

REVIEW by Walton, The Moving Picture News, September 24, 1910:

"Someone in New Rochelle knows how to handle water scenery. As in the delicious Mermaid so here. The [Long Island] Sound plays 'first fiddle.'"

REVIEW, The Moving Picture World, October 1, 1910:

"An interesting domestic story, representing the machinations of a capitalist to secure a poor man's invention. But he is circumvented by the inventor's daughter and her sweetheart. A novel feature is the introduction of stereopticon views to show how a signature has been forged by tracing. And then, all difficulties being settled, they live happily ever after on the rightful gains of the invention."

REVIEW, The New York Dramatic Mirror, September 21, 1910:

"This film is not so good as the Thanhouser trademark would lead one to expect. The story is long and rambling and the acting is not notable at any point. A drugged potion, a forged receipt, an escape from an insane asylum, and the confounding of the villain are the points around which the threads are woven. The result looks a good deal like crazy work. The sheer impossibility of the plot is not relieved by the details of the mounting or of the action. The wild escape from the lunatic asylum, the row across the river, and hiding in the woods, are all cut upon an absurd pattern. Probably for those who like highly seasoned drama the film will prove entertaining; for others it is too mellow. It is rather difficult to understand by what magic the two signatures are made to appear in the court room without human agency. They come and go in anything but legal fashion. Evidently their appearance is to be taken symbolically - not realistically."

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