The Doll-House Mystery

Broker Jack Hull wanders home one day with a fortune in bearer bonds in his pocket, which he shows his daughter, Carmen De Rue. Enchanted by the pretty pictures, she takes them to wallpaper her play room. When they turn up missing, ace detective Ben Lewis sets a trap with fake bonds, which Carmen's playmate, Georgie Stone, takes to similarly decorate his home. His father, ex-con Charles Gorman, realizes that if he returns them, he will be seized for stealing them, and flees for the border, with Lewis in hot pursuit, ready to shoot the man.

This early kiddie movie by brothers Chester and Sidney Franklin is well shot and has some exciting sequences. The idiocy of the adults, however, from leaving bearer bonds out in the open, to no one thinking to search the house, leaves me shaking my head over this three-reel movie.

The Franklin brothers would move on and split up. Chester would continue directing juvenile movies into the 1930s, and Sidney would become one of MGM's more distinguished producer-directors, with movies like THE GOOD EARTH, THE BARRETTS OF WIMPOLE STREET and MRS. MINIVER to his credit.