The Woman in the Case (1916) Famous Players Film Co. Distributor: Paramount Pictures Corp. Director: Hugh Ford. Scenario: Hugh Ford. Adapted by Doty Hobart. Camera, Ned Van Buren. Cast: Pauline Frederick, Marie Chambers, Alan Hale, Paul Gordon, George Larkin, Clarence Handysides, Mrs. C. Pettengill. 5 reels. An incomplete, unpreserved nitrate copy of this film is held by the Nederlands Filmarchives (4 reels, missing reel 5)
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An unidentified clipping with a picture from the film of Frederick with Alan Hale |
"THE WOMAN IN THE CASE."
A Famous Players Feature in Which Pauline Frederick Takes the Leading Part.
Reviewed by W. Stephen Bush.
In the "literature" accompanying this film play it is described as "an impressive picturization of Clyde Fitch's greatest dramatic triumph" and as "a photo adaptation of the celebrated stage success." The facts in the case justify the latter rather than the former description. Nor can it be said that the "photoadaptation" is anything like an unqualified success. Whatever there is of dramatic action, popularly spoken of as the "punch," does not develop until well toward the end and at about the moment when the interest of the audience begins to wane. For four reels or thereabouts the action travels at a snail's pace, but in the last reel it makes amends.
While Pauline Frederick is featured as the star and gives her usual honest and conscientious performance, the work of Marie Chambers in the part of Claire Forster calls for special commendation. Her acting impressed me as that of a talented and exceedingly clever and brainy woman. In most of the big scenes she carried off the honors by holding the interest of the audience.
Settings, atmosphere, and photography are fully up to the usual high standard the public has learned to associate with the trade-mark of Famous Players.
... And Pauline Frederick Unrestrained in a Clyde Fitch Photoplay
At the Strand, the beautiful Pauline Frederick is seen in a screen version of Clyde Fitch's "The Woman in the Case," playing the wife as Blanche Walsh did when the play was done here nearly ten years ago. In this role of the wife of a man accused of murder, who poses as a demi-mondaine in her detective work in his behalf, there are many palpitations to which at times Miss Frederick gives such upheaving expression that she quite out-Thedas Theda Bara. Indeed, she fairly throws herself out of the drawing in her intense emotion and recalls perilously the great Fannie Brice's burlesque of "the Vampire of the Screen." Others of the Fitch plays are good screen materials, notably his "Nathan Hale."
Last revised, January 23, 2012