Volume II: Filmography

FERDIE FINK'S FLIRTATIONS

a.k.a. FERDY FINK'S FLIRTATIONS

(Falstaff)

May 14, 1915 (Friday)

Length: 1 reel (1,012 feet)

Character: Comedy

Director: Arthur Ellery

Scenario: Lloyd F. Lonergan

Cast: Riley Chamberlin (Ferdie Fink)

Notes: 1. The New York Dramatic Mirror listed the title incorrectly as Ferdie Fin's Flirtations in a schedule in its May 5, 1915 issue. In a review in its May 26, 1915 issue, this was corrected to Ferdy Fink's Flirtations. The title appeared as Ferdy Fink's Flirtations in Reel Life and in several schedules printed in The Moving Picture World. 2. This was the first of many alliterative Falstaff titles.

SYNOPSIS, Reel Life, May 1, 1915:

"In the small city in which he always has lived, Ferdy Fink is as much an institution as the tablet to the memory of the heroes of the Revolution. He has danced attendance on several generations of young ladies, and still, at an advanced age, is a gay beau. At last, however, determining to marry and settle down, he is considerably surprised to find that none of the sprightly maidens to whom he pops the question will have him. One Monday, passing an apartment house, he sees, many stories up, a woman leaning out of a window and waving to him. Ferdy dashes into the house and up to the apartment. A brutal giant of a man bursts open the door and throws him down stairs. Ferdy is convinced that here at last his romance awaits him. But he doesn't see the damsel in distress again till the following Monday. Then she appears as before at the window, waving her handkerchief. Ferdy's chivalrous spirit burns to rescue her. He is none too anxious, however, to face the man of the house. So, gaining entrance to the building across the way, he ascends to the window on a level with the casement of the fair one opposite. Then Ferdy nearly faints. For 'the damsel in distress' proves to be a darkey maid, and the 'handkerchief signal' the white cloth with which she is cleaning windows. As for the irate gentleman, her employer, he was only venting upon Ferdy his rage at having received a comic valentine."

REVIEW, The Moving Picture World, May 29, 1915:

"This yarn, in which Riley Chamberlin appears as an old flirt trying to find a wife after years of trifling, has a good idea in it. Some of the latter scenes suffer from padding, and the story should have had more incidents or have been told in shorter space. It seems drawn out as it stands."

REVIEW, The New York Dramatic Mirror, May 26, 1915:

"An absurdly silly single-reel comedy. An old beau of ancient vintage and of great self-conceit flirts with all the pretty young girls he sees. While walking along the street one day he sees a cloth waved from a window, and thinking it is a maiden in distress endeavors to rescue her. After much exertion he discovers that his damsel in distress is only a colored servant girl, of large proportions, washing the windows."

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