Lost and Won

"Lost and Won" (1917), with Marie Doro, Elliott Dexter, Carl Stockdale, Mayme Kelso, Mamie van Buren, Robert Gray, and Clarence Geldart, and directed by Frank Reicher and "Director General" Cecil B. DeMille, left me immediately wondering, after I'd finished watching, "Who was the audience for this?" My conclusion was that this was the perfect after dinner fodder for those young ladies who were workers and who needed to see how they could be, not just the stuff that turns the wheel, not simply a cog that moves the wheel forward or around, but the wheel, or a major part of it, that purposefully drives existence. It's a simple film. It moves quickly and well. Marie Doro is absolutely gorgeous. Her eyes are the size of gleaming cities, dark though they are. The fact that she mimes ten years behind the filmic times is of no consequence; she's wonderfully watchable. She begins a poor family's ward, an orphan who sells papers on street corners, and she's tough enough to be able to take care - usually - but there are lots of others out there - lecherous older men - who'd take advantage if they could. Her friend is a reporter for the paper. That's a good thing. He lends her a book: Daddy-Long-Legs. She wishes she could find her own Daddy-Long-Legs. Up steps Elliott Dexter (Doro's husband in real life at that period)- who sends her to school - who makes her into what she always wanted to be as a personality... Now, it's time to see if he can win a bet he proposes. During the year's time, though, another incident occurs that is a wrench in the cogs, or could be.

Really a fun little film. It's a little film, but it's done well for its period. Nothing earth-shattering, but for 50 minutes a good relaxation. A working girl today might snigger about it all, but this retired old film lover enjoyed it a lot. This is a newly restored film by The Library of Congress, Ed Lorusso and Joe Harvat, part of a very successful Kickstarter campaign. Musical accompaniment is supplied by David Drazin. Nicely done. Good to see the phoenix rise from the ashes: Marie Doro was a major actress on stage in the day; today she's nearly forgotten altogether. She was already 33 or 34 when she made this film, playing a young lady perhaps just 21 or so.

Marie Doro is the heroine of 'Lost and Won,' the Lasky release for January 22. She is seen both as a newsgirl and as a young woman with a year's training in a fashionable school, later blossoming out as a newspaper reporter. The story is melodramatic, and is from the pens of Channing Pollock and Rennold Wolf. It has been well staged by James Young. The picture is entertaining, and at times it is exciting, but Mr. Young did not come on his stage equipped with the same raw material as when he began the production of "Oliver Twist." The story strains the credulity at times, as when, for instance, it asks us to believe a girl with a year's training in school is sufficiently equipped to take a job as a newspaper reporter. Still, at that, Cinders might have been able to do as good a piece of work as we find in the samples of news story writing we see flashed on the screen. Art directors will scour a big city to find an inconsequential bit of furniture of a period of a century ago, but take it for granted anything will get by as an opening paragraph of a newspaper yarn, or as a spread head, either. Miss Doro is given excellent support. Robert Grey is Bill Holt, a newspaper reporter; his performance will please those who in life follow similar lines. Elliott Dexter is Walter Crane, the broker who takes chances in his business, and also wagers $50,000 that within one year four of his chums will "fall for" or to a girl that he will take from among the "newsies" and educate and refine. Carl Stockdale is Kirkland Gaige, the unscrupulous banker friend of Crane and so infatuated with Cleo Duvene that in order to obtain jewelry for her he steals money from the till of Crane. Mabel Van Buren is Cleo, the dashing adventuress, an unusual piece of work. Mayme Kelso is the aunt of Crane, who mothers and protects Cinders. – The Moving Picture World, February 3, 1917

Marie Doro is a newsie with a lot of friends. Elliot Dexter (her real-life husband) is a rich young stockbroker with a taste for speculation. When his friends at luncheon complain about gold-diggers, and how they'll never fall for one, he bets them a total of $50,000 that he can take that gamine sitting across the street reading a copy of DADDY LONG-LEGS and turn her into a girl they'll all want to marry.

So we can see that the set-up of the movie is a bit of a mash-up of Shaw's PYGMALION and Jean Webster's DADDY LONG-LEGS, both of them recent hits on the stage. Yet that only makes up the first half of the film, as situations change thanks to villainous banker Carl Stockdale. The second half is both more conventional and better plotted.

Marie Doro may be forgotten today, but she was a major Broadway star before she became a major movie star for Jesse Lasky. She is lovely and striking; her first shot shows only her hands, gracefully manipulating a pair of dice, and her large, expressive eyes are soon revealed. She is lively and pleasant, and seems very approachable, with funny Oirish foster parents, and her stardom is no mystery. What is a mystery is how she came to be so forgotten. The explanation is that she was 33 when she made this movie, and she retired in 1923.

This movie appears on a two-movie dvd produced by Ed Lorusso and Joe Harvat, with a handsome score by David Drazin. The print is in excellent shape, and the result is a surprisingly engaging movie from more than a century ago.

After working on 'Joan the Woman' and in spite of its financial failure at the box office, the 36 year old Cecil B. DeMille was set on rewriting history in his films. This particular film presented a conservative view of social change where minorities were firmly entrenched as the urban other.