| |
 |
| |
Lon Chaney (left).
Photograph: Silent Era image collection.
|
Quits
(1915) United States of America
B&W : One reel
Directed by Joseph de Grasse
Cast: Arthur Shirley [Sheriff John Sloan], Lon Chaney [Frenchy], Helen Leslie [Sloan’s former sweetheart, now Frenchy’s wife]
Rex Film Company production; distributed by The Universal Film Manufacturing Company, Incorporated. / Scenario by Ida May Park, from a screen story “The Sheriff of Long Butte” by Julius G. Furthman (Jules Furthman). / Released 17 August 1915. / Standard 35mm spherical 1.33:1 format.
Drama: Western.
Synopsis: [?] [From The Moving Picture World]? John Sloan is sheriff of Long Butte. One day, while wandering about the countryside, he sees some bushes move. Thinking it is an animal, he fires and misses. Later he takes another shot and is more successful, knocking off the hat of a man in hiding. The man comes forth and tells the sheriff that he is called “Frenchy.” The sheriff leaves him and starts to cross the stream nearby where he sinks up to his armpits in quicksand. He is saved by Frenchy, who tells the sheriff that he is a fugitive from justice and begs his protection. The sheriff realizes his debt to the criminal and takes him home, where he gives him the best in the house, telling him that he will give him shelter for the night and assist him out next morning. Years before the sheriff was in love with a French girl, but she was won over by the honeyed words of a Frenchman. Although he lost the girl, her likeness is always before him and he nightly dreams of what might have been. The Frenchman bunks in the next room of the sheriff’s house, and on looking on a table nearby sees a picture of the girl of the sheriff’s dreams. He recoils in superstitious horror for he sees the face of the wife he has murdered staring him in the face. The next morning the sheriff’s deputies arrive, and tell him of the murder. Seeing “Frenchy,” they recognize him as their man and capture him. The murderer pleads with the sheriff and so appeals to his honor that the sheriff, in order to pay his debt in full, allows him to escape, giving him five minutes’ start.
Survival status: The film is presumed lost.
Current rights holder: Public domain [USA].
Listing updated: 22 December 2024.
References: Spehr-American p. 100 : Website-IMDb.
|
