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Lon Chaney and Pauline Bush.
Photograph: Silent Era image collection.
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Her Escape
(1914) United States of America
B&W : Two reels
Directed by Joseph de Grasse
Cast: Pauline Bush [Pauline Walsh], William C. Dowlan [Paul Reeves], Lon Chaney [Pete Walsh, Pauline’s brother], Richard Rosson [a dope fiend], Laura Oakley
Rex Film Company production; distributed by The Universal Film Manufacturing Company, Incorporated. / Scenario by Lon Chaney. / Released 27 December 1914. / Standard 35mm spherical 1.33:1 format.
Drama: Crime.
Synopsis: [?] [From The Moving Picture World]? Tom Walsh, his daughter, Pauline, and his son, Pete, live in a tenement known to the police as a nest of crooks. Tom and Pete force Pauline to act as their “lookout” in various small robberies by means of which they make their living. Pauline, however, is good at heart and, although forced to meet crooks and ex-convicts in her father’s squalid apartment, has little liking for the life. Tom and Pete plan a new “job” and appoint Pauline to keep watch for patrolmen and passersby. While acting as “lookout,” Pauline becomes interested in a band of Salvation Army singers and enters into conversation with the captain of the band. The captain gives her a pamphlet to read, which greatly influences her life. Meanwhile Tom and Pete have been frightened away from the house they planned to rob. They find Pauline gone from the spot where they told her to stay. Angered by her desertion they go home to await her coming. When Pauline arrives she tells her father of her experience with the Salvation Army band and begs her father to lead an honest life. Enraged by her talk, Old Man Walsh starts after her with a large knife, intent on killing her. Pauline rushes from the room, pursued by her father. Walsh stumbles at the head of the stairs in his drunken anger, falls and is killed. Pete returns from the corner saloon and finds his father dead. In his intoxicated condition the sight interests him little. He inquires for Pauline and when he learns that she is gone he leaves the tenement intent upon bringing her back. Pauline obtains a cheap room in a better part of the city and in a few days secures a position as nurse in a wealthy family which is preparing to leave for the west. Her brother finds out where she is working, however, and when she leaves town follows on the brake beams of the same train. Pauline believes that she has left her old life behind, but one day while in the park with her little charge her brother confronts her. She refuses to go with him and asks him to leave her alone in peace. Pete is about to drag her away when Paul Reeves, a rich young mine owner, knocks Pete down. Reeves introduces himself to Pauline and sees her safely home. A strong friendship springs up between the young people. Peter, in an ugly mood after his beating, enters a cheap saloon, where he finds a crowd of loafers bullying an emaciated “dope” fiend. Pete knocks several of them down and thereby gains the deep devotion of the unfortunate. Meanwhile Paul Reeves and Pauline become increasingly fond of each other and after a short courtship are married. Reeves builds a beautiful home for his young wife and does his best to allay her fears of her brother’s return. Pete, in the meantime, has become the leader of the gang which he soundly thrashed. After a successful raid he gets drunk. Shaking an unopened beer bottle the neck bursts from the gases within and blinds him for life. The dope fiend whom he has befriended nurses him back to health and waits upon his idol hand and foot. The “dope” reads for hours each day to Pete, who becomes the brains of the gang and engineers their operations. While the “dope” reads the papers for likely “prospects” Pete hears of his sister’s wedding and orders the “dope fiend” to take down the address. That evening, led by his companion, Pete arrives at his sister’s mansion. Pauline invites her brother in and commiserates with him on his misfortune. Pete, however, pays no attention to her sympathetic expressions, but bides his time to be revenged. Pauline leads him into a room and Pete, who has familiarized himself with the locations of the doors and windows in a hurried survey of the room during his sister’s absence, locks the doors on her. He then demands a large amount of money. When Pauline refuses him he attempts to choke her. Pauline eludes him and fights desperately for her life. Finally she reaches the door and escapes down the stairs. Attempting to follow her, Pete falls down the steps and breaks his neck. He is still breathing when Pauline’s husband enters. Pauline tells her husband of her narrow escape from death and the photoplay ends with husband and wife locked in each other’s arms, the only bar to their happiness effectually removed.
Survival status: (unknown)
Current rights holder: Public domain [USA].
Keywords: Blind persons - Criminals: Gangsters - Families: Brother-sister relationships - Marriages
Listing updated: 3 November 2022.
References: Edmonds-BigU pp. 71-72; Spehr-American p. 100; Weaver-Twenty p. 76 : Website-IMDb.
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