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Officer Murray
(1912) United States of America
B&W : One reel
Directed by Richard Garrick
Cast: Charles Clary [Officer Murray], Winifred Greenwood [Mrs. Murray], Capitola Holmes [Little Helen Murray], Timmy Sheehan [Little Timothy Murray], Mac Barnes [the police chief], Douglas Lawrence [Joe Slattery, reporter], Vera Hamilton [Mrs. Williams, the candy factory forewoman], Margaret Melville [Mrs. Slattery, the old apple woman]
The Selig Polyscope Company, Incorporated, production; distributed by The General Film Company, Incorporated. / Produced by William N. Selig. Scenario by Bailley Lane. / Released 1 August 1912. / Standard 35mm spherical 1.33:1 format.
Drama: Action.
Synopsis: [?] [From The Moving Picture World]? Officer Murray of the Berry Street Station, is a big-hearted, well-thought-of patrolman in love with his work and his simple home. He incurs the enmity of Joe Slattery, a perverted, prevaricating reporter on the Evening Times. Slattery watches Murray and secures his revenge when the officer is bested by a crowd of young hoodlums whom he is trying to discipline. In the mix-up, Murray loses his star. Slattery gets his paper to print a sensational story which results in Murray being discharged from the force. Slattery’s poor old mother, an apple peddler, who has often been befriended by Murray, induces him to secure a job in a nearby candy factory. Murray does so and is soon beloved by all the employees. One day an explosion occurs in the factory and within a few moments the old rattle trap building is one mass of flames. A panic ensues among the employees, who are mostly women and children. Murray takes in the situation, and, with an exhibition of bravery, carries the employees to safety, including Slattery’s mother, the old apple woman. In effecting their escape, however, his own is cut off and he faces almost certain death in the burning building. He finally manages to get to the roof of the factory and calls to some steel workers on the building next door. At last they hear him and rescue him, by use of the steel hoisting derrick. They are just in time for the roof tumbles in just as they lift him in the air. When he is safe on the ground again he finds that the story of his bravery has traveled ahead of him and he is vindicated by the crowd and his old chief.
Reviews: [The Moving Picture World, 17 August 1912, page ?] A melodrama that stirs much sympathy for its hero in its early scenes and that has a good, though very formal, climax; but that loses its effectiveness at the close through a hundred feet of sentimental insincerity. A reporter has a grudge against Officer Murray and lies so about him in the paper that he gets him fired for cowardice. In the end, Murray saves the reporter’s old mother from a burning factory. He is finally pulled from the roof just before it falls, by a crane worked by men building a steel house near by. The fire and all the scenes are very well done. It is a good offering, although it has a very poor ending.
Survival status: (unknown)
Current rights holder: Public domain [USA].
Listing updated: 1 June 2024.
References: Lahue-Selig p. 102 : Website-IMDb.
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