The Tell-Tale Message

A picture of a crime and how it was brought home to its instigator, a rich banker. Two old ladies, frightened at account of burglaries, bring their treasure to the banker for safe keeping and he gets his gate keeper to steal it from the safe. A clew is produced that leads the detective to the old man who is arrested. The tell-tale message comes from the banker to the old man in prison. It is hidden in an egg and discovered. This story gives some chance for character sketching, but it is made much use of along this line. The producer's attention seems to have been given more to creating suspense. But his failure to get strong plausibility hinders this. The chief difficulty seems to have been that we are not shown why the innocent old gate keeper should have fallen so easily at his time of life. As shown, it is displeasing. Stewart Holmes plays the banker; Lawrence Wood, the gate keeper; Earle Fox, a detective and also the banker's valet, a good duplication. Hazel Neason plays an unimportant role as gate keeper's daughter. - The Moving Picture World, December 7, 1912