Volume II: Filmography

THE SCOOP AT BELLVILLE

October 12, 1915 (Tuesday)

Length: 2 reels (this film 1,290 feet) (the second reel split at the end with Down on the Phony Farm)

Character: Comedy-drama

Cast: Lorraine Huling (girl newspaper reporter), Bert Delaney (rival reporter), Harry Benham (Lineman, a millionaire)

Note: A title word was misspelled as "Belville" in schedules in The New York Dramatic Mirror, October 6, 1915 and The Moving Picture World, October 9, 1915, Reel Life, October 16, 1915, and elsewhere. "Belleville" was the spelling used in a review in The Moving Picture World, October 16, 1915, and in several other places. However, "Bellville" is the spelling used by Thanhouser in its own advertisements (in Reel Life, October 9, 1915, and The Moving Picture World, October 16, 1915, for example), thus it is the preferred spelling used here.

ARTICLE, Variety, February 4, 1916:

"Three reels of comedy, The Scoop at Belleville [sic], a Thanhouser; The Queen of the Band, a Reliance, and Putting Papa to Sleep, a Novelty, were stolen from the Mutual Film Corporation's Chicago exchange last week by a youth who represented himself as the employee of one of the big downtown theatres."

SYNOPSIS, Reel Life, October 16, 1915:

"The city editor called the girl reporter over to his desk. 'I want you to interview a young chump who recently inherited ten millions,' he said. 'Judging from the way he has been scattering it around, it will all be gone in the space of a year. He is mighty good copy, and if you get the right kind of a story I'll play it up strong.' The girl reporter interviewed the young millionaire, and found that the possession of millions had been anything but good for him. The following morning the young man got the surprise of his life when he read in his favorite paper an article criticizing him in a semi-humorous manner, and remarking that while he pitied the poor, still he himself could not earn a dollar a day if thrown upon his own resources. For a moment he was angry, then 'She is right,' he said to himself. 'But I shall prove to her and to the world that I am capable of earning my own living.' The millionaire called up the reporter at her office, and told her his resolution. Then he disappeared.

"A year passed and no word came of the missing millionaire. Then the search for an embezzler absorbed the attention of the various newspapers. The girl was dispatched to a small town to locate him. She arrived in the place in company with the reporter of a rival paper, but they made common cause, and went to the jail where the embezzler, who had just been arrested, had been confined. There both reporters gained a confession from the prisoner, but the rival reporter managed to slip away and reached the telegraph office before the girl. He told her that he intended to keep the telegrapher busy until after the newspapers went to press, so that his paper should secure 'the scoop.' A recent storm had destroyed telephone communication, so the girl hired an automobile and set out at full speed for the neighboring town where she hoped to telegraph her story. An accident to the automobile left her stranded on a lonely road, the only person in sight, besides herself and the chauffeur, being a telegraph lineman, who was just descending a pole. She rushed to him to ask assistance. The lineman turned, and she recognized the missing millionaire. 'I am making more than a dollar a day now,' he said. 'So I guess you were wrong.' With his pocket kit, the millionaire lineman cut into the wire and telegraphed the girl's story to her newspaper, while the rival reporter fumed and fretted, wondering why communication was cut off. When the final word had been sent and a 'scoop' assured, the millionaire lineman turned to his companion. 'I said I would work for a year,' he remarked, 'and my time is up tomorrow. Won't you marry me and help me spend that ten million?' And the girl reporter said 'Yes.'"

REVIEW, The Moving Picture World, October 16, 1915:

"Lorraine Huling does unusually attractive work in this two-reel production which deals with an adventure in the life of a woman reporter. The thrill of the story occurs in a race between her and a reporter from a rival publication on getting the story of the capture of a certain criminal in their respective offices. At the top of a telegraph pole she becomes betrothed to the millionaire whom she interviewed a year previous, and who in consequence of her slighting remarks had gone to work to prove that he was able to earn at least a dollar a day. Harry Benham plays the male lead. A short animated cartoon, Down on the Phony Farm, is on the last reel."

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